另一次更为重大的变化出现在1999年——高盛成了一家上市公司。这样的公司结构使合伙人可以通过转让股份套现，这和高盛还是合伙企业时的情况截然相反——那时只有离开公司的高盛人才能大举撤资，而且必须要经过好几年才能回笼资金。

    史密斯写道：“高盛还是一家私营小型合伙企业的时候，可以根据自己对长期性的解读灵活地做出最有利的决定。有了各种各样的外部股东后，他们的目光有长有短，目标也各不相同，再加上高盛肩负起了要把外部股东（而不是客户）放在首位的法律义务，这就让对长期性的解释和执行变得复杂和困难得多。”

    曼迪斯说，最初他认为改变高盛的是那次上市。但最后他相信，从20世纪80年代开始的快速增长所带来的“组织结构偏移”是一个重要因素。在它的影响下，高盛从秉承曼迪斯所说的“道德行为标准”变成了一家只遵守“法律标准”的公司。

    我不太确定高盛是否真的有“道德标准”。这家公司以自己“长期处于贪婪状态”而自豪——但说到底也依然是贪婪。我也不知道，对于不研究社会学的人来说这些社会学方面的东西是否重要。

    但我还是要说，这本书能让人增长见识，而且乐在其中。不知道华尔街大公司的生活是何种面貌的人可能会觉得这本书让他们开阔了眼界。曼迪斯谈到了他和他的同事是如何痴迷于工作，以及他们怎样为了完成任务而牺牲了一切。在他的描述中，高盛内部的竞争极为激烈。尽管本刊最近将高盛评为最适宜工作的公司之一，但如果你想在那里成就一番事业（要不然为什么要进入高盛？），你就得做好最充分的准备，把生活排在工作之后。

    我最喜欢这本书的部分是它的八个附录。它们的总长度差不多是叙事部分的三分之一。这些附录极为有用，其中包括高盛的历史脉络、11页的《在高盛任职前后进入政府工作的员工和游说者名单》以及10页的附录D，其中列出了1999年5月3日高盛上市时持有该公司股票的221名员工——这会让喜欢探究财务数据的读者感到兴奋。当天市场收盘后，这221名幸运儿持有的高盛股票的价值各不相同。其中，董事长兼首席执行官汉克•保尔森和另外两位大人物所持股份的价值高达205,172,466美元，而阿比•约瑟夫•科恩和尤伊•左伊等57名小角色的持股价值只有37,304,085美元。这221人的持股总价值略高于185亿美元，人均83,723,195美元，而这还是在差不多15年之前。

    这些数字告诉我们高盛的关注点在哪里，那就是赚钱。当它还是一家私营公司时，合伙人的收入和财富是高度机密。而现在人们随时可以查到这些信息。当这些数据属于私人时，高盛可以让人放心地宣称自己是一家高尚的企业，把客户摆在第一位。但随着这些数据的公开和这家公司业务的变化，人们就可以把高盛视为一架高效而且马力强劲的贪婪机器。这就是现在的高盛，也许它一直就是这样。(财富中文网)

    译者：Charlie

    A far bigger change came in 1999, when Goldman became a corporation with publicly traded stock. This structure let partners cash out by selling shares, as opposed to the partnership days, when Goldmanites couldn't make significant capital withdrawals until they left the firm, and had to take their payout over a period of years.

    "Being a small private partnership allowed Goldman the flexibility to make its own decisions about what was best in its own interpretation of long term, " Smith writes. "Having various outside shareholders all with their own time horizons and objectives, combined with Goldman's legal duty to put outside shareholders' (not clients') priorities first, makes the interpretation and execution of long term much more complicated and difficult."

    Mandis says he initially assumed that going public was what changed Goldman. However, he ultimately became convinced that "organizational drift" arising from the firm's rapid growth starting in the 1980s played a major role in transforming Goldman from an organization that upheld what he calls an "ethical standard" of behavior to merely a "legal standard."

    I'm not sure that "ethical standard" actually existed at Goldman, which prided itself on being "long-term greedy" -- but still greedy. And I'm not sure whether the sociological stuff matters to non-sociologists.

    My quibbles notwithstanding, this is an informative and interesting book. People who don't know what life in a big Wall Street firm is like will find the book enlightening. Mandis talks about how he and his colleagues were obsessed with work and sacrificed everything to get the job done. The Goldman environment he describes is insanely competitive. Even though Fortune recently named Goldman as one of the best places to work, if you want to become a big hitter at Goldman -- why else go there? -- you had best plan to subordinate your life to your job.

    One of my favorite parts of the book is its eight appendices, which total roughly a third the length of the narrative portion. The appendices are extremely useful. They include an outline of Goldman's history, and an 11-page list of "Selected Goldman Employees and Lobbyists with Government Positions (Before or After Goldman)." Then there's the financial voyeur's delight: the 10 pages of Appendix D that list the 221 Goldman employees who held stock when the company held its initial public offering on May 3, 1999. At the close of trading that day, the value of the shares owned by the lucky 221 ranged from $205,172,466 each for Hank Paulson and Goldman's two other biggest fish to a mere $37,304,085 for each of 57 small fry from Abby Joseph Cohen to Yoel Zaoui. The total: a bit over $18.5 billion, for an average of $83,723,195 each. And that was almost 15 years ago.

    Those numbers tell us what Goldman is about: making money. When Goldman was a private firm, its partners' incomes and wealth were closely guarded secrets. Now that information is readily available. When the numbers were private, Goldman could credibly proclaim itself to be a noble enterprise that put clients first. But with its numbers public and its business changed, people can see Goldman for what it is and probably always was: a high-performing, high-powered greed machine.