@GSElevator: Goldman Sachs’ Elevator Twitter Poster Unmasked

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Goldman Sachs is probably resting a bit easier now that the person who created the Twitter parody account @GSElevator has been unmasked. According to Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times’ DealBook, the person never worked at the firm.

@GSElevator account parodies industry

John Lefevre reportedly created that parody account, which tweets about supposed conversations overheard while riding on the elevator at Goldman Sachs’ headquarters. Although he had received an offer from Goldman Sachs in 2010, he never ended up taking the job because of spat with his previous employer. He did, however, work at Citigroup for seven years.

The Twitter user said the account wasn’t about himself or about Goldman Sachs. He simply wanted to shed some light on the culture of the investment banking industry. He reportedly claimed that he really did overhear the conversations he posted on his account, and he said he had been collecting them for a number of years. Of course that doesn’t mean that the conversations were overheard in Goldman Sachs’ elevator. As a member of the investment banking industry, he could have overheard them almost anywhere.

Occupy Wall Street

The @GSElevator Twitter account has been around for about three years. At the time Lefevre started it, the Occupy Wall Street movement was going strong. He said he wasn’t trying to make fun of or glamorize Wall Street, but rather, simply shed some light on it. As he got into the investment banking industry, he began to see those who worked in it as being less “impressive” than he originally thought they were or than they thought they themselves were.

He also noted that he heard some rather odd remarks from Goldman Sachs employees around the tie he was offered a job with the firm. For example, workers would go to a bar, buy drinks for women and then tell them that the drinks “are on Goldman Sachs.”

Last month it was announced that Lefevre had landed a book deal, and it comes as no surprise as his Twitter account has more than 600,000 followers.

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