Wall Street’s ADHD Revolution: How Goldman Sachs is Leading the Hunter Renaissance

The numbers don’t lie: Hunters are outperforming...

Image by Hugo Roger from Pixabay

When Jack McFerran, a Goldman Sachs managing director, organized what he called a “parents evening” in London last year, he expected a modest turnout of colleagues dealing with similar challenges. Instead, 600 people flooded the room—executives, their spouses, and partners—all united by a common thread: they were either neurodivergent themselves or parents of neurodivergent children. The success was so overwhelming that Goldman organized another event in New York, drawing 900 attendees, including “heads of one of the largest hedge funds and one of the largest trading institutions flying in with their spouses.”

This isn’t your typical corporate diversity initiative. This is Wall Street’s quiet revolution—a fundamental recognition that the traits historically labeled as “attention deficits” are actually competitive advantages in the world’s most demanding financial markets. And it perfectly validates what the “Hunter in a Farmer’s World” framework has argued for over three decades: ADHD isn’t a disorder to be managed, but a powerful cognitive toolkit that evolved for exactly these kinds of high-stakes, fast-moving environments.

The Numbers Don’t Lie: Hunters Are Outperforming

While Goldman Sachs executives were discovering they weren’t alone in their neurodivergence, research was quietly building an overwhelming case for the Hunter advantage. JPMorgan Chase found that employees hired through their neurodiversity programs were 90% to 140% more productive than neurotypical employees who had been with the company for five to ten years. Hewlett Packard Enterprise reported that neurodiverse teams were 30% more productive than neurotypical ones and made fewer errors.

These aren’t feel-good diversity statistics—they’re bottom-line business results that are impossible to ignore. A report by JPMorgan Chase found that professionals in its Autism at Work initiative made fewer errors and were 90% to 140% more productive than neurotypical employees. In the demanding world of financial services, where a single error can cost millions and split-second decisions determine success, these productivity gains represent a massive competitive advantage.

The Hunter’s Edge in High Finance

A debt capital markets banker who worked at Goldman Sachs for over ten years told eFinancialCareers that “Goldman’s trading floor was full of people with ADHD,” noting that “People with ADHD thrive at places like Goldman—We’re fine if you give us a mission and make the most of our creativity and determination to achieve what might at first seem impossible.”

This observation captures something profound about the Hunter mindset. In our ancestral environments, Hunters needed to rapidly assess changing situations, make quick decisions under pressure, and maintain intense focus when tracking prey. These same traits—hyperfocus, rapid decision-making, comfort with risk, and the ability to spot patterns others miss—are exactly what drive success in modern financial markets.

West Virginia University researcher Nancy McIntyre’s groundbreaking study of 581 entrepreneurs revealed how ADHD functions as a cognitive advantage. She found that entrepreneurs with ADHD use “routines, patterns and habits like a big net that captures and stores stimuli from the environment for later use.” As McIntyre explained, “Someone with ADHD and high entrepreneurial intent might go to a big event and meet person after person with knowledge, advice, contact information, venture capital or other resources to offer. Because their mind tends to hop all over the place, they’re making lots of connections and filing them in a way that allows them to use those resources in the future.”

Corporate America’s Great Awakening

The Goldman Sachs parents evenings represent just the tip of a massive shift in corporate thinking. Goldman Sachs launched its Neurodiversity Hiring Initiative in 2019, providing eight-week paid internships for individuals with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and other neurodivergent conditions. In 2024, candidates brought forward by their partner organization Specialisterne had a 100% offer and acceptance rate.

But Goldman is far from alone in this revolution. JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, IBM, Ford Motor Company, EY, SAP, and DXC Technology have all implemented comprehensive neurodiversity programs. These companies aren’t hiring neurodivergent employees out of charity—they’re doing it because the business case is overwhelming.

Tony Lloyd, CEO of the UK ADHD Foundation, reports that “30% of entrepreneurs have ADHD or dyslexia or both and that university graduates with ADHD are twice as likely to start their own business.” Major corporations are waking up to the fact that they’ve been overlooking a talent pool that consistently outperforms in key metrics.

The Science Behind the Hunter Advantage

The corporate world’s embrace of neurodivergence isn’t just anecdotal—it’s backed by solid science. Research suggests that teams with neurodivergent professionals in some roles can be 30% more productive than those without them, with inclusion and integration of neurodivergent professionals also boosting team morale.

McIntyre’s research identified three key qualities that make ADHD entrepreneurs successful: alertness (recognizing business opportunities, reading voraciously, and maintaining environmental awareness), adaptability (changing course when appropriate and challenging assumptions), and entrepreneurial intent (commitment to establishing their own business and actively searching for opportunities).

This aligns perfectly with the Hunter profile: individuals whose brains are wired for constant environmental scanning, rapid adaptation to changing circumstances, and the willingness to take calculated risks. As one researcher noted, “entrepreneurs with ADHD are likely to be very responsive to innovation while underreacting to potential risks”—exactly the mindset needed for breakthrough thinking.

The Mismatch Problem: Square Pegs, Round Holes

Despite this potential, current statistics remain stark: just 29% of people aged 16-64 with autism are employed, and even fewer people with severe or specific learning difficulties are employed at just 26.2%. The unemployment rate for neurodivergent adults runs as high as 30-40%, three times higher than the rate for people with physical disabilities.

This massive unemployment rate isn’t a reflection of capability—it’s evidence of systematic mismatch between Hunter traits and Farmer institutions. The CIPD February 2024 Neuroinclusion at Work Report found that just 51% of managers appreciated the value of neurodiversity, and worse still, just 46% felt capable and confident to support neurodivergent individuals in the workplace.

The Hunter Renaissance

What we’re witnessing isn’t just corporate adaptation—it’s the beginning of a Hunter renaissance. The latest 2025 Neurodiversity Index Report from the City & Guilds Foundation focuses on “understanding the power of different minds at work,” marking a fundamental shift from viewing neurodivergence as accommodation to recognizing it as competitive advantage.

The World Economic Forum’s October 2024 briefing paper on neurodiversity presents evidence that integrating neuro-inclusion strategies not only promotes mental and behavioral health of all employees but also leverages unique perspectives and strengths to drive innovation and complex problem-solving.

Companies are finally recognizing what the Hunter framework has long argued: that the same traits that make traditional school and corporate environments challenging for people with ADHD—constant environmental scanning, rapid task-switching, comfort with uncertainty, and hyperfocus on areas of interest—are precisely the cognitive tools needed for innovation, entrepreneurship, and complex problem-solving in our rapidly changing economy.

The Future is Neurodivergent

As Goldman’s Jack McFerran noted after witnessing the overwhelming response to their parents evenings, “When people see that leaders are open to conversations and inclusive, when they take a chance and are able to share, then others will reach out.” This represents “a new and welcome era of vulnerability” where financial leaders are recognizing that their neurodivergence isn’t a limitation—it’s their competitive edge.

The Hunter traits that helped our ancestors survive in unpredictable environments—rapid decision-making, pattern recognition, risk tolerance, and the ability to maintain intense focus when necessary—are exactly what modern organizations need to thrive in an increasingly complex and fast-moving business landscape.

We’re not witnessing the accommodation of a disability; we’re seeing the recognition of a cognitive superpower. The question isn’t whether companies can afford to hire neurodivergent talent—it’s whether they can afford not to. In a world where innovation determines survival and adaptation drives success, the Hunters aren’t just joining the corporate world—they’re leading it.