This is only my opinion, but I think the reason Armen said it like he did was because by not making it an order he's giving Sean the option of not doing it, if he's not up for accepting the risk. However the risk was both of them could have got fired.

Armen must have known people would know Python had been put on these machines and that he authorised it, in fact what's the point of putting it on them if nobody knows and nobody uses it? I can guarantee you that within 24 hours someone was asking Armen why he'd authorised this and was justifying it. There cannot have been any possibility of dodging responsibility for this decision. If anyone got fired it would have been Armen, with a possibility of Sean going as collateral damage.

This is the big league. You make your decisions and you accept responsibility for them.

Exactly, so what is this Armen character getting out of this other than a potentially big amount of liability and unarticulated risk.

The OP said he told people openly that Armen told him he could do it when asked.

This makes no sense to me, what’s the upside to Armen? If he is business savvy, he needs to be gaining something in exchange for having his name thrown around by OP as signing off on this.

Guess the Python was useful? From an FT article:

>In 2011 Goldman Sachs put its top computer wizard, Armen Avanessians, in charge of the division. He has helped turn round its fortunes. The arm’s assets under management reached a nadir of $38bn in 2012, but it now manages $91.8bn...

Wow hope OP got a chunk of that!

It's a bank, so probably his reward for good performance was 10k at Christmas.

Hahahah 10k maybe if he was a new intern. Off by an order of magnitude

You may have dropped a couple of zeroes there.

Maybe that bank is more generous. The one I worked at begrudgingly counted out the pennies like it was coming out of the war orphans fund or something.

He's doing his job, which is to ensure people have the tools and resources available to do their jobs. You know, furthering the goals of the organisation.

Money or less risk of losing money. Partners originate deals and/or manage risk. He was looking for accelerated process to make informed decisions.

Nah, I don't think that's why he did it.

You say he reached out to you and asked if you liked Python. He probably wanted to roll out Python and was looking for someone who wanted to do it. If he told someone to do something they weren't passionate about, they would fail. He wanted to make sure it succeeded, so he reached out to you.

If he's such a bigshot and everyone was frightened of him, he must not have been afraid of them. When he said, "you wouldn't get fired," he probably meant what he said. He was giving you air cover. And it worked. When the gnomes came out after you, you just sent them to him. And they didn't bother you again.

I can imagine how the conversation went:

"Armen, did you tell Sean to install Python"

"No, did he"?

"Yes he did!"

"Great!!"

Now the gnomes are on their backfoot and have to defend why Sean shouldn't install Python If this guy Armen told you to do it, Armen has to defend himself to them.

Hehe. Well I guess you would have a unique insight into his thought process. ;-) But yes indeed that's certainly another explanation and it did indeed work that way.

Air cover is crucial, but you can't take land without good boots on the ground ;)

Well thanks for the air cover, and for all the other opportunities you provided for me and others at GS. I really appreciate it. It was an amazing time and I learned a great deal.