How the Ex-Goldman CEO actually invests his own money
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How did Lloyd Blankfein describe his early relationship with money and feeling “rich”?
the difference between somebody who's really really good and somebody who can't make it is not that great goldman sachs senior chairman and former ceo lloyd blankfein your portfolio as a pie chart what does it look like right now i invest in risky assets that's what's fun for me i would say that 98 are equities what are some of your biggest holdings this is going to be controversial i don't know who i'm going to upset but you know it's like are you trading every day yes that's crazy No, it's not. It's like taking a lot of discipline not to look at my screen while I'm talking. Right now.
It's like that. So you're bullish on big tech. Anything else?
It's been good to be bullish on big tech, and I'll stop being bullish on it when it stops going up.
What did the people who couldn't outperform, what did the bottom half have in common?
The bigger takeaway is that...
The reason why it's interesting to talk to you is because I'm pretty good at building companies. You know, I built a company that was doing almost 20 million in revenue by the time I was 31. But I'm like, I don't know anything when it comes to investing. My portfolio is basically 80.
Nobody knows anything.
Well, that's what I've learned. But it seems like you know a lot.
Because I'm so on the inside, unlike a lot of people, I know nobody knows anything. Whereas everybody else just wonders.
Well, that's cool. And so I'm going to ask you a ton of questions and it's going to come from a perspective of like, I actually don't know what I'm doing. And the majority of my portfolios, which I actually think is smart, is just 90% index, 10% bonds.
Well, that's sensible.
But you day trade, which I thought was hilarious.
Two things. One, I'm a pro at it. I mean, this is what I did, you know, only for the last four or five decades. And the other thing is that nothing hugely positive or hugely negative is going to affect my life.
Yeah.
So to me, it's like a hobby.
What age were you when you felt that?
You know, I grew up in the project, so I always, I wouldn't say that I felt poor, but I certainly was incapable of feeling well-to-do. I can't even say the R word, rich. I can't, it's hard for me even to say it. But, you know, by any metric, I have been that way for, you know, for a long time, but I never feel that way. I mean, I'm still trapped in that mindset, you know, of the kid from the projects.
So your father was a postal worker. I think you said you were an urban hick, which I liked.
I grew up in East New York, Brooklyn, you know, at the end of two, you know, two subway lines and a bus in the eastern part of Brooklyn. You know, growing up, I think I went to Manhattan three times. I never left the country, didn't fly on an airplane until after I left school and stuff, you know. Yeah, I was pretty provincial. It turns out that if you look at the lists of most successful people or wealthiest people in the US, you're not seeing a lot of Morgans or Rockefellers or any of these classical family names on that list. You're seeing basically people not necessarily growing up in poverty, but they were kind of middle-class people who did, you know, who did well. These are not, you know, generational wealthy people coming along.
A lot of people were socially mobile in their lives and, you know, created wealth for others and, you know, and a piece of it stuck to them.
What I'm curious about is because you have this perspective of knowing world leaders, potentially the most powerful people on earth, is there anything that would shock them about what it's like to be around some of these people
I think what's shocking, not shocking, but I think what would be good if everybody understood is that, you know, look, there are very, very few geniuses in the world. I don't know if I've ever met one.
You don't think that you've met... When you meet Jeff Bezos, you're not like, this guy just has more horsepower?
Yeah, or most of the people I meet... I can't, I'm not saying I can do what they do, but I can see how they can do what they do. Very few people have I met in my life where I can't even see the world through their eyes, or I can't even see how they do what they do.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
How did Lloyd Blankfein describe his early relationship with money and feeling “rich”?
0:00–6:37
2
What was Lloyd’s experience meeting Elon Musk and other high-profile leaders?
6:37–19:57
3
What traits separated the best traders from the worst at Goldman Sachs?
19:57–35:00
4
How did Warren Buffett’s handshake investment in Goldman work during the crisis?
35:00–54:19
5
How is Lloyd’s personal portfolio allocated and which stocks does he favor?
54:19–1:00:24