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I've nothing against Goldman Sachs. But Goldman Sachs isn't an investment bank. Goldman Sachs is a hedge fund. It's bigger than any hedge fund. It's more leveraged, to the power of three or five, than any hedge fund.

You can demonize Goldman Sachs all you want, and I'm sure there are reasons to do it. But the real pressure is all of us pressuring the companies for stock returns, and that leads to all kinds of decisions.

Goldman in the '80s was like a priesthood, a monastic experience where you worked all the time but were incredibly dedicated to client services, to building and growing companies.

This is America: Corporate stealing is practically the national pastime, and Goldman Sachs is far from the only company to get away with doing it.

I left Goldman Sachs. I was thinking about going to another Wall Street place. I didn't want to do that. That was crazy. After you work on Wall Street, it's a choice: would you rather work at McDonald's or on the sell side? I would choose McDonald's over the sell side.

Does anyone believe that Goldman Sachs is gonna give up a deal that would yield millions of dollars because someone fussed at them behind closed doors?

Generally speaking, they have as many stars as other firms, but they are low-key about it, because that's not the Goldman way, but their bench is a lot deeper. I think Goldman has as many A players, but more importantly they have fewer C players. And no firm, I have noticed, has the depth anywhere like that.

Having worked at four separate Wall Street firms, having seen a variety of talent at those places, and having competed against Goldman as a banker, one thing you have to be struck by is the power of their recruiting.

Regulators all meet with Goldman Sachs executives and employees day after day after day. They don't see the people who get tricked, the people who get cheated, the people who get fooled by the products that Goldman turns out.

We've had this program for a number of years now, called 10,000 Small Businesses, where Goldman Sachs has convened a group of partners to basically give business education to small business owners.