Lloyd Blankfein’s memoir “Streetwise” frames gold as a primal conversation piece, anchoring a new book charting gold’s full gilded history as an ancient asset.
Key Takeaways
Blankfein bought 1kg of gold in the 1980s for ~$15,000 (~$50,000 today) as a social object, not an investment.
Guests at dinner parties became “slightly mesmerised” and reluctant to let go, illustrating gold’s psychological hold beyond monetary value.
A new book uses this framing to trace gold’s long arc as both currency and cultural obsession.
The anecdote highlights the tension between gold as store-of-value asset and gold as irrational status signal.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters note gold occupies a rare “Goldilocks” scarcity band: scarce enough for high-value storage, common enough to be practically useful as currency.
Skepticism surfaced immediately about whether gold-themed coverage doubles as indirect promotion for gold-investment products.
Notable Comments
@sandworm101: flags the piece as potentially adjacent to “shady buy gold investment scams”
