According to New York Magazine Greg Smith's screw you, I quit op-ed this morning in the Times might be the latest such missive to emerge from the finance world, but it's hardly the first. In fact, it's part of a whole emerging literary genre.
In 2008, there was Andrew Lahde's tune-in, drop out, just-gonna-manage-my own-wealth missive in the Financial Times. Lahde, the man behind Lahde Capital Management, was telling the world about why, exactly, he was done with finance. Just a month or so after Lehman, he'd calculated that the "low-hanging fruit" wasn't there, and none of the miserable lifestyle that went along with amassing such wealth was worth it. He also threw in some random screeds about pot and the government. The letter went viral.
The next year, Jake DeSantis quit a sinking AIG via an open letter to the firm's CEO in the Times opinion pages. He was among the executives who'd been forced into taking a $1 salary after the government bailouts. Unlike Lahde, he wanted to make a targeted criticism of his employer, and to defend the average Joe banker as a victim of sorts: "You also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. " He positioned himself as a bit of an angel in exiting, with a pledge to give his so-called "retention payment" to those affected by the financial crisis.
Smith's letter, meanwhile, isn't exactly pegged to one incident, or even, really, one company— it's a critique of the whole banking culture more broadly, disguised as one of Goldman for effect…
Find out more at http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/03/history-of-wall-street-fk-you-resignations.html
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