From left, Goldman Sachs alumni: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; Robert E. Rubin of Citigroup; Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey; and Joshua B. Bolten, White House chief of staff.

For decades, one investment bank in Lower Manhattan has churned out a golden list of corporate executives and statesmen, wealthy financiers and nonprofit managers.

In many ways, Goldman Sachs is seen as the financial world’s equivalent of General Electric, the corporate powerhouse, or McKinsey & Company, the management consulting firm. It is a training ground — and finishing school —from which other companies, along with quite a few governments, have frequently plucked their own top leaders.

And it has seeded some of the most successful private investment funds, many of them extending Goldman’s shadow from Greenwich, Conn., to London and beyond.

Goldman claims among its alumni Henry M. Paulson Jr., the current Treasury secretary; Robert E. Rubin, a Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and now Citigroup’s chairman; and Mario Draghi, the Bank of Italy’s governor. Jon S. Corzine, New Jersey’s governor, led Goldman for several years. Joshua B. Bolten, the current White House chief of staff, is a Goldman alum.

Mr. Thain, who left Goldman as president and chief operating officer to take over the troubled New York Stock Exchange and now Merrill, falls squarely in that tradition.

To insiders, all this is a result of Goldman’s elite culture, a sense of close-knit partnership that has endured despite the firm’s decision in 1999 to turn itself into a publicly owned corporation. To detractors, the firm is alternately a cult or a secretive fraternity like Skull and Bones at Yale, one focused on profits and power.

The bottom line on Goldman is that it is stocked with bright people who practically mint money. Even as the implosion of the subprime mortgage market forced many of its rivals to take multibillion-dollar write-downs this summer, to cite just the most recent example, Goldman reported a 79 percent increase in profit.

“It’s a partnership culture that truly ruthlessly weeds out people,” said Brad Hintz, a research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein who has worked for two Goldman rivals, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers. “It’s the most elite group.”

Goldman is a perennial leader in the lucrative practice of advising on mergers and acquisitions. Its few recent mistakes, including troubles at several internal hedge funds, are subsumed by its eye-popping financial results.

That same pursuit of excellence — and money — is woven into the firm’s genetic code, outsiders and insiders alike say. Becoming a partner there is a more trying process than at other firms, including 9 to 12 years of evaluations known as 360-degree reviews and competition against an array of the best and the brightest, not just from the Ivy League and top business schools but diamonds in the rough from state universities as well.

Unlike its peers, Goldman has not suffered from disruptive events that altered its core culture. Even after going public, it has retained a partnership-like structure, and it has not undergone any transformative mergers like the union of Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter Reynolds. It has never been subsumed by a larger conglomerate, diluting its importance and reducing its top executives to middle managers.

Nor has it had a leader like E. Stanley O’Neal, Mr. Thain’s predecessor at Merrill, who actively worked to change that firm’s “Mother Merrill” image.

Goldman Sachs’ record is not unblemished. Its role in advising the New York Stock Exchange and Archipelago in their merger drew accusations of a conflict of interest. The firm’s own acquisition of Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, a market maker, for $7.4 billion was seen as a costly mistake.

Goldman is also known for its insularity. Roy C. Smith, a professor of finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University and a former Goldman executive, noted that relatively few employees defect to rivals. Those who do take positions at other firms, like Mr. Thain and Mr. Rubin, usually stop over at neutral ground first.

The firm also has a tradition in which partners are encouraged to leave at a relatively young age after making more than enough money to live well for the rest of their lives. There is another way of looking at it. Many of Goldman’s most successful traders and executives are still in their prime when they depart, unquestionably wealthy and undoubtedly self-assured. If they do not reach the top of the firm, one question is left, What’s next?

“The idea is that there’s a certain amount of turnover at the top,” Mr. Smith said. “There has always been a ready chain of people behind them.”

Goldman can afford to lose some of its best people because it fosters a deep managerial bench and gives a heavy emphasis to personal coaching. Those among its ranks anointed as future leaders attend special seminars. Even those who leave the firm to run less managerial businesses — hedge fund executives like Edward S. Lampert, Eric Mindich and Daniel Och — were instilled with the notion that success comes from building a team.