After several months, Gutfreund became a clerk in the municipal bond department, eventually becoming a trader. He rose quickly through the company and became a full partner at the age of thirty four. In 1978, Billy Salomon named Gutfreund to succeed him as head of the firm, becoming the highest paid Wall Street executive at the time. Besides his executive office on the 43rd floor of 1 New York Plaza, Gutfreund frequently occupied a two-person desk at the head of the massive, double-decker 41st floor fixed income trading floor, known as 'the Room', where Gutfreund would regularly give advice to individual traders.