David Solomon has spent more than four decades at Goldman Sachs. He joined as an analyst in 1985. Now chairman and chief executive, he steers one of Wall Street’s most powerful institutions. And he holds a clear view on talent. Brains alone don’t cut it.
“I would hire someone smart enough over the smartest person in the world if they didn’t have the experience,” Solomon told Fortune during an interview at the Milken Institute Global Conference last October. “I think experience is more important than IQ.”
The remark landed with force. It challenged the tech industry’s obsession with prodigious intellect and elite pedigrees. It also revealed how the 67-year-old leader thinks about building teams in an era of rapid change. Solomon didn’t dismiss intelligence. He simply ranked it second.
His stance reflects a lifetime on trading floors and in boardrooms. Raw cognitive horsepower can dazzle in interviews. Yet it often falters when markets turn volatile or deals hit snags. Experience, by contrast, breeds judgment. It teaches when to push and when to pause. Solomon knows this firsthand. He climbed Goldman’s ranks through mergers, crises and booms.
But the conversation has evolved. Artificial intelligence now reshapes how banks recruit, train and deploy young professionals. In June 2026 Solomon sat down with Bloomberg’s “Odd Lots” podcast. He predicted entry-level hiring at Goldman could “contract a little” over the next three years. Business Insider reported the comments in detail.
“We’re still going to hire a lot of people out of school,” he assured listeners. This year the bank planned to bring on 2,400 to 2,500 interns and a similar number of full-time new graduates. Those figures sit near pre-pandemic norms, though below the 2021 peak that exceeded 3,000.
The mix is shifting too. Goldman has tilted toward engineering talent for a decade. AI tools promise to accelerate that trend. “Given the power of these tools and our ability to code,” Solomon said, expect further adjustments. Yet he pushed back against doomsayers. In a May 2026 New York Times op-ed he declared the AI jobs apocalypse overblown. Goldman Sachs economists project the technology could automate 25 percent of work tasks over the next decade. Demand for data centers has already created more than 200,000 construction jobs since 2022. New roles in client-facing banking, trading and asset management will offset losses elsewhere.
Still, the training challenge looms large. Solomon recalled his own early days. No real-time data feeds. No instant analytics. He compared stock performance by pulling prices from microfiche, clipping articles from The Wall Street Journal, plotting graphs by hand. The grind built critical thinking. “Now, if you ask for it, you get it instantaneously,” he observed on the podcast. “Has your brain really absorbed what’s actually happening?”
That question haunts modern onboarding. Interns can summon sophisticated models with a prompt. They bypass the repetition that once forged intuition. So Goldman must rethink how it develops talent. Solomon offered old-fashioned advice. Pick up the phone. “A telephone call to someone is 10 times more valuable than a text or an email,” he said. His daughter calls the statistic unverified. He stands by it anyway.
The comments sparked fresh discussion on social media this week. Users on X recirculated the Fortune article, often pairing it with Solomon’s AI remarks. One post asked a pointed follow-up: how many hires made under this experience-first rule will show measurable performance gains in the next 12 months? The query captured Wall Street’s bottom-line mindset. Philosophy matters. Results matter more.
Solomon’s hiring creed also aligns with Goldman’s broader culture. He describes the firm as deliberately flat. Employees earn respect by challenging superiors with evidence, not deference. “We have a culture where people are encouraged to speak their minds,” he told Fortune. “We want people who are smart enough to challenge us.”
This preference for intellectual courage over pedigree shows up in promotion decisions too. The bank has expanded diversity in leadership. Solomon stressed finding the best talent regardless of background. Yet he never suggested lowering standards. Experience, he believes, levels the field. A seasoned operator from a non-target school can outperform an untested genius from an Ivy League program.
Critics wonder whether such views risk complacency. Technology moves faster than ever. Today’s experience can become tomorrow’s blind spot. AI systems already outperform humans on narrow tasks once reserved for analysts. If banks over-weight tenure, might they miss the next wave of innovators?
Solomon appears alive to that tension. His firm invests heavily in technology and data. He has publicly backed AI adoption while cautioning against hype. Markets, he told CNBC in early June 2026, have swung into “greed” mode as AI companies prepare massive fundraising rounds and potential IPOs. Plenty of liquidity exists, he noted. The test will come when those expectations meet reality.
For now his message to aspiring bankers remains consistent. Demonstrate you can deliver under pressure. Show you learn from setbacks. Prove you grasp context beyond spreadsheets. Intelligence helps open doors. Judgment keeps them open across decades.
Goldman still woos top graduates. Its internship program ranks among the most competitive. Yet the CEO’s public comments signal a subtle recalibration. In an AI-augmented workplace, the premium on lived expertise may only grow. Raw smarts become table stakes. The ability to integrate machine output with human insight becomes the differentiator.
Executives across finance watch closely. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has echoed themes of economic resilience and measured hiring. Other bank leaders wrestle with similar talent equations. Solomon’s candor offers a rare window into how one of the industry’s most scrutinized figures balances tradition with disruption.
He doesn’t romanticize the past. Microfiche taught lessons, but no one wants to return to it. Instead he urges deliberate adaptation. Train new hires to question AI outputs. Insist on direct communication. Reward those who blend analytical firepower with hard-earned perspective.
The approach may not satisfy purists who chase the absolute smartest person in the room. Solomon would likely respond that he’s not looking for the smartest. He’s looking for someone who can make the smartest decisions when it counts. Experience, time and again, tips the scale.
As Goldman navigates markets fueled by artificial intelligence enthusiasm, its own talent strategy will face scrutiny. Solomon has set the tone. Smart enough, plus seasoned judgment, beats unproven brilliance. The coming years will test whether that formula produces the results Wall Street demands.
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