Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, says higher education was the key to moving up.
Blankfein was born into public housing in Brooklyn and shared a bedroom in his small New York City apartment with his grandmother or sister until he went off to college. He told CBS earlier this year that his high school was on the brink of shutting down, but he studied hard, became class valedictorian, and got into Harvard University at 16.
That path led to a 12-year run at Goldman Sachs. Five decades later, Blankfein still calls schooling the 'real accelerator' of wealth and success, even as artificial intelligence threatens white-collar jobs.
'I think education is the real accelerator for most people into the middle and upper classes,' Blankfein told CBS.
Blankfein is pushing back against business leaders who question whether college still pays off. He singled out Peter Thiel, who has offered young entrepreneurs $200,000 grants to leave higher education through the Thiel Fellowship and 'build new things.'
Blankfein wrote in an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, 'Streetwise,' shared with Vanity Fair, that he 'strongly disagree[s]' with Thiel. He said technical skill matters, but people also need to be 'a complete person' who others want to engage with.
He said Harvard and Harvard Law School helped build his confidence, writing skills, love of history, and engagement with current events. He also wrote that he 'survived' the experience more than enjoyed it, but still called it 'the best place to have gone.'
Blankfein also argued that undergraduate years are a chance to 'make yourself uncomfortable' in ways that can make someone more curious and interesting.
The debate is bigger than one résumé. As AI pressures office work, the market is splitting between those who see college as outdated and those who see it as the last reliable ladder into the middle class. Blankfein’s story is being used as proof that merit, skill, and education still matter when opportunity is not evenly distributed.
For free enterprise, the lesson is simple: capital rewards clear rules, but human capital still compounds. When the education system produces workers who can think, write, and adapt, productivity rises and so do margins. When it does not, the taxpayer eventually pays for the gap.
