The Partnership
Rags-to-Riches
After reading Lord of Finance, I wanted learn more about finance industry of the west in its early days and discovered that I could perhaps learn about the history of the industry from the story of a single firm. Charles Ellis' 'The Partnership' turned out to be a great book for that; it charts the course of Goldman Sachs rise to one of the most well respected investment banks in the world finance community.
At the end of the book, I guess I gained way more than just knowledge about the history of finance industry. The Partnership was a great read, for the rich collection of little anecdotes about the people in the top strata of the great firm as well as the description of how the firm navigated the circumstances of those times. The story of the firm's rise in itself was immensely inspiring; no doubt it was great people who helped to build up the firm. These people helped me learn much about the importance of hard work and persistence, as well as the need to prepare for and learn from adversity. The main character in The Partnership that demonstrates the 'rags-to-riches' idea was Sidney Weinberg, touted as a 'saviour' of Goldman Sachs. Malcolm Gladwell explored the idea of how early adversity can aid one in life in an article on New Yorker, referring to Sidney Weinberg of Goldman Sachs based on the stories mentioned in Charles Ellis' book.
In Malcolm's article, he speculated that the sort of 'dual identity' that underprivileged outsiders can assume might help them succeed. People are more forgiving to the mistakes they might make while they bring in more unusual skills/knowledge that would prove valuable to the privileged circle. This often provide them with great connections that extend over a wide spectrum of 'classes'. This seem to be the advantage that Goldman Sachs rode on in the early days, through its founders as well as Sidney Weinberg. Goldman Sachs, being a little Jewish firm when it started out was the natural destination for the Jewish businesses for commercial paper; then when it started branching into the businesses of the big banks it was overlooked in some sense. The willingness of Goldman Sachs to do business with a wide variety of clients while trying to build up its grand reputation was admirable.
Goldman Sachs' ability to innovate and great foresight thanks to its leaders was important but perhaps not as much as the entire firm's willingness to work hard and push towards their goal. The kind of determination and persistence in trying to get business for the firm exhibited by their bankers and salespeople was absolutely amazing and Charles Ellis managed to convey all that extremely well through his wonderful narration of stories and events after events. The book might be really thick and it holds plenty of what one might consider 'long grandfather stories' but most were inspiring and groups of chapters on the firm under different leaders could be read on their own. The Partnership is definitely a great book for those interested in finance, personal motivation, business and storytelling.