Investment bank Goldman Sachs was, until 1998, Wall Street's last major private partnership, and significantly more profitable than any of its publicly-owned competitors. How it sustained this success for most of its 129 years has for decades intrigued financial players and pundits. In this study, the company's history and mystique are examined by a former Goldman Sachs vice-president. Endlich traces the rise and development of the firm in the context of its prevailing concept: "People and Culture". She documents how close client-contact, teamwork and focus on long-term profitability over short-term goals brought the firm to a pinnacle of $3 billion pretax profits in 1997. In June 1998, the partners of Goldman Sachs voted to go public.