If you ask Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, there are some things you can’t teach.
Solomon was asked on a recent episode of Sequoia Capital’s “Long Strange Trip” podcast about the “slope versus experience” debate that’s popular in Silicon Valley: the notion that founders are hiring young, bright, high slope people over candidates who have been around the corporate block.
In the more traditional Wall Street world, Solomon said that experience is worth a whole lot, particularly because it breeds good judgment.
“Hugely underrated. By the way, hugely necessary, and a big differentiator for the firm,” Solomon said on the December 18 episode. “You can’t teach experience. That doesn’t mean somebody without experience can’t do very, very well.”
Experience and the associated judgment matter most when a company is facing challenges, Solomon said.
“They’re not 90-10 judgements. They’re 51-49 judgments,” Solomon said.
Goldman is no stranger to hiring young talent — Solomon said on the podcast that of the firm’s 49,000 employees, around 50% of them are in their twenties. (There were 48,300 employees employed at the firm as of September 30, according to Goldman’s third-quarter earnings report.) Yet when hiring people, young or old, Solomon said he doesn’t just look for the smartest applicants.
“I’m in the camp of smart enough. You have to be smart enough, but the smartest person in the world without a whole package of other things — not going to navigate Goldman Sachs well,” he said.
Softer skills, like the ability to connect with others, resilience, and determination, are necessary to succeed, Solomon added. He has previously said that grit and determination are key for young applicants who want to differentiate themselves in a hugely competitive hiring pool, and two Goldman partners told Business Insider that relationship-building is especially important in the AI era.
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