A Goldman partner tells Fortune that Evans hoped to use the scrutiny surrounding Goldman's current culture, widely viewed as the creation of Blankfein and Cohn, to gain control and influence at the firm. But at that time the board ultimately remained loyal to Blankfein, says a source close to the board, and it seemed that Evans was on his way out. Or was he? A Bloomberg column asserts that Evans actually benefited from the Greg Smith brouhaha. With the "public indictment of Goldman's culture under the leadership of Blankfein and Cohn," Bloomberg argues that "the Machiavellian Evans… can be presented to the Goldman board — and to the public — as a worldly, client- oriented, cleaner-than-clean savior and return of the old-school style investment-banker at Goldman."