Departing Goldman Sachs employee slams its “toxic and destructive” culture

In an unprecedented public attack, a departing Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS) employee has termed the firm's culture as ''toxic and destructive'' in a New York Times opinion piece, becoming the first serving insider to slam the firm.

Aaccording to the newspaper, the departing employee Greg Smith, who is an executive director and head of the firm's US equity derivatives business in Europe, would quit the firm after 12 years, blaming chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein and president Gary Cohn for not upholding the firm's culture. According to the firm's hierarchy executive directors come next in line to managing directors with partners, being the most senior in rank.

''I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients,'' Smith, a Stanford University graduate, wrote in the New York Times. ''It's purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them.''

The attack corroborates what politicians and protesters have been saying about the company triggering the financial crisis and profiting at clients' expense. Goldman Sachs has already appeared before congressional hearings investigating its role in the financial crisis. The company paid $550 million in 2010 to settle a lawsuit accusing it of misleading investors in a collateralised debt obligation.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs has rejected the criticism in a statement saying, ''In our view, we will only be successful if our clients are successful. This fundamental truth lies at the heart of how we conduct ourselves.''

''It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off,'' Smith wrote. '''Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as ''muppets,'' sometimes over internal e-mail.''