Kottke blogs about this and ex-employees of Google and Yahoo:

The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.

For years, Yahoo was mostly harmless. Management foibles and executive shuffles only hurt shareholders and employee morale. But in the last few years, the company's incompetence has begun to hurt the rest of us. First, with the wholesale destruction of internet history, and now by attacking younger, smarter companies.

Also aa pointed out a parody of the Smith letter:

The Empire is one of the galaxy's largest and most important oppressive regimes and it is too integral to galactic murder to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of Yoda College that I can no longer in good conscience point menacingly and say that I identify with what it stands for.

I think that Mr. Smith (completely unrelated to me!) has seen Jerry Maguire too many times.  I understand his wife was quoted as saying, "He had me at unscrupulous excess."

Dan's right. 

This is cynical humor that doesn't work.  NYtimes is right to post, and should post loudly.   

Don't get me wrong I have great respect for what you guys are trying to do here at Dag, but this fails. Those fuckers raped us, and are raping us. Personally I know way, way too many folks who are long term unemployed to find this shit at all funny. Granted my spoiled ass life took me recently to Portugal, but there I saw a country rapidly sliding into developing status due to trying to hold the Euro. Seeing someone admit that they are greedy mother fuckers who pillage and don't give a shit is important to me.

Truth lost, and whatever notice truth occasionally gets gives me a little hope that not all is lost. 

The fact that all us smartys get that this is how the world works doesn't make me feel good--and I certainly don't want to laugh about it.  In fact it makes me nauseous--and then ignore sites like this. Which is exactly the opposite of what you have worked hard to not do.  

I know times blow. But this shit isn't funny, even if well crafted. In fact it breaks my idealistic heart. Your's too I suspect. 

Frankly I look forward to when you guys figure out how to tell us stupid idealistic liberals to suck it up and get behind Obama, defend what positive health care reform we have, and attack Romney--and the 1%--in the name of populist tax reform. I'll admit I don't know how to do that in an entertaining way.  But cynical humor is not the answer  

BusinessWeek:

Bloomberg's Erik Schartzker, Stephanie Ruhle, Scarlet Fu, Sara Eisen and Sheila Dharmarajan report that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. saw $2.15 billion of its market value wiped out after an employee assailed Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein’s management and the firm’s treatment of clients, sparking debate across Wall Street.

The Awl:

When Greg Smith writes about the culture of Goldman—"teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility"—those are not just empty words. They sound funny from the outside, sure! But "the Goldman way" was drilled into employees and executives in a way that likely has no other workplace equal in intensity outside of perhaps the Marines or the Symbionese Liberation Army. Being self-effacing; saying "we"; sharing credit; posting your working group on developments: people who bucked this process were beaten down until they conformed.

This culture—which also highly valued do-gooding and public service, or at least the ideas of such—is pretty much just brainwashing. (Not bad brainwashing particularly! But all the same.) That state prevents employees from realizing that Goldman's history of making money at any cost might have always been a part of the culture of the firm.

[Posted at Zero Hedge by Nomi Prins.  No fawning, and yet shockingly to the point and non-witty.]

From Nomi Prins, former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs and aithor of It Takes A Pillage

My Statement Regarding Greg Smith's Goldman Resignation

Today, I have received dozens of media requests and hundreds of emails regarding former Goldman Sachs executive, Greg Smith's gutsy, and internationally resonating, public resignation.

I applaud Smith's decision to bring the nature of Goldman's profit-making strategies to the forefront of the global population's discourse, as so many others have been doing through books, investigative journalism, and the Occupy movements over the past decade since my book, Other People's Money, was written after I resigned from Goldman. It would be great if Smith's illuminations would serve as the turning point around which serious examination and re-regulation of the banking system framework would transpire.

The inherent conflict of interest that firms such as Goldman possess through enjoying the multiple roles of 'market-maker,' 'securities creator' and 'client-advisor' foster an environment rife with systemic risk. The trading revenue portion of Goldman's profits, as well as its derivatives vs. assets ratio, is the highest amongst the American bank holding companies. And yet, in the fall of 2008, the Federal Reserve approved Goldman Sachs (along with Morgan Stanley) to alter its moniker from investment bank to bank holding company, thereby allowing it to gain access to federal subsidies and potential ongoing support.

In this regard, the firm's practices should remain under intense scrutiny by the general public and legislators. I would hope that the message behind Smith's resignation will not be obfuscated by debates over the extent to which the firm's clients are either supported or exploited, but instead, serve as a powerful call to foster a more-strictly delineated and less reckless financial system.