STREETWISE STREETWISE

When Lloyd Blankfein was attacked as a Wall Street fat cat, he had tosmile, thinking of his precarious childhood in the notorious publichousing projects of East New York, Brooklyn, and attending a high schoolso chaotic he didn’t feel safe leaving class to go to the bathroom inhis time there. Harvard University was a total moonshot, and hisoutsider status never wore off, there or at Harvard Law. When he struckpeople as street-y, it wasn’t Wall Street they were thinking of. But ifthe chip never quite left Blankfein's shoulder, neither did a wry,resilient spirit and a lucid, democratic intelligence that saw throughairs and found talent and ideas in unlikely places.Streetwise is a delightfully honest, sharp and often very funnyreckoning with the author’s education—in finance, human nature, and theworkings of the world. It abounds with lessons about leading teams ofbrilliant, aggressive, competitive people and harmonizing them aroundshared goals; changing when times are hard and when they’re good;managing risk; and knowing a crisis is at hand before it swamps you soyou can guide your team to the further shore. Blankfein is famed for hiscalm hand on Goldman Sachs’s tiller during the global financial crisis,and that story is told in full here, among many other decisive episodes.Suffusing Streetwise is the author’s deep and abiding respect for thepartnership culture of Goldman Sachs. We follow the never-ending work toprotect and preserve that culture through all sorts of tumult—thechallenge behind every other challenge. He is open about when he and thefirm got it wrong, which was often enough, but the creative, risk-takingspirit was never snuffed—even as the fail-safes put in place to protectthe firm and its clients held when they were needed the most. A powerfulblueprint for the wise stewardship of a cause that is larger thanyourself, Streetwise will inspire and inform readers throughout theglobal business community and beyond.