New York– With 9,000 programmers at the helm, CEO Lloyd Blankfein says Goldman Sachs is technology company. And outside tech companies trying to disrupt his business are going to have a very hard time doing so.
In his latest Exchanges at Goldman Sachs podcast, which launched late in 2014, Blankfein says, “In some ways, and there are some parts of our business, where it’s very hard for outside entrants to come in, disrupt our business, simply because we’re so regulated.” All industries are dealing with breakout tech companies changing business, making new actions possible and old ones quicker and easier to implement. Finance, and Goldman in particular, has the strange advantage of having the breaks put on outside tech companies, giving the financial services firms the opportunity to be the “disruption” for themselves while outside techies struggle to weed through the regulations, he says.
As much of a pain regulations can be for the finance industry, it’s buying them more time from tech companies barging in, says Blankfein. “In some cases, the burdensome regulation acts as a bit of a moat around our business,” he says. Not that the impeding regulations are a good or bad thing, adds Blankfein, but they will always be a precursor for any company wanting to partake in finance.
Photo: Stuart Isett/Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit via Flickr.