The first few rocks of the Greg Smith avalanche approach GS

After a sterling set of Q3 results, it must seem a little unfair to the Goldman Sachs executive team that former London salesman Greg Smith is about to ruin their October with his book detailing salacious and embarrassing parts of Goldman Sachs' life over the past 10 years:

The following afternoon the group were all hungover so they partied in the hot tub at the Mandalay Bay - with the topless woman they called 'Ms Silicone.'

Well, at least they scrupulously observed the neutral form of address; I'm sure the HR department would have leapt on them had they called her 'Miss' Silicone.

My copy of Mr. Smith's book is on order and due early next week; I shall share my thoughts on it with you, dear readers, as soon as I have perused it. So far at least, from the carefully managed leaks, it sounds like quite entertaining reading...

Update: it seems that Goldman Sachs is trying to fight back with a release of emails, which to me indicates that it's rather worried about the book:

According to a summary of Goldman Sachs’s investigation, Mr Smith had an overly high opinion of himself, frequently giving himself evaluation scores that were "significantly above" those he received from his peers.

You know, I would be fascinated, fascinated to learn how common this mismatch is among VPs in the Fixed Income and Equities divisions. Do you think Goldman might deign to tell us?