“When you account for every minute, you start seeing how much time quietly disappears.”
Long before he became the CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon was juggling sports, school activities, and part time jobs in upstate New York.
But he still felt broke. And when he complained to his father about not having enough money, he expected sympathy.
Maybe advice. Possibly help.
Instead, his father handed him something much simpler. A calendar.
“He told me to take out a calendar and write down everything I did each day,” Solomon recalled while speaking to MBA graduates at the The Wharton School. “And I noticed, when I had to account for every minute, that I actually wasted a reasonable amount of time.”
That realization changed his schedule almost immediately.
“Three weeks later, with a bit more intentionality in my schedule, I was working a second job flipping burgers at McDonald’s,” Solomon said.
It is the kind of story that sounds almost old fashioned now.
Teenage jobs. Calendars. Manual time tracking. No productivity apps. No AI assistant organizing your life.
But that is partly why the advice is landing differently today, especially among younger workers entering an economy already being reshaped by automation and AI systems.
Solomon’s broader message to graduates was not really about overworking yourself endlessly.
It was more about awareness.
Paying attention to where your time goes before complaining about opportunities not appearing.
And the timing of that message matters.
A growing number of younger workers are entering one of the strangest job markets in years, where companies are simultaneously investing heavily in AI while quietly reducing some entry level hiring.
That uncertainty is creating anxiety around what career growth even looks like now.
Solomon acknowledged the shifts happening around technology, but he also argued that certain habits still matter regardless of how industries evolve.
“Over my 42 year career, I found there are certain core values that transcend shifts in technology and culture,” he told the graduates.
The speech also revealed another side of Solomon that does not always fit the stereotypical Wall Street image.
Outside finance, he became known for performing electronic music under the name DJ D Sol, something many people inside corporate circles initially told him to abandon if he wanted to reach the top of Goldman Sachs.
“All sorts of people came to me saying, ‘You have to stop DJing if you want to be the CEO of Goldman Sachs,’” Solomon said. “Ultimately, I decided I enjoyed DJing too much to give it up.”
That part of the story probably resonated with younger audiences more than the productivity lesson itself.
Because behind the finance career and executive title, Solomon was also talking about identity.
About keeping parts of yourself alive outside work.
And honestly, that tension is becoming more visible across modern career culture now.
People want ambition. But they also want balance.
They want financial growth without becoming emotionally flattened by work.
Solomon appeared to recognize that contradiction directly.
“There’s something you do, each and every one of you, that gives you excitement and joy,” he told the students. “Don’t let it fall by the wayside.”
The comments arrive during a period when younger workers are being flooded with conflicting career advice online.
Work harder. Work less. Build side hustles. Protect your mental health. Learn AI. Avoid burnout.
The messaging changes every week depending on who is speaking.
But Solomon’s point was simpler than most internet productivity culture.
Track your time honestly and see where it actually goes. Then decide what matters enough to keep.
And despite all the technology now shaping work, that lesson probably feels familiar across generations because it is not really about banking at all.
It is about attention.
And how easily people lose control of it without noticing.
