the greg smith chronicles

Goldman Sachs Reveals Its Greg Smith Battle Plans

A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. logo hangs on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, May 19, 2010. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. racked up trading profits for itself every day last quarter. Clients who followed the firm's investment advice fared far worse.
Round one…fight! Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images

As discussed earlier, Goldman Sachs is gearing up for the media battle of its life against Greg Smith, whose book on his now-famous resignation from the bank comes out on Monday.

Yesterday, to equip its troops for battle, Goldman sent a two-page “Briefing Toolkit” memo full of talking points to all of its employees, and many of its former employees via an alumni mailing list. A source who received the memo sent us a copy.

As you can see below, Goldman’s plans for dealing with the fallout from Smith’s book include:

  • Implying that Smith was too low on the totem pole to know anything about anything (his “perspective was limited because he had no direct client coverage responsibilities and was not responsible for any business or desk, nor did he have access to the risk positioning of the firm”).
  • Strongly suggesting that Smith is an opportunistic shape-shifter (“Greg did not provide any negative feedback on any of his reviewees in any of those years. In fact, he scored all of his colleagues’ performance at the top of the range, including in the areas of Culture and Values, Leadership and People Management, Client Focus and Reputational Excellence”).
  • And throwing in a page of generic facts about the financial health and client-centric culture of the firm.

The full memo is below.

Goldman Sachs Reveals Greg Smith Battle Plans