Top Highlights

• under the crazy rules of our current regulatory system, an unregulated private-equity firm is allowed to own an insurance company, but a bank is not.
• the total amount Goldman pays out in compensation has declined sharply over the years, from roughly 50% of the firm's revenues in the early 2000s to less than 30% today
• Solomon sold off the firm's own investments — some $60 billion in total — and focused on managing money on behalf of outside investors, from high-net-worth individuals to pension funds.
• The old Goldman was dotted with fiefdoms whose deals sometimes placed the firm at odds with its own clients.
• Compounding the internal issue is the external one: the meteoric rise of private equity and hedge funds, which are siphoning talent away from Goldman.

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