It's not just JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs & others lost quantum talent too

As we reported earlier this week, something strange has happened to JPMorgan's quantum computing team. The leaders have gone, and no one seems to know who is replacing them. 

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Rival financial services firms may not be faced with this conundrum, but they too have been leaking quantum talent. 

Goldman Sachs, for example, lost Nikitas Stamatopoulos, its head of quantum research, last October. It also lost William Zeng, its head of advanced recruiting R&D in July 2023. And it lost Paul Burchard, its head of core research and development, who was Zeng's boss and tangentially engaged in quantum matters, in November 2023. 

Moody's has been leaking quantum people too. Sergio Gago, its former head of quantum recruiting, left quietly in April 2025.

What do you do after your job writing quantum algorithms in financial services? Gago has reinvented himself as an expert in AI and is now CTO of Cloudera, a data company. Zeng joined a VC investing in quantum technologies. Stamatopoulos is now a senior quantum algorithms scientist at Phasecraft, a New York company that says it's "building the mathematical foundations for quantum computing applications that solve real-world problems."

Insiders suggest that banks' quantum teams may have expanded too fast, too soon. JPMorgan's quantum team employed a handful of people five years ago, but ramped up rapidly under Marco Pistoia, who left quietly in May. Last June, the bank had 24 quantum jobs open and was paying up to $325k to fill them. 

Quantum jobs aren't the only recent bubble that may be bursting in banking. JPMorgan also recently closed Capital Connect, the digital platform it founded in 2022 to link start-up founders with VC investors. AI experts may want to take heed. 

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