Morning Coffee: 23-year-old Goldman Sachs analyst quits after being worked past the brink: "I'm broke." Citi's got an annual pledge too

We need to talk about a 23-year-old ex-Goldman Sachs analyst who is not doing well.

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He still works for Goldman Sachs in New York, but writing on LinkedIn yesterday, he said he's resigned after seeing things at Goldman that "would break most people." He said he now has no money and faces being evicted from his apartment: "I'm broke."

At Goldman, he claimed he worked under a vice president (VP) who "worked us past the brink. 40-hour stretches. Deliverables assigned at midnight, due by 9am." He said he was denied recovery time and "punished" for needing time to get back to the office after returning home. He claimed to have reported the excessive demands, "Once. Twice. Three times."

He also claimed to have seen an intern having a seizure during his own internship, and implies that an intern who flagged her struggles before the seizure wasn't given a return offer after pointing out that he'd warned the bank.

There are concerns for his wellbeing. Instagram account Litquidity says he unexpectedly quit after taking a week off for burnout and that the team were very worried about him. This has not been confirmed.

There is also admiration for his willingness to speak out. He worked in the healthcare and technology media and telecoms (TMT) teams at Goldman, which are known for being among the most demanding: it was the TMT team that produced a presentation in 2021 complaining of 100 hour weeks. After this presentation, Goldman Sachs and other banks took action to monitor and cut employees' working hours. There are still complaints that junior bankers are overworked, though: at Bank of America, Leo Lukenas, an associate, died last year of a heart attack; BofA said Lukenas didn't work 120-hour weeks, but there were subsequent claims that the bank's system for monitoring working hours wasn't sufficiently rigorous.

In a statement, Goldman Sachs said: “We strongly disagree with this post but will not comment further out of respect for our employees’ privacy. Our employees’ health and safety are a top priority for this firm.”

The post has elicited sympathy from other young bankers. Before unexpectedly resigning and posting about the experiences he says he had at the firm, he seems to have been a model employee. His previous LinkedIn posts concerned "exciting" opportunities for juniors interested in working for Goldman Sachs.

Separately, after JPMorgan asked incoming junior bankers to declare their private equity job offers and Goldman Sachs introduced quarterly oaths for junior bankers to attest that they haven't accepted other offers, Citi is going down the same path.

Bloomberg reports that Citi is asking its first year analysts to complete an "attestation" to the effect that they don't have jobs elsewhere. Unlike a Goldman, it will be an annual event at most. 

Bloomberg says analysts at Citi who "attest" to having other jobs will then be dealt with on a "case by case" basis. At Goldman, analysts who attest to having other jobs could simply be moved off deals where there might be a conflict of interest. At Citi, it seems the response may be more harsh.  

Meanwhile....

Last year, Clear Street launched in the UK and made some senior hires to its team. This year, it's cutting Matthew Cyzer, head of markets, execution, and Phillip Hylander, a managing director also working in execution. (Bloomberg) 

Someone alleges that he was discriminated against by HSBC in Hong Kong because he was black. (Bloomberg) 

Jane Street has been allowed to trade in India again after placing $564m in alleged “unlawful gains” into an escrow account. (Bloomberg) 

Jane Street seems to take much more risk than Citadel Securities. This might why it made $13bn of net income last year, versus $4.2bn at Citadel Securities. (Bloomberg) 

Millennium keeps strengthening its equities team. It's just brought Neville Shah, who was running money externally for Millennium, in-house. It's also hired Eric Govind, Morgan Stanley’s head of equities trading in Asia. Israel Solares-Moya and Brad Lau, who both previously worked at Citadel. (Bloomberg) 

Greg Coffey hired Andrew Dinnis from HSBC. (Financial News) 

Goldman Sachs wants to focus on European mid-market banking under Andre Kelleners and Anna Skoglund. (Financial News) 

No one wants to be chair of HSBC. (Financial Times) 

Jamie Dimon's dad hobbies: Family, family travel, barbecuing, wine, hiking, history books. "I don't buy fancy cars and stuff like that" He can't imagine playing golf. (Business Insider) 

Iliana Bouzali, global head of derivatives distribution and structuring for Morgan Stanley, fell in love with the trading floor and never looked back. "It's a very flat architecture, there's no hierarchy. If you have something useful to say, you say it. If there's a problem to solve, it doesn't matter what your title is, you solve the problem. And it can be very infectious, so I was hooked." (Business Insider) 

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