Morning Coffee: The 29 year-old Goldman Sachs MD vs the 31 year-old with $250m. False crotch accusation

Is it worth working for Goldman Sachs now? Would you be better off following your passion and becoming, maybe, an oil trader instead?

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The profiles of two young men, both of whom are very successful but one of whom is more successful than the other - measured in terms of monetary value and an ability to buy vintage champagne, at least - raises this perennial question. It's the oil trader who's better off. 

The Financial Times profiles this oil trader, who's probably not the sort of person who would make managing director at Goldman Sachs anyway. A Russian who grew up in Germany and studied business at the University of Hamburg, Christopher Eppinger, seems to have got into oil trading through the unlikely connections of his middle class parents, a doctor and engineer. He likes to swear. He likes to be flamboyant. He references LSD and aspires to collect "intense" art. Eppinger is 31 years old and has earned $250m in three years.

Business Insider profiles the Goldman Sachs managing director. Aged 29, Paul Costa was promoted in London last week. He runs dividend trading for Goldman's synthetic products group in EMEA. Costa seems a steadier sort - when he briefly thought he'd been overlooked for the promotion, he says it 'seemed strange' and didn't swear or throw a phone. His wife also works for Goldman (in prime broking) and Costa says things like: "You're only ever going to be very good if you can work hard at something for a very long time, perfecting your craft." 

Costa has been perfecting his craft at Goldman for 10 years after joining as in intern in the summer of 2016. It's not clear how much he's earned during that period, but it's likely to be a small fraction of $250m. Even Goldman's managing directors in London 'only' earn $1.7m each on average, and Costa's only just become one.

Eppinger's trajectory looks more Icarus-like. He made his many millions hustling Russian oil in a way that he insists is legal and legitimately skirts international sanctions. He says he wants to buy "more Picassos" and maybe some Caravaggios while sitting in his €7m French villa that once belonged to a drug dealer, but Eppinger also worries that sanctions may yet put him out of business. Maybe that won't matter: he has $250m already; Costa will be working at Goldman for another 146 years to achieve that. 

Separately, no one grabbed Damilare Ajao's crotch at Commerzbank.

We have written about Ajao before. After briefly working for Commerzbank's compliance team as a "know your client" analyst in 2019, he was sacked after six months. 

Ajao subsequently complained that a female colleague had both grabbed his crotch and ogled his string vest through his shirt. Reuters reports that a court ruled this week that this didn't happen and sentenced Ajao to 20 months in prison for intentionally telling untruths.

Meanwhile...

Matthew Theodorakis, the co-head of direct lending for EMEA at Ares, says investors want to work with teams experienced in loan workouts. Out of around 100 people in Ares’ European direct lending team, 25 are dedicated to portfolio management, including workouts. (Bloomberg) 

Jamie Dimon says JPMorgan 'always redeploys' staff and won't cut jobs because of AI. (Bloomberg) 

Jamie Dimon says he only has message notifications on from his children while he's at work. “If you sent me a text during the day, I probably do not read it.” (CNBC)

JPMorgan's new office has twice the amount of air and 30% more daylight than typical New York offices. (WSJ) 

Jonathan Brenner, Walleye's chief strategy officer, is leaving. (Business Insider) 

Roelof Botha was ousted by colleagues at Sequoia Capital. People are saying he's a "legendary investor" and that "On an IQ level he is off the charts . . . But the heart of the matter is that Roelof is one of these people who always needs to be seen as the smartest guy in the room.” (Financial Times) 

Commodities trading once contributed as much as 51% to Macquarie’s overall profits. That's changed since the bank's risk appetite fell and its top commodities traders left. (Financial Times)

Francois Puget, who left BNP Paribas earlier this year, has joined BlueCrest as a senior portfolio manager. (Financial News) 

The British Treasury won't be levying full national insurance on partnership profits after all. (Financial Times) 

74% of CFOs are seeing productivity gains from AI, but only 5% have managed to cut costs and just 6% saw any kind of revenue uplift. (Financial Times)  

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