{"id":879782,"date":"2025-12-23T00:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T06:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/23\/goldman-sachs-ceo-says-hed-hire-someone-smart-enough-over-the-smartest-person-in-the-world-because-ultimately-experience-trumps-brains\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T00:12:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T06:12:04","slug":"goldman-sachs-ceo-says-hed-hire-someone-smart-enough-over-the-smartest-person-in-the-world-because-ultimately-experience-trumps-brains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/23\/goldman-sachs-ceo-says-hed-hire-someone-smart-enough-over-the-smartest-person-in-the-world-because-ultimately-experience-trumps-brains\/","title":{"rendered":"Goldman Sachs CEO says he\u2019d hire someone \u2018smart enough\u2019 over the smartest person in the world because ultimately experience trumps brains"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easier to get into an Ivy League school<\/a> than it is to land a job at $268 billion banking giant Goldman Sachs<\/a>. But unlike the colleges, the business isn\u2019t chasing the most intelligent minds floating into its talent pools. David Solomon<\/a>, the CEO of Goldman, says he\u2019s in the \u201ccamp of smart enough.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou have to be smart enough, but the smartest person in the world without a whole package of other things [is] not going to navigate Goldman Sachs well, not going to be successful in Goldman Sachs over the long run,\u201d Solomon revealed recently<\/a> on Sequoia Capital\u2019s Long Strange Trip <\/em>podcast.<\/p>\n

There are a few key qualities Solomon looks for in new hires, over educational pedigree. The CEO said the most attractive candidates are in touch with \u201chuman elements\u201d like the ability to connect, be resilient, and determined. They always need to be striving for excellence\u2014and on top of everything else, should come to Goldman Sachs with a proven track record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Experience, Solomon said, is \u201chugely underrated\u201d and \u201ca big differentiator for the firm.\u201d It\u2019s not impossible<\/a> to do very well without it<\/a>, he added, but relying on book smarts over real-life expertise won\u2019t get one hired at the bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t teach experience,\u201d Solomon explained. \u201cExperience matters in these big organizations and when it matters it doesn\u2019t matter when things are going well. It matters when the bumps come. You\u2019ve got to make difficult judgments.\u201d<\/p>\n

CEOs aren\u2019t always going for the brightest Ivy League grads<\/h2>\n

Solomon isn\u2019t the only CEO choosing life skills over intellectual excellence. Even the CEO of LinkedIn<\/a>, Ryan Roslansky<\/a>, has cautioned that instead of chasing candidates with Ivy League backgrounds, hiring managers today will be on the hunt for<\/a> AI-savvy talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the mindset shift is probably the most exciting thing because my guess is that the future of work belongs not anymore to the people that have the fanciest degrees or went to the best colleges,\u201d Roslansky said during a recent fireside chat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even Berkshire Hathaway<\/a>\u2019s Warren Buffett<\/a> looks past Ivy League degrees<\/a> when it comes to hiring. The hedge fund mogul, worth $149 billion, doesn\u2019t care if his employees went to Stanford or Princeton\u2014or any college at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While discussing Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s 2005 acquisition of Forest River, an RV manufacturer led by Pete Liegl, he said \u201cno competitor came close to his performance\u201d despite Liegl not hailing from an incredibly prestigious university. Buffett also pointed to Microsoft<\/a> entrepreneur Bill Gates<\/a>, who achieved billion-dollar success without a college diploma.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI never look at where a candidate has gone to school. Never!\u201d Buffett said in his 2025<\/a> annual letter to shareholders. \u201cOf course, there are great managers who attended the most famous schools. But there are plenty such as Pete [Liegl] who may have benefited by attending a less prestigious institution or even not bothering to finish school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even elite college degrees\u2014once the benchmark of intelligence\u2014have fallen flat, according to business leaders. The iconic Harvard University dropout himself, Meta<\/a>\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg<\/a>, said that colleges aren\u2019t skilling graduates<\/a> for the jobs they need. The Facebook creator cautioned that the tide is changing as people figure out whether pursuing a degree makes sense anymore, especially as employers hunt for new talent skills.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to have to be a reckoning,\u201d Zuckerberg said on the<\/a> <\/em>This Past Weekend <\/em>podcast in April. \u201cPeople are going to have to figure out whether that makes sense. It\u2019s sort of been this taboo thing to say, \u2018Maybe not everyone needs to go to college,\u2019 and because there\u2019s a lot of jobs that don\u2019t require that\u2026People are probably coming around to that opinion a little more now than maybe like 10 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Join us at the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit <\/strong>May 19\u201320, 2026, in Atlanta. The next era of workplace innovation is here\u2014and the old playbook is being rewritten. At this exclusive, high-energy event, the world\u2019s most innovative leaders will convene to explore how AI, humanity, and strategy converge to redefine, again, the future of work. Register now<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Emma Burleigh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easier to get into an Ivy League school than it is to land a job at $268 billion banking giant Goldman Sachs. But unlike the colleges, the business isn\u2019t chasing the most intelligent minds floating into its talent pools. David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman, says he\u2019s in the \u201ccamp of smart enough.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":879783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-879782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-goldman","8":"category-sachs"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}