Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said that “candidly,” the bank still has work to do when it comes to gender diversity.When asked about the percentage of employees at the bank – which came under scrutiny last year for a dearth of women at the top – Solomon said they’d taken at least some steps in the right direction.
“We’ve made a bunch of progress, especially in the senior ranks, but candidly not enough, and we continue to be focused on creating opportunities,” Solomon said at the Economic Club of washington on Thursday. He added that it’s a “long, long road” to get to the top of the firm, and that his training class, more than four decades ago, was 90% men.
The bank has faced scrutiny for its limited gender diversity at the top, even among its cohort of male-dominated Wall Street powerhouses. In March of 2024, the firm sent a 12-point internal memo to help senior staff communicate with clients after the Wall Street Journal reported on the bank’s lack of female leaders. Chief of Staff Russell Horwitz acknowledged in the memo that “progress has been slow” and reiterated the bank’s commitment to elevating and retaining women.Goldman will announce its newest class of managing directors in the coming weeks.
OpenAI’s Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever is Leaving
Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist of OpenAI, is leaving the company.This move comes after a period of internal turmoil at the artificial intelligence leader.
Sutskever was a key figure in the events that led to the brief ousting of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in November. He reportedly led the board’s effort to remove Altman, but later backtracked and supported his reinstatement.
OpenAI confirmed Sutskever’s departure on Monday. He will leave the company by the end of the year to start his own AI research company, according to a statement from OpenAI.
“Ilya has been a driving force behind OpenAI’s research breakthroughs, including the creation of GPT models,” OpenAI said. “We are grateful for his contributions and wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”
Sutskever’s departure marks another critically important change for OpenAI, which has undergone major shifts in leadership and structure in recent months. He joined OpenAI in 2015 after working at Google and was considered one of the moast important AI researchers in the world.
His exit follows the departure of other key figures who were critical of Altman’s direction for the company, including Jan Leike, who led OpenAI’s superalignment team. Leike said he left because he was “dismayed by the change in priorities” under Altman’s leadership and felt that safety concerns were being sidelined.
The changes at OpenAI reflect a growing tension between those who prioritize rapid AI advancement and those who emphasize the need for caution and safety. Sutskever’s departure is likely to further fuel this debate.
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