Goldman's Would-Be CEO Once Failed Its Modeling Test
John Waldron flunked Goldman Sachs's financial modeling test as a college senior and was turned down. Decades later he is in line to run the firm — with the shares at 902.78.
John Waldron, who has said he was rejected by Goldman Sachs out of college after performing poorly on the firm's financial modeling test, is now positioned to become the bank's next chief executive, with Goldman shares trading at 902.78, down 1.47%, at 18:54 GMT on Sept. 30, 2026.
John Waldron did not get a job at Goldman Sachs when he first asked for one. He has said he did poorly on the financial modeling test the firm put in front of applicants, and the firm passed. Decades later, he is positioned to run it.
That is the shape of the story reported by The Wall Street Journal, and it is worth pausing on before the succession mechanics take over. Goldman's recruiting screen — a timed exercise in building a spreadsheet model of a company's cash flows — is the sort of filter that decides thousands of careers a year at investment banks. It got this one wrong, by the only measure that ultimately counts inside the firm.
What the rejection says about how banks hire
Every large investment bank runs some version of the same funnel: a resume screen, a technical test, a superday of back-to-back interviews. The technical test exists because it is cheap, scalable and scoreable. A modeling exercise produces a number, and a number lets a recruiting committee rank hundreds of undergraduates without argument.
What it does not measure is the thing banks say they actually pay for at the senior level: the ability to hold a client relationship for twenty years, to price risk when the inputs are ambiguous, to run a business through a crisis and keep the people who matter. Those are judged over decades, not over ninety minutes with a spreadsheet. A candidate who fails the first test and later ends up in line for the corner office is a reminder that the two screens are not the same screen.
The anecdote has a practical use for anyone on the receiving end of a rejection letter this autumn. Banks recruit in cohorts, the cohorts are large, and the pass mark moves with the hiring budget rather than with any fixed standard of competence. A no in a given year is a statement about that year's intake, not a verdict on a career.
Where Goldman's shares sit as the succession question sharpens
Leadership transitions at the largest banks are rarely priced as events on their own. They matter through what they imply for strategy — how much capital goes to trading, how much to asset and wealth management, how aggressively the firm chases deals when the cycle turns.
Goldman Sachs (GS) last traded at 902.78, down 1.47% on the day, with a session range of 901.72 to 916.54 against a previous close of 916.24, as of 18:54 GMT on Sept. 30, 2026. The stock was near the bottom of its day range at that point.
The broader tape offered no obvious explanation. The S&P 500, as tracked by the SPY exchange-traded fund, was at $766.05, up 0.24%, and the Nasdaq 100 proxy QQQ was at $742.39, up 0.60%. The Dow 30 tracker DIA was the exception at $510.38, down 0.49%. So the bank was moving against the two broad equity benchmarks on the day, in line with the direction of the blue-chip index but by a wider margin.
None of that is a referendum on a succession story. Bank stocks on any given session are driven by the yield curve, credit spreads and the deal pipeline far more than by an organizational chart. But it sets the backdrop against which a new chief executive would inherit the franchise: a share price near the upper reaches of its history, and a market that is currently rewarding technology exposure more than financials.
The strategic inheritance, whoever signs for it
Bank stocks on any given session are driven by the yield curve, credit spreads and the deal pipeline far more than by an organizational chart.
Goldman's central question over the past several years has been one of mix. The firm's identity is trading and advisory — businesses that are enormously profitable in the right conditions and lumpy in the wrong ones. The push toward fee-based asset and wealth management has been an attempt to buy the market a smoother earnings stream, and to be paid a higher multiple for it.
A new chief executive does not get to restart that argument from scratch. Capital is already allocated, teams are already built, and the investor base has already formed a view about which version of Goldman it is underwriting. The realistic scope for change is at the margin: how fast the balance-sheet-light businesses grow, how much of the consumer-facing experiment stays buried, whether the firm leans further into private credit and alternatives while the fee pool there is still expanding.
There is also the internal question. Chief executive transitions at partnership-descended firms are political as much as commercial. Partners who backed one candidate need to be kept; those who backed another need a reason to stay. Retention of senior producers in the year after a handover is the quietest and most reliable indicator of whether a transition is going well.
What to watch from here
Three things are worth tracking. First, the formal announcement mechanics — the title, the effective date, and whether the outgoing chief executive stays on as chairman, which determines how much room a successor actually has in year one. Goldman's current chief executive is David Solomon.
Second, the first capital-allocation decision under new leadership. Buyback pace, dividend policy and any change in the firm's stated return-on-equity target will say more about direction than any strategy deck.
Third, the senior departures. Banks lose people after succession is resolved, because the losers of an internal contest become recruitable overnight. Rival firms know the calendar as well as anyone.
And somewhere in a recruiting file, the modeling test presumably still exists. It remains a reasonable way to sort a very large number of twenty-one-year-olds quickly. It is not, on the evidence, a reliable way to spot the one who ends up running the place.
Key facts
- Goldman Sachs (GS) price: 902.78, -1.47%, as of 18:54 GMT Sept. 30, 2026
- Day range: 901.72–916.54, previous close 916.24
- The subject: John Waldron, rejected by Goldman out of college, now poised to run the bank
- Benchmarks that session: SPY $766.05 (+0.24%), QQQ $742.39 (+0.60%), DIA $510.38 (-0.49%)
Frequently asked questions
Who is John Waldron?
John Waldron is the Goldman Sachs executive reported to be poised to become the bank's next chief executive. He has said publicly that when he applied to the firm out of college decades ago, he did not do well on its financial modeling test and was rejected. He joined later in his career and rose through the ranks.
What is a financial modeling test?
It is a timed technical exercise used by investment banks to screen junior applicants. Candidates build a spreadsheet projecting a company's revenue, costs and cash flows, often under strict time limits. It produces a comparable score across hundreds of applicants, which is why banks use it, but it measures technical mechanics rather than long-term client or leadership ability.
Where was Goldman Sachs stock trading?
Goldman Sachs (GS) last traded at 902.78, down 1.47% on the day, as of 18:54 GMT on Sept. 30, 2026. The previous close was 916.24 and the session range ran from 901.72 to 916.54, leaving the shares near the low end of the day's band while broad equity benchmarks were mixed.
Did the succession news move the share price?
There is no evidence it did. Large-bank share prices on a given day are driven mainly by interest rates, credit conditions and deal activity rather than by management changes. Goldman fell 1.47% on the session while the S&P 500 proxy SPY rose 0.24% and the Nasdaq 100 proxy QQQ rose 0.60%.
Who currently runs Goldman Sachs?
David Solomon is Goldman Sachs's chief executive. In any bank succession, a key detail is whether the departing chief executive remains as chairman, because that determines how much independent room a successor has in the first year and how quickly strategic changes can be pushed through the board.
What should investors watch after a CEO transition at a major bank?
Three signals matter most: the formal timing and title structure of the handover, the first capital-allocation decisions such as buyback pace and dividend policy, and senior departures. Executives who lose an internal succession contest become recruitable immediately, so retention of top revenue producers is an early indicator of how smoothly the transition is going.
Sources
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