The idea of teamwork goes right to the top. Goldman may not be a private partnership any more — it went public a decade ago — but the bosses work hard to foster a “we’re in this together”, family-style approach. Others say it feels more like a cult, but they mean it as a compliment. Some of its practices make perfect sense. Bonuses, for example, are not based on personal performance, as they are at many banks, but on the performance of the firm as a whole, and partners receive a sizable chunk of their remuneration in stock that they cannot sell until they leave the firm. It weeds out what Dina Powell, 36, the firecracker Egyptian-American boss of Goldman’s philanthropic arm, calls “egomaniac jerks” who might be tempted to bet the farm on red in the hope of skewering a bigger bonus.

Compelled by a headline about Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein saying that he does “God’s work,” I pored through this article from UK TimesOnline and discovered a scheme to horrify the Ayn Rand set: collective rewards!

“Egomaniacal jerks” pretty much describes every true-believing Ayn Randist I’ve ever met. That bit’s on page three, and is immediately followed by a scene from Brazil:

Other practices are distinctly creepy. Goldman-ites are forced to check their secure voicemail morning, noon and night for the latest bon mots of Blankfein and Eileen Dillon, 48, who is officially head of operations for the executive office but unofficially camp counsellor. Goldman is the biggest user of voicemail in the world. The “mind bullets” consist of anything from the latest profit and loss figures, to reports of what the chief executives of key clients have told Blankfein and his top team over lunch, to instructions to “switch off on holiday, for goodness sake”.

I’m scared now and want to go home.