“I had to teach him how to pitch so we could play catch together,” Mr. Wiesel said. “But he did it. Would he rather that I was studying the Talmud? Yes. Did he love it? No. But he did it for me.”

One time he was aghast to learn that his father was declining an invitation to throw out the first pitch at a 1986 World Series game between the Mets and the Red Sox. He had to push his father to do it, and it became one of the best memories of his childhood.

Mr. Wiesel drifted from programming in his teenage years. “I put down my computer and picked up an electric guitar,” is the way he describes it. “I got interested in girls and rock.”

His favorites were the big heavy metal bands of the period, like Iron Maiden and Metallica. But he also caught “the tail end of the Ramones,” he said, and fancied himself a bit of a punk rocker. His mother and father worried, but weathered the rebellious phase, even the time he came home with a purple mohawk.

He went to Yale with every intention of majoring in the humanities. But one day, working on an assignment in a computer lab, he noticed that the guy next to him seemed to be having more fun.

“He was programming,” Mr. Wiesel said.

So, he picked up his computer again and realized that he really missed it. He eventually changed his major, hoping for a career in video games. At first, he did not even intend to interview with Goldman Sachs recruiters.