Thornton

For his new book about Goldman Sachs, Money and Power, William Cohan goes inside to figure out the Masters of the Universe’s secrets to success. Speaking to FINS recently, Cohan noted that the firm subscribes to a “work hard, work hard” mantra (as opposed to “work hard, play hard”) and that it goes to great lengths to nail the idea into employees’ heads that failure is not tolerated. For instance, former president John Thornton once mentioned, while pitching a potential client, “If we do not get this mandate, I will personally slit the throats of all my team and drink their blood.” This of course got us nostalgic enough to break into the GS archives for some other motivational quotes by Thornton, all of which, as was the case on the throat slitting deal, got the job done. Continue reading »