Greg Smith: Goldman Sachs' London office was 'like the Wild West' The bank has been braced for the publication of Why I Left Goldman Sachs and says Mr Smith's motivation in writing the book was frustration that he had not progressed more swiftly up the ranks at the bank. The South African was denied a promotion in the months before he left and his compensation did not match the $1m he had hoped for. The book's central allegation is that during his 12 years at the bank, it changed from being one that put customers first, to one that consistently put the bank's profits first. As Europe's debt crisis intensified during the summer of 2011, Mr Smith writes that the recommendations that Goldman's salespeople made to clients on which European bank shares to buy and sell were driven by trades that Goldman's dealers wanted to get in or out of. The former salesman, who was earning $500,000 a year by the time he left, does not disguise that he enjoyed the trappings that came from working at Goldman. During his year in London, he lived in an 800 sq ft flat in Belsize Park and saw the men's finals at both Wimbledon and the French Open. However, he claims that, despite the bank conducting a study of its own business principles in 2010 following a $550m settlement with US regulators over alleged mis-selling, the bank was not taking reform seriously enough. "It was the corrosive atmosphere in the London office that, slowly but surely, started to wear me down," Mr Smith wrote. Goldman declined to comment.