Anyone planning to leave investment banking eventually considers going out in style. Wall Street has a long tradition of people who did. The ones who left quietly tend to have done better.
The Op-Ed
On March 14, 2012, Goldman Sachs employees opened the New York Times to find a resignation letter from one of their own. Greg Smith, an executive director in the derivatives business with about 12 years at the firm, had published “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs” on the opinion page.
He wrote that the firm’s culture had become “as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.” He said clients’ interests were being sidelined, and that he’d heard managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets.” It was, by any measure, a memorable piece of writing.
The response was immediate. The op-ed was everywhere by lunchtime. Goldman’s leadership sent staff a memo disputing his account. Parodies followed within hours, including a resignation letter from Darth Vader leaving the Empire. Reports later suggested Smith had been passed over for promotion, which changed how some readers saw the letter. A book deal followed.
Smith said what he believed, in public, under his own name. That takes some nerve. It also had a cost. More than a decade later, the op-ed is still the first thing anyone finds when they search his name, and he didn’t return to Wall Street.
The lesson isn’t that he was wrong. A resignation letter is a poor vehicle for being right. Whatever its merits, it reads as a grievance, and the reader’s first question is always what happened to you, not what’s happening to the firm.
The Temptation
Most bankers will never write an op-ed. Nearly all of them have drafted one in their heads.
It starts when the offer letter arrives and a start date is agreed. The 11:47 PM email marked “quick turn” begins to feel less like an obligation and more like material. The speech takes shape: the MD’s office, a badge set down with some ceremony, a remark about the deck that took all night and was never opened. Then a long walk to the elevator.
Very few people give the speech, and there are good reasons for that.
Why Burning Bridges Costs More Than It Feels
The offer isn’t final until you start. By the time you resign, your buyout has usually been negotiated. Your new firm has agreed to cover the bonus you’re walking away from, which can be a large share of a year’s pay. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s still an offer, and offers can be withdrawn. Farewell emails get forwarded, and they tend to reach the new firm before you do. Few things make a hiring committee reconsider faster than a screenshot of its newest hire settling scores on the way out.
There will be a next job. The references for this move are already done. The next move will involve more of them, including people you never list. In a recent survey, 37% of workers said a prospective employer had contacted someone they hadn’t named as a reference. In banking, where everyone shares a few hundred LinkedIn connections, the real figure is probably higher. Investors call these backchannel references and tend to trust them more than the curated kind. The colleague you confide in at farewell drinks may be someone’s backchannel in a few years.
The industry is small. The VP you’d most like to address candidly will reappear as a client, a counterparty, or the person deciding whether to hire you back. That last one happens more often than people expect.
The deals don’t pause. A sale process continues after your departure. If you leave abruptly, the analyst inherits the buyer list, the data room and the client who texts at 6 AM. That gets remembered too.
The internet doesn’t forget. Greg Smith’s op-ed remains the first search result for his name. Most people would prefer to be known for something else.
How Others Have Left Investment Banking
The alternative to the op-ed has a long and well-compensated history.
The Quiet Exits
Jamie Dimon was pushed out as president of Citigroup by Sandy Weill, his mentor of 16 years, in 1998. He didn’t contest it. He took the severance, took up boxing and read biographies of leaders who had suffered setbacks. About a year later, he invited Weill to lunch at the Four Seasons and acknowledged his share of what had gone wrong. By 2005 he was running JPMorgan Chase. The lunch has aged well.
John Mack left Morgan Stanley in 2001 after 29 years, when CEO Phil Purcell declined to share power. He didn’t say much publicly. Four years later, after an executive exodus and an investor revolt, Purcell was gone and the board asked Mack to come back as CEO. It helps to leave a building you’d be willing to reenter.
Ken Moelis recruited more than 70 senior bankers to UBS in his first three months there. When he left in 2007, five senior colleagues came with him to found Moelis & Company. He didn’t make a statement on the way out. The firm he built made it for him.
Bruce Wasserstein and Joe Perella left First Boston in 1988 to start their own M&A firm. In 2000 they sold it to Dresdner Bank for about $1.4 billion in stock. Whatever they thought of their old employer, they kept it to themselves and let the results speak.
The Storytellers
Paul Mecurio, a banker at Credit Suisse First Boston, sold a joke to Jay Leno for $50 and later left banking for comedy. Money ran short, so he returned to banking and gave up stand-up. Seven months later, he was performing again. Exits aren’t always final, which is an argument for keeping them civil.
Bill Keenan, an M&A associate at Deutsche Bank, wrote what may be the best farewell email of the last decade. In 2018 he announced he was joining “KKR” to launch a crypto business, KKR being Kohlberg Keenan & Ravis. The email circulated across the Street. Nobody was named, nobody was hurt, and he later wrote a memoir about his rookie years.
There is one notable exception. Michael Lewis left Salomon Brothers in 1988 and wrote Liar’s Poker, an unflattering account of the place, and it worked out well for him. But Lewis was leaving Wall Street to become a writer. He wasn’t planning to need it again. And even then, the joke was partly on him: a generation of students read the book as a career guide and applied to Salomon.
What Not to Do (However Satisfying)
Farewell emails go to everyone at once, and they rarely stay inside the building. Most people sensibly never send the one they actually want to send. For the record, it looks something like this:
Subject: Some thoughts on my way out
All,
Friday is my last day. Before I go, a few observations.
To the MD who described my model as “directionally fine” at 3 AM and then presented it to the client as his own: you’re welcome.
To the VP who sends “quick question” emails that are neither quick nor questions: it’s been an education.
To HR: I did read the wellness survey results. So did everyone.
I’m joining [New Firm] at a meaningfully higher number. I won’t say how much, except that it was enough.
Finally free,
[Name]Replying All was intentional.
Every line of it is satisfying, and every line of it is expensive:
- Naming names. The MD you call out will be a client, a counterparty or a backchannel reference within five years. Possibly all three.
- Announcing where you’re going, and for how much. Your current firm doesn’t need to know where you’re headed, and your new one would rather announce you itself. Mentioning the comp reads as gloating to your colleagues and as indiscretion to your new employer, who now knows you share numbers.
- Explaining the real reason you’re leaving. Nobody reads it as candor. They read it as a grievance.
- Reply All. No message has been improved by more recipients.
- Posting about it. LinkedIn is not a confessional, and screenshots are permanent.
- The word “finally.” It does the work of the entire email above in seven letters.
The Farewell Email to Send Instead
The good ones are short, specific and slightly self-deprecating. They thank people by name, account for unfinished work and leave a way to stay in touch.
Subject: Signing off
All,
Friday will be my last day.
I’ve learned more here than I expected to, mostly from [Names], who were generous with their time and patient with my early models. Thanks also to the analysts and associates who made the late nights tolerable.
I’ve left a transition memo covering my live deals. It’s thorough. The answer you’re looking for is probably on page 14.
I’d like to stay in touch: [email] | [LinkedIn]
Best,
[Name]
Before you send it, ask whether you’d be comfortable if your new employer read it. They probably will.
In Short: How to Leave Investment Banking Gracefully
Tell your staffer in person and before anyone else. Be gracious and nonspecific about why you’re going. Write a transition memo better than anyone expects. Take someone to lunch on the way out.
The op-ed is satisfying for about a day and searchable for much longer. The quiet exit is less memorable, and that’s mostly the point. Dimon, Mack and Moelis all handled their exits quietly and did well.
Prospect Rock Partners advises bankers on their next move, and on how to make it.