Tips from Goldman Sachs on Prospecting for Leads

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am reading William Cohan’s book on Goldman Sachs and I stumbled across the story of Josh Birnbaum, one of the quants on the mortgage desk who set up the “Big Short" and eventually got hauled before Congress for his troubles. Though far from an exemplary figure, keep in mind that even the protagonists of picaresque can teach us something. Birnbaum had traded stocks since childhood and by the time he got into business school he was obviously willing to kill to get an internship in Wall Street. Devoid of contacts, he resorted to creativity: