Editor’s Note: In his 2026 Wharton MBA graduation address, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon emphasizes that despite rapid technological shifts, core human values remain the ultimate driver of long-term success. Drawing on lessons from his own 42-year career—and his well-known side passion as a DJ—he challenges the graduates to continuously strive for excellence in a rapidly changing world. By focusing on growth, commitment, connection, and passion, he reassures the class of 2026 that there has never been a better time to step into the future. (May 16, 2026)
TRANSCRIPT:
DAVID SOLOMON:
Thank you all very much. This is a better crowd than Lollapalooza. I used to tell my friends that someday I’d be on the court at the Cathedral of College Basketball. I never expected it would be as a 64-year-old bank executive. But here we are.
Dean James, thank you for asking me to be here today. It is a great honor, and I too want to start by saying congratulations to the Wharton MBA class of 2026.
I have had the great pleasure of working with hundreds of Wharton alums at Goldman Sachs. When I ask what makes this place special, I often hear about the rigors of the classroom, the devotion of the faculty, or the global reach of the alumni network. One alum said, “It’s like the best dinner party you’ve ever been to. It lasts two years.” But one theme is constant. This is a group of people that strives for excellence.
This is a value I hold deeply, striving for excellence, though admittedly it looked very different when I was your age. Let me paint you a picture.
The World Has Changed — But Excellence Remains Constant
Today if you want to compare a stock price’s performance to its peers, you say ten words into your phone and it spits out the result faster than you can get a drink at Bonner’s. But when I was starting out back in the prehistoric days of the 1980s, I had to go to the library, hold old issues of the Wall Street Journal, write down the historical stock prices while brushing back my long flowing hair, plot them on a piece of graph paper, and then take a picture of it on a Xerox machine. The whole process took about six hours.
Then I would go to my client and I would say, “Here’s how your stock traded versus these five competitors over the last five years.” They would look at me and say, “Thank you so much. I’ve never seen such brilliance.”
The world is very different now. But the way I see it, today is the best day in the history of the world to be in your shoes and tomorrow will be even better. That does not mean perfect. But as the world evolves, technology empowers people in ways generations before us couldn’t dream of. It is exciting. The opportunity in front of you is enormous. But I’m here today to remind you that it is up to each and every one of you to capture it.
Over my 42-year career, I’ve found there are certain core values that transcend shifts in technology and culture. And if you work at them, they’ll not only help you strive for excellence and capture opportunity, they will give you a better chance of looking back when you’re older, like me, and being satisfied with how you’ve spent your time.
Core Value #1: Growth — Embrace Criticism and Be Open to Change
The first one I had to learn the hard way. I was in my 30s, working at Bear Stearns, and I had a deal go south in what felt like a spectacular failure. I went storming into the office of my mentor, Richie Metrick, and I was extremely emotional. He looked at me, all bent out of shape, my arms were waving, and he said, “Would you like to have a conversation about this?” I shouted back at him, “Yes!” He said, “Then why don’t you go back out there, calm down, and try that again.”
So I literally walked back out of his office, took a deep breath, and walked back in with a much more balanced and constructive approach. We talked for an hour, which brings me to my first value.
Growth. Embrace criticism. Be open to change. It is a wonderful life skill to examine our faults and then adapt. One of the things that has helped me enormously is finding mentors I trust, and then trusting them when they tell me I can do better.
I learned a lot about this from my dad, who was a leading expert in what I could do better. When I was in high school, I once complained to him that I didn’t have enough money to do the things I wanted to do. His response?
DAVID SOLOMON: Get another job. I told him I can’t. I had essays to write, I played three sports, I scooped 31 flavors of ice cream at Baskin Robbins. So he told me to take out a calendar and write down everything I did each day. And I noticed, when I had to account for every minute, that I actually wasted a reasonable amount of time. Three weeks later, with a bit more intentionality in my schedule, I was working a second job, flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
My father had a great way of never telling me what to do, but always showing me a different way of looking at things. So find strong mentors, embrace criticism, and be open to change.
Commitment: Show Up
Second value is commitment. Show up. More than a little success comes from knowing what matters to you and who matters to you, and then showing up over and over again.
When I was seven years into my career, an impressive entrepreneur was planning to shake up the casino business in Las Vegas, and I wanted to help him raise money to finance his aspirations.
One day, we invited him for lunch at Bear Stearns, and he arrived two hours late for the meeting, just after the executive dining room had closed. We had ordered sandwiches, but he felt slighted that he wasn’t important enough to be served a hot lunch. He left in a huff.
I was only a 29-year-old investment banker, but I was determined to secure him as a client. So every three to four weeks for several years, I flew up to Boston to have lunch with him, always in his office, always served hot. And slowly but surely, we built a trusting relationship.
Seven years later, he decided to raise over $1 billion to finance the development of his flagship property in Las Vegas. At long last, he called me to say, “I want you to help me with the finances.” But there was a catch. He wanted me to work with Goldman Sachs.
Now, in retrospect, perhaps it was prudent of him not to put all his eggs in the Bear Stearns basket. But I took it personally. I had spent seven years cultivating this opportunity, and now I had to share it with someone else. I swallowed my pride. My counterpart at Goldman Sachs, John Winkledreid, and I ended up working incredibly well together. And then on the flight back from the closing dinner, John turned to me and said, “So, would you ever think about coming to work at Goldman Sachs?” It was then that I realized I could finally quit my job at Baskin-Robbins.
As you progress in your career, your priorities will shift and expand. Choose to show up when it matters, both in business and in your personal life.
My daughters were five and seven when they decided they wanted a magician for their birthday parties. Now, my dad used to teach me magic tricks when I was growing up. And because I hated drinking milk, my mom used to watch me make it disappear into a cornucopia of newspaper so I didn’t have to drink it. But fast forward to age 35, my magic was rusty.
So I practiced for months. For example, you know those metal rings that magicians play with that magically link together and pull apart? It’s a sleight of hand trick, and it takes some practice. I’d be holed up in my office at home, doors closed, and my daughters would hear loud clanks down the hallway as I tried to get the motions right, followed by inappropriate curse words that they really shouldn’t repeat.
Were they the best magic shows? No. Did I wear a tuxedo and have perfectly curated stories for each trick? Yes. Do my daughters still tell stories about this more than 25 years later? Absolutely. Know what matters to you, and show up.
Connection: Invest in People and Relationships
Which brings me to the third value. Connection. Invest in people and relationships. The truth is, you guys don’t have to look hard to find smart, funny, interesting people in your life. You’re graduating with over 800 of them.
Stay Connected: The Power of Relationships
As you go back into your careers all over the world, try hard to stay connected. There have been various times in my career when every week I picked up the phone and tried to call three to five people. No agenda. Just, hey, I’m thinking about you. How are you? Especially if they were in a challenging moment.
I didn’t think much of it at the time, but years later people started telling me how meaningful it was to them. And in more than a few cases, it deepened our relationship. The telephone is one of the most underrated technologies of the world. A phone call to someone is ten times more effective than a text or an email. My daughter says that’s an unverified statistic, but I know it’s true.
We’re now, and I’m really dating myself with this, a handwritten thank you note. Even if, like me, your handwriting is terrible. People are touched by this. I know I am. In my office, I keep an entire drawer full of notes that people have written to me, thanking me for something that was meaningful to them.
I’ve had an interesting career, but one of the most rewarding things has been playing a small role in other people’s success along the way. No matter what path you choose, invest in relationships. It will help you succeed. It will make your journey more fulfilling.
The Fourth Value: Passion
But to keep yourself going through the long journey ahead of you, you need a fourth and last value I want to talk about, and that’s passion. Cultivate what fuels you, and don’t let it go. It’s important to choose a profession you’re passionate about. I did. I love finance, and I love the career journey I’ve been on. But it is also important and necessary, I think, to have passions away from your work.
It was July 2017 when my own passion came under scrutiny, and I felt serious pressure to give it up. Six months earlier, I had become the president of Goldman Sachs, and my visibility had increased. That day in July, the New York Times headline read, “At Goldman, he’s David Solomon, at the club, he’s DJ D-Stock.”
A Lifelong Love of Music
I have always, always had a passion for music. In college, I was officially the social chair of my fraternity, and unofficially, I was the guy who made the mixtapes for parties, and we had a few. I’d transfer songs one by one from LP record to cassette, finding exactly the right order to bring down the house.
At our annual Christmas party, it was Bruce Springsteen’s Santa Claus is Coming to Town, straight into Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones, always finishing with Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins. Grads, try and play that sequence to your parents. You’ll see a side of them you’ve never seen before.
I want to pause there just for a second, off script. I went last night to see Bruce Springsteen at Madison Square Garden. He is 76 years old, and he can still rock, and he is in Philadelphia on May 30th. If you happen to be here, you should definitely go see him.
Through the years, while I’ve worked hard in a career, I’ve never stopped loving music. I was the guy, at any event, with a computer, multiple playlists, and an off script. Thank God they invented the iPhone, and I don’t have to lug my computer around anymore.
Don’t Give Up What Grounds You
So when that article came out, I had been DJing on the side for a number of years. All sorts of people came to me saying, you have to stop DJing if you want to be the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Ultimately, I decided I enjoyed DJing too much to give it up, and it’s something I still do today, although a little bit less visibly.
It enriches my life, and it’s kept me grounded in turbulent times. And besides, and many of you know this, nothing is more exciting than a damn good drop at 130 beats per minute. I also never thought my list of personal references would include Hank Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein, The Chainsmokers, Kygo, and Tiesto.
The Best Day in the History of the World
There’s something you do, each and every one of you, that gives you excitement and joy. Don’t let it fall by the wayside. You have a long journey in front of you, full of setbacks and tough days. It will be a lot easier to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, if you stay connected to what it is that lights you up.
This is an exciting moment. You’re entering the workforce at a time when technology is once again reshaping our everyday lives. After all, we live in an age of self-driving cars, reusable rockets, and an app called TUNO, which some of you might be familiar with. It’s an AI app that helps you produce music instantaneously.
As I was preparing for this, I gave it a prompt, and here’s what I said. “Hey TUNO, I’m at Wharton’s graduation, and I’d like you to make an anthem for the MBA class of 2026. Let’s create an upbeat house song, approximately 120 beats a minute, that talks about why Wharton’s grads should be optimistic about what’s in front of them in the years ahead, and how today is the best day in the history of the world to be in their shoes, and tomorrow will be better.”
Here’s what TUNO came up with.
“Class of 2026, we showed up both, case by case, but our hearts stayed gold. From Huntsman Hall to the Darling Floor, we learned how to build, and then build more. You brought the fire, I brought the dry. Now look at us, we’re fully alive. Hands up high, let it come. New world calling, here it comes. Everyone’s got us to start, now we know just who we are. Today is the best day in the history of the world, and tomorrow will be better. Wharton 2026, we ride together. Wharton 2026, we ride together. Open our pockets and we’re still getting there.”
That comes with two more verses and three more choruses. It’s not out publicly yet. That took ten seconds to create. That’s not the future, that’s right now.
The Opportunity Is Yours to Capture
This is the world you are entering, and as you do, be open to change. Show up when it matters. Invest in your relationships. Cultivate your passions. Because today is the best day in the history of the world to be in your shoes, and the opportunity in front of you is enormous. It is yours to capture.
To the Wharton MBA class of 2026, I look forward to seeing what you will all do next, but whatever you do, I urge you to always strive for excellence. Never settle for anything less. Thank you and congratulations.
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