Gupta studied in New Delhi and at the Wharton Business School.
AB Wire
NEW YORK: Details of the death of Sarvshreshth Gupta, 22, who worked as a tech/media/telecom analyst in Goldman Sachs’ San Francisco office, have yet to be revealed, but it’s now confirmed that the young graduate of Wharton Business School, who had attended the Delhi Public School in New Delhi, and got dual degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, was under tremendous work pressure, with little rest.
Gupta, who began working at Goldman in the fall of 2014, died in April. His father Sunil Gupta published an essay entitled “A Son Never Dies” on May 17th, a month after his death, reported Business Insider, giving insight into the extremely hectic life of a young banker, who seemed to have succumbed under relentless work pressure.
In the heartbreaking essay posted on Medium, Sunil Gupta writes about how his son was dealing with stress at work before his untimely death this spring. According to the excerpts originally reported by The New York Times, Sunil said that his son complained about the intense hours early on in his career, but claimed he could handle it.
… ‘Papa, I do not get enough sleep. I work twenty hours at a stretch.’ During certain weeks, he was working on weekends too. I protested. ‘Son you will ruin your health,’ I complained. He would say, ‘Come on Papa, I am young and strong. Investment banking is hard work.’
“From mid-January, he started complaining.’ This job is not for me. Too much work and too little time. I want to come back home.’
“As probably, any parent would react, we counselled him to keep going, as such difficult phases were inevitable in a high pressure new job. ‘Sonny, all are of your age, young and ambitious, keep going,’ I would say.
“In third week of March 2015, he submitted his resignation, without consulting us, and called us. My first sentence to him was, ‘ Sonny I did not want you to quit, but now since, you have done so, we are with you. Come back home’. He sounded sad and disturbed, ‘Papa, it will take some time to exit. HR will close in some time.’ I asked, ‘what you want to do now?’ ‘Well, I will rejuvenate myself, eat home cooked food, walk and go to gym, and finally work with and expand our school,’ he replied.”
Soon after, though, Gupta rejoined Goldman, and his troubles began soon again, despite counseling services at work.
Sunil writes: “Destiny was marking its time for the family. We had no clue that we were going to be hit by a tsunami, which would uproot our lives, never to be rooted again. By a quirk of fate, he was asked by his company, to reconsider his resignation and under pressure from me, he rejoined.
“Poor son, he re-joined and did his best to come to terms with hard, continuous work, no breaks, no sleep and no respite.
“April, 16, 2015, 3.10 pm, India time. That is,+ 12.30 hours, California time. He calls us and says, ‘it is too much. I have not slept for two days, have a client meeting tomorrow morning, have to complete a presentation, my VP is annoyed and I am working alone in my office.’
“I got furious. ‘Take fifteen days leave and come home’, I said. He quipped ‘they will not allow’. I said, ‘tell them to consider this as your resignation letter.’
“Finally, he agreed to complete his work in about an hour, go to his apartment which was half a mile from his office block and return in the morning.
“The dawn never came in our lives, my sonny boy, never reached his apartment. A monster, a devil in his giant motor vehicle, sniffed the life out of him. My son, whose bones, blood and flesh were my very own, was victim of a cruel, momentary lapse of an individual, who too, is surely somebody’s son.”
The details surrounding a Goldman Sachs analyst’s death remain murky, though, reported Business Insider.
According to Dealbook’s Sorkin, the young bank analyst’s body was found in a parking lot by his apartment building. It’s believed that he may have fallen from his building, according to the Dealbook report. The medical examiner’s office hasn’t released a cause of death at
Bloomberg reported that six weeks after Gupta’s death, Thomas Hughes, a 29-year-old Moelis & Co. banker, was found dead outside his residence at 1 West St. in New York, where he lived on the 24th floor. His injuries were consistent with a fall, police said.
Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs have sought in recent years to improve the experience for their new recruits, who carry out the Excel and Powerpoint grunt work that goes into presentations and ideas for clients. The shift, prompted by the 2013 death of a Bank of America Corp. intern, has been driven in part by a fear that the brightest college graduates don’t view investment banking as a sustainable career, Bloomberg report said.
Goldman Sachs hired larger classes of analysts, the title held by entry-level bankers, and encouraged them to stay out of the office on Saturdays. The firm also stopped offering analysts two-year contracts, making them full-time employees from the start.
Still, 100-hour weeks aren’t unheard of, and a client request can easily wreck a junior employee’s weekend. Gupta’s late nights on the technology, media and telecom banking team would have helped serve some of the firm’s highest-profile clients, it noted.
“We are saddened by Sav’s death and feel deeply for his family,” Michael DuVally, a Goldman Sachs spokesman in New York, said in an e-mailed statement. “We hope that people will respect the family’s expressed desire for privacy during this difficult time.”
By all accounts, Gupta was a brilliant student and an over achiever.
At Penn, he made the dean’s list and was a member of Eta Kappa Nu, an electrical and computer engineering honor society. He was a fan of soccer and the television shows “House” and “Family Guy,” according to his Facebook profile.
While back pain limited Gupta’s ability to play sports in college, he enjoyed marathon games of chess with his father, according to the essay. Even as work kept the banker from seeing his parents on weeknights during a September visit, he was “happy and excited” as he discussed his Goldman Sachs job over pizza with his father.
“After the meal, my son offered to pay the check,” his father wrote. “My chest swelled with pride. Emotions were uncontrollable. Eyes were moist with love, pride and happiness.”