Quote from TheCaymanIsland:
Goldman is AMERICA. It's the most prestigious company in the history of the world.
Investment banks were among the ones that had to compensate their customers to the tune of tens of billions, because places like UBS were pawning off the toxic assets on their own customers till the bitter end.
I worked at a couple of investment banks and interviewed at a couple others. I trained about 110 new financial analysts, managers and IT types, as part of my role and then introduced them around the dept to the others. You would be amazed how many times they knew one another from previous IBs. It is a very small world.
These companies cross pollinate all the time, so it is same attitude, different place