Sidney Weinberg

  b. 1891; d. 1969 | American Investment Banker

At The Bottom

— 1907

His back was marked by the evidence of several knife fights he'd gotten into before he was even a teenager.

Sidney Weinberg was a 16-year-old boy from Brooklyn who never finished high school, dropping out after the eighth grade at the age of 13.  One of eleven children born into the family of a struggling bootlegger, Weinberg was scarred by his upbringing in the most literal of ways — his back was marked by the evidence of several knife fights he’d gotten into before he was even a teenager.  After leaving school, he worked at a variety of odd jobs, including peeling oysters and selling newspapers to ferry-goers arriving from Manhattan.  By 1907, he was working as a porter’s assistant in Lower Manhattan, where he drew a paycheck of $3 per week from the investment firm Goldman, Sachs and Company.