Blankfein Opens Up On What Goldman Sachs Has Done Wrong, and Right

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein discusses the Greg Smith resignation letter, PR practices and more.

Maybe "opens up" is a little strong, since bank CEOs never truly ever open up in public, and certainly not to CNBC.

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs' CEO, sat down with CNBC in his first public interview in two years. He admitted that "we haven't gotten everything right in how we dealt with the public," while explaining that Goldman has never had a traditional consumer-facing business so its PR "muscles" weren't what they should have been.

Blankfein also discusses the very public Greg Smith resignation letter that captured headlines for a few weeks in March and how Goldman Sachs' executives examined the business following the resignation and how seriously they took Smith's accusations.

Here is the entire 16-minute interview from CNBC:

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Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio