Episode Details

Goldman Sachs printed its second-highest revenue quarter ever in Q1 2026, but the real story is how aggressively the firm dropped its safety nets to deploy capital.

In ~10 minutes:

• Early adoption of eSLR rules to unleash a $5B buyback

• The 13.2% tax rate anomaly inflating a massive EPS beat

• Why executive leadership was summoned to the Treasury over AI

• FICC lending's claim of zero realized life-to-date losses

• Platform Solutions' 24-month accounting hangover from the Apple Card

Corporate M&A is officially back, rescuing a market where private equity sponsors remain gridlocked with $4 trillion of trapped capital. To win this recovery, Goldman deliberately squeezed its CET1 ratio down 180 basis points, sprinting closer to regulatory limits to finance client leverage. Meanwhile, the firm is quietly absorbing heavy short-term costs to migrate legacy infrastructure to the cloud in preparation for defensive generative AI deployment. 🏦

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) | Q1 FY2026

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