.....“Ultra eager folks, trying too hard to contribute,” said David Allen, a classmate who sat in the back with Bannon.

“In my view, Steve was certainly top three in intellectual horsepower in our class — perhaps the smartest,” Allen said. “But he combined horsepower with logical, well-structured arguments. Whenever Steve spoke, my advice was to ‘listen for understanding.’ That is what I am doing today.”

During the first year at business school, most students covet jobs during the summer that will put their careers on a glidepath. And few jobs were as sought after as a summer associate at Goldman Sachs. Hundreds of students would vie for what often amounted to about 20 slots from Harvard.....

But some detected another side to him. One female classmate described Bannon as an “alpha male” with a bearing and attitude that made some women uncomfortable in class.....