Gary Cohn Had 45 Minutes To Change His Life
"You'll be lucky if you become a garbage man!”
“BizStory is useful because it makes me sound smart at work.”
- Goldman Sachs VP
Good morning, everyone.
Coming to you this week from a ‘heatwave’ in London, that wouldn’t actually be considered a heatwave if we had air con. The Lamb Tavern in Leadenhall Market is a sea of white shirts, blue trousers and summer dresses. Broadgate Circle is similar - just with more brown shoes and pink shirts. It’s still quite cruelly referred to as ‘Back Office Circle’.
This week’s newsletter: Michael Milken’s lawyer speaks out, Sam Altman targeting investment bankers, my meeting at Apollo HQ and the dyslexic window salesman who became President at Goldman Sachs.
From Window Salesman to Goldman Sachs President
Gary Cohn - a dyslexic window salesman, was told he should be happy “if he becomes a garbage man”. Here’s the story of how one taxi journey propelled him to President of Goldman Sachs...
Growing up in Cleveland, Gary was told by a teacher he’d be lucky to “become a garbage man” due to his severe dyslexia.
After college, he became a salesman selling window frames.
One Friday, Gary took the afternoon off to observe a trading floor in the World Trade Center, hoping to break into the industry.
After watching for hours, a chance elevator encounter changed his life:
Trader: (talking to a colleague)“I gotta run, I’m going to the airport.”
Gary: “I just overhead that you are going to the airport, is it LaGuardia? Can I share a taxi with you?”
Trader: “Sure, by all means.”
Gary recalled: “I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me. But here’s my shot - I’ve got 45 minutes in traffic to convince this guy that I’m hireable and need a job.”
By the end of the ride, the trader asked Gary to come back Monday for an interview on their options desk.
The problem?
Gary knew nothing about options.
That evening, Gary bought ‘Options as a Strategic Investment’ - a 1,000 page bible of options trading. Despite his dyslexia, he read it four times over that weekend. The following week, Gary interviewed and got the job.
After a few years trading commodities, Gary joined Goldman Sachs in 1990, becoming President in 2006. He’s now Vice Chairman at technology powerhouse IBM.
Gary summed up his journey nicely:
“The one trait a lot of dyslexic people have is our ability to deal with failure is very highly developed. And so we look at most situations and see much more of the upside than the downside.”
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Finance Culture
A few weeks ago I created a short video on Torsten Slok, Chief Economist at Apollo. It only received 1,000 views but one of those views was Torsten himself. He invited me to visit him at Apollo HQ in New York. I bought a few caps and a World Cup football from the FIFA store in the Rockafeller, and we got this photo! He took me to Apollo’s ‘Contrarian Cafe’ for a drink, we spoke about finance, media and how the Linkedin algorithm works. Super smart guy, full of ideas. Sign up to his daily email here.
OpenAI is hiring for a “subject matter expert” for investment banking to “help define what excellent AI-assisted banking work looks like and turn that standard into better models and products”. The role is based in San Fran and you only need 2+ years of IB experience. The pay: $185k-$250k + equity. Cue a new IB AI-replacement platform in 2027 called “Gekko” or “Bateman”.
Alts manager Bramshill Investments fired a member of staff for not abiding to their RTO policy. The problem? The person they fired was William Nieporte: Co-Founder and Partner of the firm, which he formed alongside two high school friends. The same two friends sent him a termination letter for failing to report for in person work. He is now suing various parties for more than $30m. I’ve seen RTO being used to snuff out bad actors, but this is next level.
Mohamed El-Erian - Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, ex-CEO at PIMCO and all round good guy in finance - was crushed after his native Egypt were knocked out of the World Cup by Argentina in the most brutal way possible.
Mike Milken’s lawyer from the 1980’s, Richard Sandler, has given a sit down interview with American VC/Podcaster Joe Lonsdale.
Someone on eBay is selling what looks like a genuine ‘Mike Milken We Believe In You’ cap.
David Tepper’s hedge fund Appaloosa Management gained 32% in H1, mainly funded by huge bets on AI memory chip stocks. If you don’t know David, he was a Goldman, got frustrated after continually being passed over for promotion, set up his own hedge fund, made billions, bought his old bosses house, knocked it down and rebuilt an enormous new mansion on the same plot.
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Recommendation
Gary doesn’t do many long-form interviews, but here’s a good, recent-ish interview where he discusses his career and overcoming bumps in the road.
I started an X/Twitter account and an Instagram account and will be posting short videos about finance culture. Give it a follow, if you like.
If this week’s edition was interesting, forward on to one person who might also like it.
Joseph Cass