Lloyd Blankfein

It's his brilliance for being brilliant.

I don't want to get confused, but I knew it early.

I think one of the things that I had in my time

And it is that I wasn't a victim of the organization chart.

You know, these firms could be very, Goldman Sachs is not very bureaucratic and not very, I remember when I was very, very early in my career, remember I came from left field to J. Aaron.

J. Aaron was acquired by Goldman.

Aaron wasn't doing very well.

But I had this idea.

I was in the precious metals business.

And that made me have to deal with people from the Mideast who were investors in gold and that.

I'm chatting with people on the other side.

And what are you doing?

What do you need?

And, you know, it turns out that even though they were speculating in precious metals, what they really, really wanted to do was they wanted to be able to invest money

and get an interest rate-like predictable return.

But under their rules of engagement, you know, their law, they weren't allowed in those days.

The real strictly religious crowd wasn't allowed to take interest.

It was usurious.

And what they were looking for ways of...

making kinds of investments that would read like an investment.