Exchanges

The latest episode of Exchanges at Goldman Sachs was recorded at the firm’s recent 2019 Builders + Innovators Summit, which convened nearly one hundred entrepreneurs from various industries to share their stories and learn from one another. Host Jake Siewert was joined by Investment Banking Division co-head Gregg Lemkau, as well as Brynn Putnam, founder of fitness startup Mirror, and Ryan Petersen of the logistics company Flexport. The group discussed today’s environment for entrepreneurship as well as the highs and lows of startup life. “The future of entrepreneurship is exciting,” Lemkau said. “And just being around people like [Putnam and Petersen], who started their own businesses, and the passion you feel for what they’re trying to build. I think the ability to start a business and scale it, given where technology is now, is phenomenal and only growing.”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The market has once again been gripped by recession fears at the same time that geopolitical and policy risk is flaring up. Some of these risks—like the US-China trade war—are feeding recessionary fears, while others—like the attack on Saudi oil facilities that led to the largest ever daily disruption in oil supplies—have gone almost unnoticed. And this is despite the fact that oil shocks were one of the most common causes of recession historically. Whether this complacency is warranted, and the vulnerability of the economy and markets to this and other geopolitical shocks, is Top of Mind. In this episode, Goldman Sachs’ Head of Energy Research Damien Courvalin explains why the oil market is much better positioned to deal with supply outages today, and thus is a less likely recession trigger than in the past. But the Council on Foreign Relations’ President, Richard Haass, and Columbia Professor Richard Nephew explain why instability looks set to rise in the Middle East and beyond.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s all the buzz around direct listings? How are companies weighing IPOs vs. alternatives to raising capital in the public markets? Those questions were the focus of a recent panel at the Goldman Sachs Private Innovative Company Conference. Goldman Sachs’ Will Connolly, Spotify CFO Barry McCarthy, and Latham & Watkins partner Greg Rodgers sat down with Exchanges at Goldman Sachs host Jake Siewert to talk about Spotify’s own history with direct listings and what the future may hold for other companies planning to go public. “Companies’ needs and objectives are changing,” Connolly said, pointing to how technology has resulted in companies scaling much faster than in the past. “And when those needs and objectives change, it makes sense that people would seek out new ways to enter the public markets.” Adding context to the discussion, which was taped live in Las Vegas, Goldman Sachs’ David Ludwig joins Jake in the studio to talk more about the evolving needs of clients and how the firm is partnering to meet their objectives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, David Solomon reflects on his first year as Goldman Sachs CEO: “I've been very focused on making sure that our client focus is at the center of everything we do, and that we really work with our clients as one firm,” he says. “We're a divisional firm, we've always been a divisional firm, but I think there's a great opportunity to make sure for our clients that we're delivering the whole firm.” Looking toward year two, Solomon says his priorities are about execution – from centralizing the firm's investing platforms to scaling new business initiatives, such as the Apple-Goldman Sachs credit card. “The big thing that we as a leadership team -- and I'm very personally focused on -- is the rollout of our broader strategy,” Solomon says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adapting to a warmer world could drive one of the largest infrastructure build-outs in history, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs’ Global Markets Institute, titled Taking the heat: making cities resilient to climate change. The report acknowledges the importance of reducing carbon emissions but focuses on the need to adapt to ongoing changes in the climate. Cities, which are home to the majority of the world’s population and generate most of its GDP, will need to develop climate resilience across all types of infrastructure, including coastal protection, transportation, energy and communications. They will need to take an “all-of-the-above” approach to financing, according to Sandra Lawson, executive director of the Global Markets Institute, because “even the most prosperous cities are not going to be able to fund this alone.” Amanda Hindlian, chief operating officer of Global Investment Research and president of the Global Markets Institute, recommends that cities “start now” and allow for maximum flexibility, so that they can “benefit from input costs and economies of scale that that come from new technologies and that make these problems easier to address in economically feasible ways over time.”        Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s it like to be a Goldman Sachs intern? In this episode, two interns from this past summer talk about their experiences at GS, as well as what they value in an employer—from diversity to work-life balance. Also in the studio was head of Human Capital Management Dane Holmes to discuss how the interns’ perspectives—and the results of a larger, firm-wide intern survey—translate into how employers are thinking about connecting with a younger generation of workers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump has voiced concern that a strong Dollar is damaging US competitiveness. Of course, exchange rates do matter for trade, and the US' non-oil trade balance has deteriorated sharply since the Dollar began to climb in 2014. So it’s no surprise that Trump’s laser focus on the US trade deficit would end up targeting Dollar strength—and that currency would become another front in the US-China trade war. Whether the US should, could, and would begin to proactively manage the Dollar, and whether these actions—or further trade war escalation—could lead to a global “currency war” is Top of Mind.   In this episode, Goldman Sachs Research’s Allison Nathan gets perspectives from the Peterson Institute’s Joseph Gagnon and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Brad Setser; both believe that Dollar strength and the associated US trade deficit are cause for concern, but see low odds of US foreign exchange intervention that triggers a currency war (Goldman Sachs analysts agree). But given that China has been managing the Yuan stronger than it otherwise would be, trade war escalation that motivates a sharp Yuan depreciation could be such a trigger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Waldron is a busy man. He’s almost a year into his role as Goldman Sachs COO and President, and he’s also a father of six. In this episode, Waldron demystifies his day-to-day and explains why he’s even more focused on executing on the title “COO” than “president.” “My role right now really is to first learn the firm and understand the inner workings of the firm, and so that’s a really operationally intensive job, thus the chief operating officer component,” says Waldron. “The president job comes into play more on an external basis where you’re out with clients, with governments, with regulators and other external constituencies where that title has real resonance.” Waldron also discusses how younger employees can identify and invest in mentors, as well as the importance of recharging out of the office. For Waldron, that means getting home for dinner with his family if he has to head out to a client event later in the evening. “I’ll have a little bit of peanut butter and jelly and then I’ll have a steak tartare later on,” he tells podcast host Jake Siewert.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Technology is changing the structure of the financial industry, says Marty Chavez, global co-head of the Goldman Sachs Securities Division. In this episode, he discusses how the industry is reshaping. “If you look inside a financial services firm, you’ll find there has traditionally been a relatively small number of roles that we talk about—so there’d be bankers, salespeople and traders,” Chavez says. “Now, all of those simple, easy categories are going away and they’re going away fast, and it’s becoming much more complicated and much more multidimensional.” This breaking down of clear categories also changes how financial firms compete with each other. “The traditional notions of ‘You’re my competitor’ are giving away to something that looks much more like coopetition—maybe not my favorite word, but you compete in some areas and you cooperate in some other areas; and some other areas you might be a client, or they might be a client,” Chavez says.         Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this special episode of Exchanges, we’re running our newest podcast, Top of Mind at Goldman Sachs. Hosted by Allison Nathan, a senior strategist in Goldman Sachs Research, Top of Mind examines the macroeconomic issues that are shaping the global economy. In each episode, Allison interviews Goldman Sachs experts—as well as influential policymakers, academics, and investors—on market-moving topics. The series’ latest installment, Dissecting the Market Disconnect, takes a close look at the divergence between falling bond yields and rising equity prices. Bridgewater Associates’ Ray Dalio and Goldman Sachs’ Jan Hatzius join Allison to dive into this dynamic and understand how concerned investors should really be about economic growth.        Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices