The Goldman Sachs board has a big problem. Their CEO is 64. They've identified the perfect solution. Replace him with someone who is 57.
Seven years. That's the age gap. That's the strategic masterstroke. David Solomon walks out the door and John Waldron walks in, and presumably the next seven years buy them enough time to find someone who is 50. Then 43. Then they just keep going until they hire a fetus.
This is succession planning at a bank that moves billions of dollars per second. The board met. They discussed the future. They looked at the org chart. They found a guy one layer down who has been around forever and decided that since he's slightly younger, problem solved.
Waldron has been president since 2018. He's been at Goldman since 2000. He knows where all the bodies are buried because he helped bury some of them. The board's revolutionary idea is to promote the guy who already runs half the company. Stunning.
Solomon is 64 and apparently that's elderly now. Waldron is 57 and that's the sweet spot. In seven years when Waldron is 64, they'll have another emergency meeting and find someone who is 57 at that moment. It's a flawless system that requires a board meeting every seven years.
Retail traders will read this headline and think it matters. They'll check their Goldman stock position. They'll wonder if Solomon's departure means something about the charts. They'll draw a line on a graph and call it analysis. The stock will do whatever it was going to do anyway because two guys in expensive suits swapping chairs changes absolutely nothing about the direction of money.
Goldman Sachs has solved aging by finding someone younger who will also age.
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