RIPPING UP THE RULES AT GOLDMAN SACHS

One year into his tenure as CEO, David Solomon is bulldozing the old ways of doing business at Wall Street’s most storied bank—from its legendary pay and perks to its 35-page dress code. Will a shake-up help Goldman grow again?

- Jen Wieczner

YOU SEE THE CONFETTI before you see him: It swirls over the dance floor as a parade arrives in his honor—leotard-clad servers bearing a glow-in-the-dark bottle of Don Julio and a billboard that reads “D SOL.” It’s then, at half-past midnight, at the LIV nightclub in the basement of Miami’s Fontainebleau hotel, that the chief executive of Goldman Sachs emerges, picks up a chunky pair of white headphones, and steps behind the turntables and into his disc jockey alter ego.

It’s the last Saturday in October, which means it’s Halloween in South Beach, and the club has been made over into an apocalyptic Area 51; the crowd has shown up in a mix of extraterrestrial outfits along with devil horns, bunny ears, and Dracula capes. (When I arrived, I’d given David Solomon’s name at the door, eliciting nothing but a blank look from the bouncer. “D-Sol?” He nodded and opened the velvet rope.) Solomon, brow furrowed, looks comparatively sober in a black T-shirt, white pants, and pink Converse low-top Chuck Taylors. Behind him in the DJ booth, a couple of women appear to be dressed as the poo emoji, a costume they’ve accessorized with rolls of toilet paper and a plunger. For the next hour, Solomon will entertain the revelers, occasionally pumping his fist as he mixes rock guitar riffs from Guns N’ Roses and the White Stripes with 1990s hip-hop and wait-for-the-drop dance beats. You can feel the bass pulse through your rib cage, punctuated by blasts from cryogenic fog cannons and strobing lasers. Solomon bops along, his hands on the knobs. Then he drops a Bingo Players ditty whose lyrics consist primarily of the cheeky refrain, “Everybody wants to know how little I care, how little I care.”