Lloyd Blankfein is the Chairman and CEO of the well-known securities and investment banking company Goldman Sachs. He is a living example of the “American Dream.” He went from South Bronx, where he was born, to the boardroom of one of the biggest investment firms in the world. He worked as a lifeguard while going to Thomas Jefferson High School to make some money and stay in shape. He sold peanuts, soda, and hotdogs at Yankee Stadium to make ends meet because his father worked the graveyard shift at a post office and his mother was a receptionist at a company that made burglar alarms. He got the best grades in his class at Thomas Jefferson in 1971, which made him eligible to give the valedictorian speech. When Harvard came to his high school to recruit, he was picked up, and scholarships and grants were given to help him pay for college. After graduating from Harvard, he went to Harvard Law School and soon after got a job at Donovan Leisure, a conservative law firm. The first time he applied for a job at Goldman Sachs, he was turned down. However, he eventually got a job at J. Aron & Company, which is owned by Goldman. What happened after that is known as history.
Early years and childhood
Lloyd Blankfein was born on September 15, 1954, to Jewish parents in the Bronx borough of New York City. He lived in South Bronx for the first three years of his life. After that, his family moved to the Linden Houses complex in East Brooklyn in search of a better life.
Blankfein remembers that his father, Seymour Blankfein, was fired from his job as a bakery truck driver. After that, he went to work sorting mail at the post office near their home. His father worked the night shift because it paid 10% more than the day shift.
Lloyd’s mother worked as a receptionist at a company that sold burglar alarms to help pay the bills. He shared a room with his grandmother. His older sister, who was divorced, lived with her son in the room next door. His parents slept in a different room.
Blankfein went to an elementary school near the Linden Housing Complex. He went to the Hebrew school at B’nai Israel. He moved to Brooklyn later and started going to Thomas Jefferson High School when he got there. He was the best swimmer in his high school class, so he was chosen as the valedictorian.
He worked as a lifeguard and sold soda and hot dogs at Yankee Stadium so he could pay for high school and have some money for himself. When Harvard professors came to Thomas Jefferson to look for smart students, he was an obvious choice.
He went to Harvard with the help of scholarships and grants, and he remembers being with rich prepsters who already knew what they wanted to do after college. During his first and second years of college, he worked in the cafeteria to pay for his studies and other costs.
In 1975, he got his B.A. from Harvard College, with a major in history. He remembers feeling very “insecure,” and because he came from a poor family, he found college life “intimidating.” Still, it was those feelings that pushed him to stick with it and finish the course.
Someone in elementary school told him that he looked like a “Philadelphia lawyer.” This made him want to go to Harvard Law School. In 1978, he got a J.D., or Doctor of Jurisprudence, from Harvard Law School.
Work as a professional
Lloyd Blankfein sent applications to several law firms for entry-level jobs after he got his J.D. His applications to “Proskauer Rose LLP” and “Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine” stood out. Before he joined Donovan Leisure in 1982, he worked for Proskauer Rose, a global law firm with its main office in New York City.
He worked as an associate at Donovan Leisure for four years before realizing that he didn’t want to be a lawyer but instead wanted to work on Wall Street, which is the Holy Grail for people who want to become financial executives. Unfortunately, Goldman Sachs, Dean Witter, and Morgan Stanley all turned him down when he tried to get a job there.
When he got a job offer from J. Aron & Commodities, a relatively unknown commodities trading company that Goldman Sachs had bought in November 1981, he got a little bit of hope. At the end of 1982, he moved to London to trade commodities from J. Aron’s bullion sales desk.
When Goldman bought J. Aron, J. Aron had been losing money for a long time. After Lloyd joined, he worked hard and was a key part of turning around J. Aron’s fortunes by securing a deal to manage a $100 million hedge fund for a client. This deal made J. Aron a lot of money.
Lloyd worked his way up at J. Aron, and by 1994 he was co-manager of Goldman Sachs’ “Currency and Commodities Division.” Later, he was made vice-chairman and put in charge of the “Equities Division” and the “Fixed Income, Currency, and Commodities Division.”
Lloyd Blankfein became the chairman and CEO of Goldman in 2006. This made him one of Wall Street’s highest-paid executives. He got a big bonus that was in line with Goldman’s huge net earnings, which were about $9.5 billion.
In his first year as CEO, he got $27.3 million in cash and the rest in the form of ESOPs, which are employee stock options. In 2007, he got $53.7 million in total pay. In both 2014 and 2015, he made a total of US$24 million and US$23 million.
When “Financial Times” named Blankfein its “Person of the Year” for 2009, he got into trouble with the law. In 2010, he had to testify before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which was set up just to look into Goldman Sachs’s role as a liquidity provider.
Lloyd, who was in charge of Goldman, had to testify again in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee of the US Congress to defend the firm against charges of gross financial mismanagement. In 2011, the subcommittee accused Goldman of tricking clients into making complicated investments based on mortgages in 2007.
Lloyd Blankfein was lucky that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations did not charge him with intentionally misleading them. In 2016, as chairman and CEO of Goldman, he was paid a total of $22.3 million.
Forays into politics
Lloyd Blankfein is registered as a Democrat, but he is very conservative when it comes to money, like Rockefeller Republicans or Liberal Republicans. This shows that he has a mixed opinion about his political affiliation. He has mostly given money to Democratic Party candidates, including $4,600 to Hillary Clinton in 2007.
Blankfein has been a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, speaking out strongly in favor of gay marriage. In his official role, he went to the White House more than once and gave money to Republicans Roy Blunt and Rob Portman when they ran for Senate again.
At the end of 2009, he caused a huge stir when he told an interviewer for a magazine that as an investment banker, he was “doing God’s work.” Later, as the CEO of Goldman, he apologized to the public for his off-the-cuff and disrespectful comment.
In 2009, when the global economic crisis was at its worst, Goldman Sachs announced that it would give $500 million to entrepreneurs who wanted to start new businesses.
Trying to help others
Lloyd Blankfein has been on the board of directors or the board of trustees of a number of charitable organizations. One of these is the Robin Hood Foundation, which is based in New York City and works to reduce poverty in the city. He has also served on the boards of Weill Cornell Medical College and Partnership for New York City.
His Personal Life
Laura Jacobs, who works as a lawyer, is married to Lloyd Blankfein. Rachel is their daughter, and Jonathan and Alexander are their sons.
In 2015, he went through diagnostic tests that showed he had lymphoma. After that, he was treated with chemotherapy. As of 2017, he is well and no longer sick.
Blankfein lives in Manhattan with Laura. He also owns homes in the hamlets of Bridgehampton and Sagaponack in Suffolk County, New York.
Estimated Net worth
Lloyd Blankfein is an American finance executive with a $1 billion net worth. Blankfein is probably best known for being the senior chairman of Goldman Sachs, a job he has held since 2019. Before this, from 2006 to 2018, he was the chairman and CEO of the company.