Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Jamie Dimon
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: The world's best known banker is Jamie Diamond, the longtime
- 0:06Speaker 1: CEO of JP Morgan. I had a chance to meet
- 0:08Speaker 1: with Jamie Diamond recently to talk about what's going on
- 0:11Speaker 1: in the financial world. He said he didn't want to
- 0:13Speaker 1: be Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, but maybe would
- 0:15Speaker 1: take a call to being Secretary of the Treasury. So
- 0:22Speaker 1: recently you've been talking about the importance of the United
- 0:26Speaker 1: States and are celebrating our two hundred and fiftieth but
- 0:28Speaker 1: also investing in things that are security related. What made
- 0:33Speaker 1: you focus on that and you're now going to commit
- 0:35Speaker 1: what a build trullion and a half dollars over the
- 0:37Speaker 1: next ten years for this kind of investment.
- 0:39Speaker 2: Why did you decide to do that?
- 0:40Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've always been a patriot, and like you know,
- 0:43Speaker 3: you took here about growth, you know, growing the economy
- 0:46Speaker 3: and the grievances of Americas, which is a lot of
- 0:49Speaker 3: legitimates we're going to deal with and get policy right.
- 0:51Speaker 3: But one of them was this notion that we ended
- 0:54Speaker 3: up being so reliant on other people, some potential adversaries
- 0:58Speaker 3: for things critical to the security of the United States,
- 1:01Speaker 3: and it wasn't just us it's our allies too. So
- 1:04Speaker 3: we did some real research Acrourse twenty eight industry groups.
- 1:06Speaker 3: And you're talking about rare earths, which you all know about,
- 1:09Speaker 3: active pharmaceutical ingredients somebody may know about, you know, obviously
- 1:12Speaker 3: military production, drones, air cyber or satellite what are the
- 1:16Speaker 3: things you need for resiliency that we already did a
- 1:19Speaker 3: lot of it, and we wanted to do more, realizing
- 1:21Speaker 3: it was an important thing to do. How we got here,
- 1:24Speaker 3: I don't like crinervers builled milk, but we should never
- 1:27Speaker 3: have been here. So that's two and a half dollars.
- 1:30Speaker 3: My guesses will be quite a bit more than that
- 1:32Speaker 3: by the time we're done. We've had a deluge of
- 1:34Speaker 3: interest in it. Then we have We hired Todd Colms,
- 1:36Speaker 3: who's just a world class investor and a world class
- 1:39Speaker 3: person who's got his own day lous coming in to
- 1:41Speaker 3: invest ten billion and probably more. And we certainly probably
- 1:45Speaker 3: have partners in that in helping companies with growth capital
- 1:49Speaker 3: they need to grow to build the next plans or something.
- 1:52Speaker 3: We did real research and supply chains. There's a lot
- 1:55Speaker 3: of companies that provide what's important for basic important military
- 2:00Speaker 3: equipment that need help to grow there. They could be
- 2:02Speaker 3: private companies or bigger companies. There's a venture capital component.
- 2:05Speaker 3: We're also going to do research, so think around the
- 2:08Speaker 3: ship building ecosystem. UH. And then and policy. A lot
- 2:12Speaker 3: of things that are wronger policy reasons, how we how
- 2:16Speaker 3: we're allowed to procure in the military, UH, things like
- 2:19Speaker 3: permitting EPA laws. You know, if you want to keep
- 2:22Speaker 3: this country safe and secure, we need to do this work.
- 2:25Speaker 3: We need to do it now and right away. It
- 2:27Speaker 3: also will be extended to you know, nations in Europe, Australia, Japan,
- 2:32Speaker 3: South Korea. And it's just important to do a national
- 2:34Speaker 3: security you know, if you didn't, if you didn't get
- 2:37Speaker 3: the wake up call in February when you know three
- 2:40Speaker 3: hundred thousand Russian troops in Van and Ukraine, you know,
- 2:43Speaker 3: the world's not safe. It was never safe. We just
- 2:45Speaker 3: got loads of the false sense of security. The big,
- 2:47Speaker 3: biggest safety to have is the strongest military in the planet.
- 2:50Speaker 1: When the Great Recession happened, were you worried about the
- 2:53Speaker 1: viability of our financial system?
- 2:55Speaker 2: Your bank was in pretty good shape.
- 2:56Speaker 1: Where we worried that more than many investment banks and
- 2:58Speaker 1: commercial bank want to go under.
- 3:00Speaker 3: At that time, well a lot of them, did you know.
- 3:02Speaker 3: And yeah, a lot of companies around the world, a
- 3:05Speaker 3: lot of non banks around the world went bankrupt, you know,
- 3:07Speaker 3: JP Morgan. We did a lot to keep people afloat.
- 3:10Speaker 3: We took a lot of risks to do that. We
- 3:11Speaker 3: work with governments around the world. It was it was terrifying,
- 3:15Speaker 3: and it was you know, twenty four to seven, and
- 3:17Speaker 3: you know, people just trying to do the right thing
- 3:19Speaker 3: to make sure, you know, we kept through.
- 3:21Speaker 1: Do you think there's a chance of something like that
- 3:22Speaker 1: happy next couple of years, you think we're much better
- 3:24Speaker 1: protected from that kind of problem.
- 3:26Speaker 3: Well, there's there's no chance that you're gonna have that
- 3:28Speaker 3: kind of problem, but you know, there are chances to
- 3:31Speaker 3: have a problem somewhere somehow. You know. The biggest unknown
- 3:35Speaker 3: is is geopolitics, you know, And it's not like you
- 3:39Speaker 3: have to be dangerous, you carefully you talk about it's
- 3:42Speaker 3: not like that's going to determine what the economy does
- 3:44Speaker 3: in twenty twenty six, but it is a moving tectonic plate,
- 3:48Speaker 3: you know, alliances. You know, obviously there's terrible war in Ukraine,
- 3:52Speaker 3: which we need to do as much as we can
- 3:54Speaker 3: to help Ukraine. But aid and embedded by an Russia
- 3:56Speaker 3: and Russia somewhat by China. Those folks have told you
- 4:00Speaker 3: they want to do. They want to dismantle the system
- 4:02Speaker 3: set up they think by America, but they're set up
- 4:04Speaker 3: by the Western world after World War two has been
- 4:06Speaker 3: quite successful. Yeah, there are a lot of forces at play,
- 4:10Speaker 3: and you know, and people are going to have to choose,
- 4:12Speaker 3: you know, how they want to play this, play this
- 4:15Speaker 3: for now. So yeah, that would be my greatest concern,
- 4:17Speaker 3: and that's about the future of the free democratic world.
- 4:21Speaker 3: That's not just about America.
- 4:22Speaker 1: Are you worried about the over regulation that some people
- 4:25Speaker 1: in the banking world think that is occurring now or
- 4:27Speaker 1: do you think the regulations are okay?
- 4:29Speaker 2: Now?
- 4:30Speaker 3: The problem with regulations when you talk to some people,
- 4:33Speaker 3: it's always act like it's more or less well and
- 4:36Speaker 3: a lot of you deal with regulations. I think you
- 4:38Speaker 3: can create more liquidity in the system, you know, more
- 4:41Speaker 3: capital uses, more learning capability, reduced rules and regulations which
- 4:45Speaker 3: cause there was complaints about debanking and complaints about X.
- 4:48Speaker 3: I think we could make the system better work, better, cheaper,
- 4:52Speaker 3: work for more Americans, and safer. What bothers me the
- 4:55Speaker 3: most is when we talk about regulations that no one
- 4:57Speaker 3: ever steps back and say, what are we trying to accomplish?
- 5:00Speaker 3: So why do we want to accomplish it? And what's
- 5:01Speaker 3: better this or that? Because no matter what you do,
- 5:03Speaker 3: their pros and cons banks are very strong today. But
- 5:06Speaker 3: take the system as a whole. We've gone from eight
- 5:08Speaker 3: thousand public companies to four thousand public companies. Is that
- 5:11Speaker 3: what we wanted? Because that's what we did. We did
- 5:14Speaker 3: it with no forethought, without even thinking about it. But
- 5:17Speaker 3: it was you know, years of rules and regulations that
- 5:20Speaker 3: made it costly and litigious and hard. And you know,
- 5:23Speaker 3: we let institutes like ISS and Glass Lewis, you know,
- 5:27Speaker 3: vote thirty percent of their shares in America, you know,
- 5:29Speaker 3: and and so yeah, I'm quite concerned about that. We
- 5:32Speaker 3: get regulations right, we all want safe financial systems, safe food,
- 5:36Speaker 3: and safe but it doesn't mean you have to have
- 5:38Speaker 3: endless regulations, regulations to be reviewed and improved all the time,
- 5:42Speaker 3: as opposed to what we do today. I put that
- 5:44Speaker 3: in a lot of policy, we just add things on
- 5:46Speaker 3: top of things. And if you look at policy in America, well,
- 5:50Speaker 3: affordable housing, it's all about policy, you know, zoning policies,
- 5:54Speaker 3: permitting policies, housing policies. You know, it's all about policy.
- 5:58Speaker 3: It's got not a damn thing to do that. People
- 5:59Speaker 3: don't want to build homes or move into homes, you know,
- 6:02Speaker 3: and I guess say it's about a mortgage business. We
- 6:04Speaker 3: made it more expensive because the rules and regulations. Education.
- 6:08Speaker 3: You know, we don't measure the outcomes of high schools
- 6:10Speaker 3: and community colleges and colleges, how many jobs they get
- 6:13Speaker 3: at what income levels. And we can do it. So
- 6:16Speaker 3: look at work skills. We're gonna need two hundred thousand welders.
- 6:19Speaker 3: We need welding in schools. So if governments canna have policies,
- 6:21Speaker 3: have policy that aids and abets and sense and has
- 6:25Speaker 3: the guardrails to create the right behaviors, you know, not
- 6:28Speaker 3: endless policies that like slow things down, which is what
- 6:31Speaker 3: we have. You know, we're going we're slowly going the
- 6:33Speaker 3: way Europe. You know Europe. You may not know this
- 6:35Speaker 3: has gone from ninety percent per person GDP of America
- 6:39Speaker 3: to sixty five percent. That's what they've done. It was
- 6:43Speaker 3: all policy. A lot of the policy is done in
- 6:45Speaker 3: the name of good and that's what we do all
- 6:48Speaker 3: the time. We're endless. You know, rules and regulations that
- 6:51Speaker 3: create these things. I also think you all should learn
- 6:53Speaker 3: to call it not red tape but blue tape. Okay,
- 6:56Speaker 3: the Democrats love that crap, and then they want to
- 6:59Speaker 3: make it litigious. You know that every flaw, however, that
- 7:03Speaker 3: ever happens, is on purpose by by bad people. So policy,
- 7:08Speaker 3: we need good policy, and we're gonna be fighting much
- 7:09Speaker 3: more for good policy this year at JP Morgan.
- 7:12Speaker 1: Now, are you worried about the size of the US debt?
- 7:15Speaker 1: We have thirty eight trillion dollars of debt. We're adding
- 7:17Speaker 1: two trillion every year. Do you see any way that's
- 7:19Speaker 1: going to be solved? And do you worry that this
- 7:21Speaker 1: is going to impact the value of the dollar at
- 7:23Speaker 1: some point?
- 7:23Speaker 3: So if you look at the economy today, there's a
- 7:25Speaker 3: lot of good short term things, like think of this year.
- 7:28Speaker 3: You know, the one big beautiful bill. There's a lot
- 7:30Speaker 3: of stimulus they've fed is buying bonds again, that's you know,
- 7:33Speaker 3: they don't call it Q I would, but it lifts
- 7:35Speaker 3: up asset prices and stabilizes certain markets. Uh, Deregulation is real,
- 7:42Speaker 3: and it's going to also drive animal spirits. A lot
- 7:44Speaker 3: of investment coming to the United States and AI. That's
- 7:47Speaker 3: all good, and that's probably going to drive stuff there
- 7:49Speaker 3: are I call this geopolitics, and the deficit. I call
- 7:53Speaker 3: it more like tectonic plates. They're difficult, they're moving, they
- 7:57Speaker 3: may crash. We don't know, and we don't know when.
- 8:01Speaker 3: So it isn't a twenty twenty six issue. But our
- 8:04Speaker 3: deficit is almost two trillion dollars this year. Total dead
- 8:06Speaker 3: is thirty trillion, then next year thirty two, then thirty
- 8:10Speaker 3: four and thirty seven, then forty. It is not sustainable.
- 8:15Speaker 3: It will not work eventually. I just don't know when.
- 8:18Speaker 3: That is. The best anecdote is growth. I mean, if
- 8:21Speaker 3: you just model anything, growth will make up for it.
- 8:25Speaker 3: And that and growth could I always tell people a
- 8:26Speaker 3: good policy is free, like we already spent eight hundred
- 8:29Speaker 3: billion dollars in K to twelve, you know, stopping Piel
- 8:32Speaker 3: from building stuff. It's free. It will create jobs, will
- 8:35Speaker 3: create productivity, and so we have time to get the
- 8:38Speaker 3: policy right to grow the economy, and then we have
- 8:42Speaker 3: to start making some other choices too.
- 8:43Speaker 1: Those are President of the United States said I'd like
- 8:46Speaker 1: you to be Secretary of the Treasury.
- 8:47Speaker 2: Or chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. What would you
- 8:49Speaker 2: say to.
- 8:50Speaker 3: That, Well, Chairman of the Fed, I'd put in the
- 8:52Speaker 3: absolutely positivity, no chance, no way, no how for any reason. Okay,
- 8:57Speaker 3: Secretary Treasury, I would considering if a president calls you
- 9:00Speaker 3: up and asks you to do something, you know you
- 9:03Speaker 3: should consider it. So I would take the call and
- 9:06Speaker 3: consider it and think about why and what they want, etc.
- 9:09Speaker 3: But what they want and how they want to operate,
- 9:12Speaker 3: that would be important to me. I like my job.
- 9:14Speaker 3: I've been my own boss for pretty much twenty five years,
- 9:17Speaker 3: and I like it that way.
- 9:18Speaker 1: So recently there's been some comment by you about the
- 9:21Speaker 1: independence of the Federal Reserve Board. What more might you
- 9:24Speaker 1: want to say about your view about the importance of
- 9:26Speaker 1: the independence of the Federal Reserve Board?
- 9:28Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, there are people too much incets building
- 9:31Speaker 3: certain things. Everyone I know, including the President and United States,
- 9:34Speaker 3: says we need an independent FED board. The question is
- 9:37Speaker 3: only about when certain things take place, and think of
- 9:40Speaker 3: lawsuits and stuff like that, does it chip away at
- 9:43Speaker 3: that independence. It's some spectrum. So you can say a
- 9:46Speaker 3: little bit, you can say a lot, but you don't
- 9:48Speaker 3: want to chip away too much because if you chip
- 9:49Speaker 3: away too much. In my view, this is my opinion.
- 9:52Speaker 3: It will drive rates higher, not lower. That's all.
- 9:56Speaker 2: That's not a job you would take.
- 9:57Speaker 1: If the President United States said to you, I'd love
- 9:59Speaker 1: you to be a You'll be very independent, you wouldn't
- 10:01Speaker 1: think that.
- 10:02Speaker 3: I would so much more prefer this job than that job.
- 10:05Speaker 3: That's a hard job, but I don't want to do
- 10:06Speaker 3: that job.
- 10:07Speaker 1: You went to Harvard Business School graduate as a Baker scholar,
- 10:10Speaker 1: top five percent of your class. You could have gone
- 10:12Speaker 1: to Goldman, Sachs, Morgan, Stanley, all the famous firms. You
- 10:15Speaker 1: chose to go work for a person who was a
- 10:17Speaker 1: friend of your father's name is Sandy Wall. You did that,
- 10:21Speaker 1: and then when Sandy left, you stayed with him, and
- 10:24Speaker 1: then ultimately you guys went to City Corp. And then
- 10:28Speaker 1: he fired you. Did you ever think then that you'd
- 10:31Speaker 1: be coming back and running the most important bank in
- 10:33Speaker 1: the world at the time you got fired there or
- 10:34Speaker 1: what were you thinking at that time? And I said
- 10:37Speaker 1: you should come into private equity. I went to see
- 10:39Speaker 1: you and I said, why don't you come to private equity?
- 10:41Speaker 1: And you you didn't seem that interested.
- 10:43Speaker 3: But the biggest money offer I ever got in My
- 10:45Speaker 3: life was from this guy over here. It was never
- 10:47Speaker 3: about money for me. And I knew after I got
- 10:50Speaker 3: fired that they were going to screw up city because
- 10:52Speaker 3: I knew how stupid some of the things they were
- 10:54Speaker 3: doing was. But no, and I didn't. I didn't think
- 10:57Speaker 3: that way. I just you know, I took time. I
- 10:59Speaker 3: thought all these various alternatives. I spoke to a lot
- 11:02Speaker 3: of people, you know, and then I went to bank one.
- 11:04Speaker 3: I loved the home depot guys. They were talking to
- 11:06Speaker 3: me and but I had to confess to them and
- 11:09Speaker 3: I walked in. I'd never been in a home depot
- 11:12Speaker 3: until my friend made me go that weekend before I
- 11:14Speaker 3: had dinner with Arthur Blank, Bernie Marcus and Ken Langhn,
- 11:18Speaker 3: and I just loved their culture. But I'd never been
- 11:20Speaker 3: in a merchant business. And you know, bank Wom's there.
- 11:23Speaker 3: I thought it was gonna be tough. I put half
- 11:24Speaker 3: my money into it. I have moved my money in Chicago.
- 11:26Speaker 3: I loved Chicago. All I thought about is just do
- 11:28Speaker 3: the best you can. I mean, I don't like it
- 11:30Speaker 3: when senior people complain. I always had a no wine sign.
- 11:32Speaker 3: Suck it up and do the job. That's that's all
- 11:35Speaker 3: it was, and that's I just go about the work,
- 11:37Speaker 3: you know, and division by division, person by person, department,
- 11:40Speaker 3: ve part tech by tech, you know, try to build
- 11:43Speaker 3: something great. I had my eye in JP Morgan Chase,
- 11:46Speaker 3: and you know a couple of years I thought it
- 11:48Speaker 3: would never happen because we were so small and not
- 11:50Speaker 3: doing well. But you know, four years later we had,
- 11:52Speaker 3: you know, done a good job at Bank one. The
- 11:55Speaker 3: values were close enough. Bill Harrison I know each other,
- 11:57Speaker 3: and we merged the two companies. Then I had a
- 11:59Speaker 3: dream that if we did it right, we can make
- 12:02Speaker 3: this a great company. Then I really did like that was.
- 12:05Speaker 1: What do you think is the most important thing you
- 12:07Speaker 1: did that put JP Morgan ahead of every other bank
- 12:09Speaker 1: in the world. You worked harder, you hire better people
- 12:12Speaker 1: around you. What were the things that you think the
- 12:15Speaker 1: most important thing that made JP Morgan what it is today.
- 12:19Speaker 3: A lot of people do things better, So to say
- 12:21Speaker 3: we're the best nervatives not right. And I think that's
- 12:23Speaker 3: one of the reasons. Sometimes we do better a little bit,
- 12:25Speaker 3: which is I'm relentless, go through system by system by
- 12:28Speaker 3: system by system, get out in the road, you know,
- 12:31Speaker 3: visit other companies. They all do things better. Than you learn, learn, learn, learn, learn,
- 12:35Speaker 3: and be runless about doing it. Big companies slow down,
- 12:37Speaker 3: they become complacent, they become bureaucratic. All that stuff arrogant,
- 12:42Speaker 3: you know, is the Petri Dish of politics. You know,
- 12:44Speaker 3: Jeff Bezos said, you know, that kind of stuff leads
- 12:46Speaker 3: to stasis and death. If you don't believe me, you know,
- 12:49Speaker 3: you look at all the companies who failed, huge wonderful companies.
- 12:53Speaker 3: That's what management is. It's relentless attention to detail, getting
- 12:56Speaker 3: a strategy right, invest in your capital, not being behold
- 13:00Speaker 3: the people. But the most important is that the people
- 13:03Speaker 3: at their company can contribute to the best their ability.
- 13:06Speaker 3: They know that you, the boss, don't know everything, and
- 13:09Speaker 3: they know that you just want to do the right
- 13:10Speaker 3: thing for the company, the client, of the community. And
- 13:13Speaker 3: that's the only goal. There's no other goal. We don't
- 13:15Speaker 3: pand it to Wall Street about quarterly earnings or stuff
- 13:18Speaker 3: like that. I've I've never spent any time in that
- 13:21Speaker 3: in my life. Just try to do the right thing
- 13:23Speaker 3: for the right reason, and do it quickly.
- 13:25Speaker 1: Your market capitalization is up about I guess it's about
- 13:30Speaker 1: the seven percent, and your stock price up about five
- 13:34Speaker 1: hundred percent.
- 13:34Speaker 3: Or something like that, like a thousand percent, but go ahead, right,
- 13:37Speaker 3: how much? Well we pay back. We put back a
- 13:40Speaker 3: lot of talk and paid a lot of dividends and
- 13:41Speaker 3: all of that.
- 13:42Speaker 1: So yeah, so it's pretty good, tom So. People are
- 13:44Speaker 1: very happy. And so the question you get asked every day,
- 13:48Speaker 1: five times a day is how much longer do you
- 13:51Speaker 1: want to do this? And the answer is five more years? Yeah,
- 13:54Speaker 1: at least about five more years.
- 13:56Speaker 3: I love what I do. It's up to the board
- 13:58Speaker 3: how long I do it? Although I have the energy
- 14:00Speaker 3: and the spit in the eye and the fire and
- 14:03Speaker 3: the gut. Yeah, I want to do it.
- 14:05Speaker 1: You recently built a new building in New York. Why
- 14:07Speaker 1: did you decide to build your headquarters in New York?
- 14:10Speaker 1: You tore down the building you had built a new building,
- 14:12Speaker 1: took a couple of years and costs maybe three billion
- 14:15Speaker 1: dollars or something like that, and it's now open. Are
- 14:17Speaker 1: you happy you made that decision? And are you going
- 14:19Speaker 1: to build a similar building in London?
- 14:21Speaker 3: Now? Yeah, we are. So if you look at what
- 14:23Speaker 3: we have. We spend forty billion dollars year on people,
- 14:27Speaker 3: which is important, four billion dollars a year on real estate.
- 14:29Speaker 3: We want to have great real estate. The old building
- 14:33Speaker 3: wasn't fit for purpose. It was too small, couldn't handle
- 14:35Speaker 3: our trading floors. I'd looked everywhere. I looked downtown, I
- 14:38Speaker 3: looked a hundred yards. I looked at buying Vanderbilt. But
- 14:43Speaker 3: we could tear that building down. We could buy air rights,
- 14:46Speaker 3: you know. I thought it was the best location in
- 14:48Speaker 3: the best city.
- 14:49Speaker 1: Many people in the business world, they're out socializing all
- 14:53Speaker 1: kinds of other organizations.
- 14:55Speaker 2: You don't do anything.
- 14:55Speaker 1: You just run your bank and you spend time with
- 14:57Speaker 1: your family.
- 14:57Speaker 2: Isn't that boring?
- 14:58Speaker 3: No, my family, I love all of them. I got
- 15:02Speaker 3: seven grandkids and one more coming. We take our family
- 15:05Speaker 3: vacations together. That's the most important thing. The second most
- 15:08Speaker 3: important is my country that I do spend time on,
- 15:11Speaker 3: you know, with my own time, my own effort. My
- 15:13Speaker 3: company obviously gets involved. I love business. I think if
- 15:16Speaker 3: I you know, she's talk about, I don't do a
- 15:18Speaker 3: lot of black ties. I don't play golf, I don't
- 15:20Speaker 3: do red carpets. I do a little bit, you know,
- 15:24Speaker 3: But I love what I do. I mean, it's not
- 15:25Speaker 3: like I don't feel like I have any regrets at
- 15:27Speaker 3: all about doing that. And I feel. You know, if
- 15:29Speaker 3: JP Morgan Chase does well, I could help our employees.
- 15:32Speaker 3: I help my clients, I help my communities, I help
- 15:35Speaker 3: my country, I help the world if I do a
- 15:37Speaker 3: good job. You know, I always tell people, you know,
- 15:39Speaker 3: if we don't keep j more healthy and vibrant, I
- 15:42Speaker 3: cannot do those things. That's on the other side of that.
- 15:45Speaker 3: I lay people off. It's miserable. Your life is terrible,
- 15:48Speaker 3: and so I fight hard to make sure we're healthy
- 15:50Speaker 3: and vibrant.
- 15:51Speaker 1: Warren Buffett more or less invented the idea of writting
- 15:54Speaker 1: a letter to shareholders that everybody reads. You have done
- 15:58Speaker 1: the same and now warmed by if it's probably not
- 16:00Speaker 1: going to write, is there anymore and yours is widely read?
- 16:03Speaker 1: How much time do you put into writing that letter?
- 16:06Speaker 1: And do you get nervous that so many people are
- 16:08Speaker 1: going to pay attention to every single word?
- 16:09Speaker 2: You have to get it exactly right?
- 16:11Speaker 3: Yeah? I do all of that. So I bereaing his
- 16:13Speaker 3: letters my whole life. And in fact I got his
- 16:15Speaker 3: letters from nineteen fifty six when it was a partnership
- 16:18Speaker 3: in private, and he said, you just speach to your show
- 16:21Speaker 3: like your smart sister or mother or something like that.
- 16:23Speaker 3: Explain to them what you're doing and why you're doing it.
- 16:26Speaker 3: So I do that. I make a list of questions.
- 16:28Speaker 3: I get the questions, I do it myself. I ask shareholders,
- 16:31Speaker 3: I get my management team, or like what is the
- 16:34Speaker 3: most important stuff for JP Morgan and I kind of
- 16:39Speaker 3: make that list, I start writing. I spent a lot
- 16:40Speaker 3: of time on it. Very often. I used to answer
- 16:43Speaker 3: the question I don't know the answer, and I actually
- 16:46Speaker 3: do the work. So now I'm like doing a lot
- 16:48Speaker 3: of research while I'm writing the letter to answer the question.
- 16:51Speaker 3: What are we going to do? Is what we did
- 16:53Speaker 3: the right thing? Should we do more of it? How
- 16:56Speaker 3: are you going to use it? You know, AI or
- 16:58Speaker 3: open banking? Whatever the question is debanking? What is the
- 17:02Speaker 3: real issue? Then I try to explain it in terms
- 17:04Speaker 3: to our people. And then I started doing public policy
- 17:07Speaker 3: because no bank is actually stronger, much stronger than the
- 17:12Speaker 3: country that lives in America. From twenty to twenty twenty
- 17:16Speaker 3: grow two percent a year. Had it grown three percent
- 17:19Speaker 3: a year, which I think was eminently achievable, our GDP
- 17:23Speaker 3: per person would be twenty thousand dollars more a year
- 17:25Speaker 3: today per person, which would afford a lot of safety nets,
- 17:30Speaker 3: a lot of infrastructure, had a lot of taxes, and
- 17:32Speaker 3: we didn't do it. And it's around, you know, basic things.
- 17:35Speaker 3: So I started to do more of that. What are
- 17:37Speaker 3: the things that we could do that can force the growth,
- 17:40Speaker 3: secure the country, make it healthier place, lift up all
- 17:43Speaker 3: of our citizens. Almost all of the bad policies. We have,
- 17:46Speaker 3: the thing that inner city schools don't work, immigration policy,
- 17:50Speaker 3: you know, some of this that we're doing, immigration permitting policies, schools,
- 17:55Speaker 3: almost all of that hurts lower paid people more than
- 17:57Speaker 3: anyone in this room. So in some ways we could
- 17:59Speaker 3: ignore it because it's not really affecting us directly because
- 18:01Speaker 3: your kids don't go to those schools, You're not. I
- 18:03Speaker 3: was worried about that. You know, they have the lower
- 18:06Speaker 3: income folks of worse health care, worse job prospects, has
- 18:10Speaker 3: become intergenerational, their schools don't work, they have more crime.
- 18:13Speaker 3: And that's what we did. That was us, That was
- 18:16Speaker 3: all policy, and you know, and then people stand behind
- 18:19Speaker 3: ideology and morality on both sides, you know, thinking that
- 18:22Speaker 3: they did stuff to fix it and they didn't, you know,
- 18:25Speaker 3: and so I, you know, I have a frustration around
- 18:27Speaker 3: that and obviously. I feel the same way about the
- 18:28Speaker 3: security and resiliency things, things like permitting. I always make
- 18:33Speaker 3: a list of what the more how we do with
- 18:34Speaker 3: mortgages and affordable housing, so we may start a new
- 18:37Speaker 3: one called the American Dream. We do a lot to
- 18:40Speaker 3: do mortgages, affordable housing, health care skills jobs. I would
- 18:46Speaker 3: double the urgum task cred or something like that. There
- 18:48Speaker 3: are a lot of things we could do that are
- 18:50Speaker 3: grows to three percent and help all of our citizens
- 18:52Speaker 3: and secure the nation. And we better do it pretty
- 18:54Speaker 3: quick because on the security side we don't have forever.
- 18:57Speaker 1: Of all the things you do, is the most enjoyed
- 19:00Speaker 1: able getting to meet with members of Congress when you
- 19:02Speaker 1: come down here. Is that an uplifting experience when you
- 19:05Speaker 1: come down and meet with members.
- 19:06Speaker 2: How do you like that?
- 19:07Speaker 3: So you should know I do it all the time,
- 19:09Speaker 3: you know, as part of my job. I like years ago,
- 19:12Speaker 3: I said, you know, government is another line of business.
- 19:15Speaker 3: It is we take it seriously. And to make an
- 19:18Speaker 3: important point here, and the Chamber does this, which I
- 19:21Speaker 3: think they do a great job. But there are a
- 19:22Speaker 3: lot of people in the Congress, House and Senate who
- 19:25Speaker 3: want to do the right job and they need help
- 19:28Speaker 3: to do the right job. I'm not insulting their intelligence.
- 19:30Speaker 3: They're quite bright, but you know they need the research,
- 19:33Speaker 3: the facts, the analysis to figure out what to do
- 19:35Speaker 3: when these complex issues come up. So I think we
- 19:38Speaker 3: all need to do it. And the only thing I'd
- 19:39Speaker 3: urge you all to do when you do it, don't
- 19:41Speaker 3: always make it parochial about your own self interest. It
- 19:43Speaker 3: should also be about what's in the interests in the United
- 19:46Speaker 3: States of America. You're all gonna do fine anyway. What
- 19:48Speaker 3: happens from you know, unions and government and businesses where
- 19:52Speaker 3: it's the self interest is so high it actually is
- 19:55Speaker 3: part of why we have two percent growth. And I
- 19:58Speaker 3: think we should all like open eyes a little bit,
- 19:59Speaker 3: make sure we do the right things. You know, it's
- 20:01Speaker 3: okay to fight for which for you, you know, for your
- 20:03Speaker 3: own interest. But uh, but there's too much of that
- 20:06Speaker 3: going on.
- 20:06Speaker 1: I mean, you can't be working all the time. Do
- 20:08Speaker 1: you have any hobbies, do anything other than thorry about
- 20:11Speaker 1: worry about the JP Morgan.
- 20:13Speaker 3: My daughters, who I also love deeply and I have
- 20:16Speaker 3: wonderful son in laws, once said to me, Dad, you
- 20:18Speaker 3: need more hobbies, And I was like, wait, what are
- 20:20Speaker 3: you talking about. We take all our family vacations together,
- 20:22Speaker 3: you know, around the world. We enjoy it. I love history,
- 20:25Speaker 3: I love wine, I love music, I love reading, I
- 20:28Speaker 3: love arts, I love We watched movies together. That's really like,
- 20:32Speaker 3: I'm not looking to do other stuff. And we hike together,
- 20:35Speaker 3: so that's really like, those are my sports. We all
- 20:37Speaker 3: do the gym together. We have lunches and dinners together.
- 20:41Speaker 3: We have family dinners like almost every Saturday or Sunday night.
- 20:44Speaker 3: That's what I like and that's what I'm going to
- 20:45Speaker 3: do until I'm no longer here.
- 20:47Speaker 1: And do you have you ever had your credit card denied?
- 20:50Speaker 1: I mean you have a lot of anybody ever denied
- 20:53Speaker 1: Jamie Diamonds.
- 20:54Speaker 3: Yes, my own credit cards designed me several times. And
- 20:58Speaker 3: what do you do?
- 20:58Speaker 2: What do you you tell them who you are? Well?
- 21:01Speaker 3: What doesn't work? To tell me who you are? And
- 21:03Speaker 3: they don't know who I am?
- 21:04Speaker 2: Now? Did your parents live this year success? And what
- 21:06Speaker 2: did they say?
- 21:06Speaker 1: Did they say we always knew you were going to
- 21:08Speaker 1: be the CEO of JP Morgan it was going to
- 21:09Speaker 1: do well?
- 21:10Speaker 3: Or what did they say My mom had a little
- 21:12Speaker 3: of that you'll be in general one day or something
- 21:15Speaker 3: like that. But they both died in twenty sixteen, literally
- 21:19Speaker 3: together in the same bed, the same within twelve hours
- 21:22Speaker 3: of each other, so they got to see, you know,
- 21:25Speaker 3: a lot of it. We're quite proud. You know. My
- 21:28Speaker 3: grandparents were all Greek immigrants that didn't finish high school.
- 21:32Speaker 3: So I'm part of that story. And they instilled in
- 21:35Speaker 3: all of us, you know, values and the values that
- 21:37Speaker 3: I have a purpose, work hard, make the world a
- 21:39Speaker 3: better place, treat everyone, treat everyone properly and equally.
- 21:42Speaker 1: What would you like people to know the most about
- 21:45Speaker 1: JP Morgan if they walk away from here today? What
- 21:48Speaker 1: would you like people to take back in their head
- 21:50Speaker 1: about JP Morgan, about what it is, what it's done,
- 21:52Speaker 1: or what it stands for.
- 21:54Speaker 3: That we will stand by good clients and thicker thin
- 21:57Speaker 3: that we always try to be better. We are strong,
- 22:01Speaker 3: but that strength is for you. That we want their
- 22:03Speaker 3: community to be better, We want your companies to be better,
- 22:05Speaker 3: we want their country to be better. We'll do our
- 22:07Speaker 3: part making this a better world, and we do it
- 22:09Speaker 3: with a forethought and with every sinew of our body
- 22:12Speaker 3: is to try to do the best we can. And
- 22:14Speaker 3: if you and if we and we got knows we
- 22:15Speaker 3: make mistakes. We will say we made a mistake, we're sorry,
- 22:18Speaker 3: and we'll fix it. That's what we'll do.
- 22:22Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
- 22:24Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
- 22:28Speaker 1: wherever you listen.