JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon: The David Rubenstein Show

This is my kitchen table and also my filing system.

Over much of the past three decades, I've been an investor the highest calling of mankind I've often thought was private equity.

And then I started interviewing. While I watch your interviews, Coach, I know how to do something. I've learned in doing my interviews how leaders make it to the top. I asked him how much he wanted.

He said to 50. I said, Fine.

I didn't negotiate with him. I didn't know due diligence to have something I'd like to sell and how they stay there.

You don't feel inadequate now because being only the second wealthiest man in the world, is that right? The world's best known banker is Jamie Dimon, the long time CEO of JPMorgan. I had a chance to meet with Jamie Dimon recently to talk about what's going on in the financial world.

He said he didn't want to be chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, but maybe he would take the call to be secretary of the Treasury.

So recently you've been talking about the importance of the United States and our celebrate our 250th, but also investing in things that are security related. What made you focus on that?

related. What made you focus on that?

And you're now going to commit to build a trillion a half dollars over next ten years for this kind of investment? Why did you decide to do that?

Yeah, So I've always been a patriot. And like, you know, you talk here about growth. You know, growing the economy and the

growth. You know, growing the economy and the grievances of America, which has a lot of legitimate we got to deal with and get policy right. But one of them was this notion that we ended up being so reliant on other people, some potential adversaries, for things critical to the security of the United States.

And it wasn't just us was your allies, too.

So we did some real research, of course, to industry groups.

You're talking about rare earths, which you all know about active pharmaceutical ingredients some of you may know about, you know, obviously military production, drones, air, cyber, satellite. What are the things you need for resiliency that we already did a lot of it.

And we wanted to do more, realizing it was an important thing to do.

How we got here. I don't like to have spilled milk, but we should never have been here. So that's a three and a half dollars.

My guess is will be quite a bit more than that by the time we're done.

We've had a deluge of interest in it. Then we have we hired Todd Combs, who was just a world class investor and a world class person who's got his own dealers coming in to invest, you know, 10 billion and probably more.

And we actually have partners in that in helping companies with growth capital that they need to grow to build a next plant or something.

We did real research of supply chains. It was a lot of companies that provide what's important for basic, important military equipment and they need help to grow that they could be private companies or bigger companies.

There's a venture capital component. We're also under research.

So think around the shipbuilding ecosystem and then and policy.

There are a lot of things that are wrong or policy reasons are how we how we're allowed to procure in the military, things like permitting EPA laws.

You know, if you want to keep this country safe and secure, we need to do this work. We need to do it now.

this work. We need to do it now.

And right away, it also will be extended to, you know, nations in Europe, you know, Australia, Japan, South Korea. And it's just important to our national security. You know, if you didn't if you didn't

security. You know, if you didn't if you didn't get the wakeup call in February when, you know, 300,000 Russian troops and then Ukraine, you know, the was not safe.

It was never say if we just got another false sense of security, the biggest safe thing to have is the strongest military on the planet.

When the Great Recession happened. Were you worried about the viability of our financial system? Your bank was in pretty good shape, but we worried that more many investment banks and commercial banks were to go under at that point. Well, a lot of them did.

You know, and yeah, a lot of companies around the world, a lot of non-banks around the world, went bankrupt. You know, Jp morgan, we did a lot to keep people afloat. We took a lot of risk to do that.

We worked with governments around the world.

It was it was terrifying and it was, you know, 24, seven.

And, you know, people just try to do the right thing and make sure, you know, we can. Do you think there's a chance of

can. Do you think there's a chance of something like that happening next couple of years?

Do you think we're much better protected from that kind of problem?

Well, there's no chance that you can have that kind of problem, but there are chance you have a problem somewhere somehow.

You know, the biggest unknown is, is geopolitics, you know, And it's not like you have to be dangerous. You carefully you talk about is not like that's going to determine what the economy does in 2026.

But it is a moving tectonic plate, you know, alliances, You know, obviously, this terrible war in Ukraine, which we need to do as much as we can help Ukraine, but aided and abetted by in Russia and Russia, somewhat by China, those folks have told you what they want to do.

They want to dismantle their system set up, they think, by America, set up by the Western world after World War Two. It's been quite successful.

Yeah, there are a lot of forces at play and, you know, and people are going to choose, you know, how they want to play this, play this for now.

So yeah, that would be my greatest concern.

And that's about the future of the free, democratic world.

That's not just about America. Are you worried about the overregulation that some people in the banking world think that is occurring now, or do you think the regulations are okay now? The problem with regulations, when you talk to some people, it's always act like it's more or less well, in the law you do have regulation. I think you can create more liquidity in the system, you know, more capital use, more linear capability, reduce rules and

regulations which cause those complaints about banking and complaints.

But I think we can make the system better work better, cheaper work for more Americans and safer. What bothers me the most is when we talk about regulation, no one ever steps back and say, What are we trying to accomplish or Why do we want to accomplish much better this or that?

Because no matter what you do, the pros and cons banks are very strong today, But take the system as a whole. We've gone from 8000 public companies to 4000 public companies. Is that what we wanted?

Because that's what we did. We did it with no forethought without even thinking about it. But it was, you know, years of rules and regulations. That made it costly and litigious in

regulations. That made it costly and litigious in hard. And, you know, we let institutions like

hard. And, you know, we let institutions like ISIS in glass Lewis you know, vote 30% of the shares in America.

You know and and so yeah I'm quite concerned about that.

We get regulations right. We all want a safe financial system.

A safe food is safe. But it doesn't mean you have to have endless regulations. Regulations should be reviewed and

endless regulations. Regulations should be reviewed and improved all the time as opposed to what we do today.

I put that in a lot of policy. We just add things on top of things.

And if you look at policy in America, more affordable housing, it's all about policy. You know, zoning policies, permitting

policy. You know, zoning policies, permitting policies, housing policies, you know, it's all about policy.

He's got not a damn thing to do. The people don't want to build homes or move into homes. You know, and I can say to you about a mortgage business, we made it more expensive because of rules and regulations, education, You know, we don't measure the outcomes of high schools in community colleges and colleges, how many jobs they get, at what income levels, and we could do it. So we look at work skills.

We're going to need 2000 welders. We need welding schools.

So if government can have policies of policy that age in a better sense and has the guardrails to create the right behaviors, you know, not endless policies that like slow things down, which is what we have, you know, we're go we're slowly going the way Europe, you know, Europe, you may not know this has gone from 90% per person GDP of America to 65%.

That's what they've done. It was all policy.

A lot of the policy done in the name of good.

And that's what we do all the time. We're endless, you know, rules and regulations that create these things. I also think you all should learn to call it not red tape, but blue tape. Okay.

The Democrats love that crap and then they want to make it litigious.

You know that every flaw ever that ever happens is on purpose by by bad people.

So policy, we need good policy. And we're going to be fighting much more for good policy this year. Jp morgan Now, are you worried about the size of the U.S. debt?

We have $38 trillion of debt. We're adding 2 trillion every year.

Do you see any way that's going to be solved?

And do you worry that this is going to impact the value of the dollar at some point? So if you look at the economy today,

point? So if you look at the economy today, there's a lot of good short term things like think of this year.

You know, the one big beautiful build is a lot of stimulus.

The Fed is buying bonds again. That's you know about they don't call it QE. I would, but it lifts up asset prices

QE. I would, but it lifts up asset prices and stabilizes markets. Deregulation is is real and it's going to also drive animal spirits. A lot of investment come into the states. And I that's all good and that's

states. And I that's all good and that's probably going to drive stuff. There are I call this geopolitics and the deficit. I call I call my tectonic plates.

the deficit. I call I call my tectonic plates.

They're difficult. They're moving.

They may crash. We don't know and we don't know when.

So it isn't a 2026 issue, but our deficit is almost $2 trillion this year.

Total debt is 30 trillion. That'll be next year, 32 and 34 and 37 and 40. It is not sustainable.

and 40. It is not sustainable.

It will not work eventually. I just don't know when that is.

The best anecdote is growth. I mean, if you just model anything, growth will make up for it. And that and growth.

I always tell people good policy is free.

Like we already spent $800 billion in K-12.

You know, stopping people from building stuff is free.

It'll create jobs or create productivity.

And so we have time to get the policy right to grow the economy.

And then we have to start making some other choices to was a president United States said, I'd like you to be secretary of the Treasury or chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. What would you say to that?

You are chairman of the Fed. I'd be absolutely, positively no change, no way, no how for any reason. Okay.

Secretary Treasury, I would consider if a president calls you up and asks you to do something, you know, you should consider it.

So I would take the call and consider it and think about why and what they want, etc.. But what they want and how they want to

etc.. But what they want and how they want to operate would be important to me. I like my job.

I've been my own boss for pretty much 25 years and I like it that way.

So recently there's been some comment by you about the independence of the Federal Reserve Board. What more might you want to say about your view about the importance of the independence of the Federal Reserve Board? You know, too much ink is building

Board? You know, too much ink is building certain things. Everyone I know, including the

certain things. Everyone I know, including the president, United States, says we need an independent Fed board.

The question is only about when certain things take place and think of lawsuits and stuff like that. Does it chip away at that independence of some spectrum? So you can say a little bit, you can say a lot, but you don't want to chip away too much because if you chip away too much, in my view, it in my opinion, it will drive rates higher, not lower.

That's all. That's not a job you would take.

If the United States said to you, I'd like you to be a chairman, you're be very independent. You wouldn't.

very independent. You wouldn't.

I would So much more prefer this job than that job.

That's a hard job. But I don't want to do that job.

You went to Harvard Business School, graduated with Baker scholar, top 5% of your class. You could have gone to Goldman Sachs,

your class. You could have gone to Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, all your famous firms. You chose to go work for a person who was a friend of your father's name is Sandy.

While you did that. And then when Sandy left, you stayed with him. And then ultimately you guys went to

with him. And then ultimately you guys went to Citicorp and then he fired you. Did you ever think then that you'd be coming back and running the most important bank in the world at the time you got fired there, or what were you thinking at that time?

And I said, You should come into private equity.

I went to see you and I said, Why don't you come to private equity?

And you, you didn't seem that interested.

But the biggest money offer I ever got in my life was from this guy over here.

It was never about money for me. And I knew after I got fired that they were going to screw up Citi because I knew how stupid some of the things they were doing was. But no, and I didn't I didn't think that way. I just, you know, I took time.

way. I just, you know, I took time.

I thought about all of these various alternatives.

I spoke to a lot of people, you know, and then I went to Bank one.

I love the Home Depot guys. They were talking to me and but I had to confess to them when I walked in. I'd never been in Home Depot until my friend made me go that weekend before I had dinner with Arthur Blank, Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone. And I just loved their culture.

But I'd never been in a merchant business.

And your bank was there. I thought I was going be tough.

I put my money into to move my money to Chicago.

I love Chicago. All I thought about is just do the best you can. I mean, I don't like when senior people

you can. I mean, I don't like when senior people complain. I always had to know why is I suck it up

complain. I always had to know why is I suck it up and do the job? That's all it was.

And that's I just go about to work, you know, and you're division by division, person by person, department, joy by tech, by tech, you know, try to build something great. I had my eye in JPMorgan Chase and, you

something great. I had my eye in JPMorgan Chase and, you know, a couple of years I thought it would never happen because we were so small and not doing well. But, you know, four years later, we had, you know, done a good job of Bank one. The values were close enough.

Bill Harris and I know each other. We merge the two companies.

Then I had a dream that if we did it right, we could make this a great company. Then I really did like that was What do

company. Then I really did like that was What do you think is the most important thing you did that put Jp morgan ahead of every other bank in the world? You worked harder, you hired better people around you. What were the things that you think their most important thing that made Jp morgan what it is today, which I want?

A lot of people do things better. So to say we're the best, everything is not right. And I think that's one of the reasons

not right. And I think that's one of the reasons why we do better a little bit, which is, you know, I'm relentless.

Go through system by system, by system by system, get out in the road, you know, visit other companies. They all do things better.

And you learn, learn, learn, learn, learn and be run knows about doing it.

Big companies slow down, they become complacent, become bureaucratic, all that stuff arrogant, you know, is the petri dish of politics.

You know, Jeff Bezos says, you know, that kind of stuff leads to status and death. And if you don't believe me, I know you

death. And if you don't believe me, I know you look at all the companies you failed huge, wonderful companies.

That's what management is. It's relentless attention to detail, getting strategy right, invest in your capital, not be beholden people.

But the most important is the people at their company can contribute the best of their ability. They know that you, the boss, don't know

their ability. They know that you, the boss, don't know everything and they know you just want to do the right thing for the company.

Decline of the community. And that's the only goal.

There's no other goal. We don't pander to Wall Street about, you know, quarterly earnings or stuff like that.

I never spent any time in that in my life.

I just try to do the right thing for the right reason and do it quickly.

Your market capitalization is up about I guess it's about the 700% and your stock price up about 500% or something like that, like 1,000%.

But go ahead. How much we pay back?

We went back a long time and paid a lot of dividends and all that.

So, yeah, so it's pretty good time. So people are very happy.

And so the question you get asked every day five times a day is how much longer do you want to do this? And the answer is five more years.

Yeah, at least about five more years. I love what I do.

It's up to the board how long I do it. I was honored to have the energy and the the eye and the fire in the gut. Yeah, I want to do it.

You recently built a new building in New York.

Why did you decide to build your headquarters in New York?

You tore down the building you had built The new building, took a couple of years and cost maybe $3 billion or something like that.

And it's now open. Are you happy you made that decision?

And are you going to build a similar building in London now?

Yeah, we are. So if you look at we have we spend $40 billion a year on people, which is important, $4 billion a year on real estate. We want to have great, great real

estate. We want to have great, great real estate. The old building wasn't fit for purpose,

estate. The old building wasn't fit for purpose, was too small, couldn't handle our trading floors.

I looked everywhere. I looked downtown, I looked Hudson Yards. I looked at Occupy and Vanderbilt.

Yards. I looked at Occupy and Vanderbilt.

But we could tell that building down, we could buy air rights.

You know, I thought it was the best location and the best city.

Many people in the business world, they're out socializing all kinds of other organization. You don't do anything.

other organization. You don't do anything.

You just run your bank and you spend time with your family.

Isn't that boring? No, I love my family.

I love all of them. I got seven grandkids and one more come in. We take our family vacation together.

in. We take our family vacation together.

That's. The most important thing.

And the second most important is my country that I do not spend time on.

You know, with my own time, my own effort, my company obviously gets involved. I love business.

involved. I love business.

I think if I you know, I don't do a lot of black ties.

I don't play golf, I don't do red carpets.

I do a little bit, you know, But I love what I do.

I mean, it's not like I don't feel like I have any regrets at all about doing that. And I feel, you know, Jp morgan Chase

that. And I feel, you know, Jp morgan Chase does well. I could help our employees.

does well. I could help our employees.

I help my clients, I help my community to help my country.

I help the world if I do a good job. You know, I always tell people, you know, if we don't keep Jamie healthy and vibrant, I cannot do those things.

That's when the other side that lay people off, you're miserable, Your life is terrible. And I'm so.

is terrible. And I'm so.

I fight hard to make sure we're healthy and vibrant.

Almost all of the bad policies we have hurts lower paid people more than anyone in this room. So in some ways we could ignore it because it's not really affecting us. And that's what we did.

That was us. That was all policy.

Warren Buffett more or less invented the idea of writing a letter to shareholders that everybody reads. You have done the same.

And now Warren Buffett is probably not going to write as Larry more.

Yours is widely read. How much time do you put into writing that letter? And do you get nervous that so many

that letter? And do you get nervous that so many people are going to pay attention? Every single word.

You have to get it exactly right. Yeah, I do all that you are.

You bring his letters my whole life. And I fact, I got his letters from 1956 when it was a partnership in private. And and he said you should speak to your Sheryl like your smart sister or mother or something like that.

Explain to them what you're doing and why you're doing it.

So I do that. I make a list of questions.

I get the questions. I do it myself.

I ask shareholders, I get you know, my management team are like, what is the most important stuff for JPMorgan? And and I can't make that list.

I start right. I spend a lot of time on it very often.

I used to answer the question, I don't know the answer, and I actually do the work. So now I do a lot of research when I'm

work. So now I do a lot of research when I'm writing the letter to answer the question, What are we going to do?

Is what we did the right thing? Should we do more of it?

How are you going to use it? You know, I or, you know, open banking or whatever, the question is debating what is the real issue.

Then I try to explain it in terms to our people, and then I start doing public policy because no bank is actually stronger, much stronger than the country that lives in America. From 2000 to 2020, grew 2% a year, had to grow 3% a year, which I think was eminently achievable.

Our GDP per person would be $20,000 more year today per person, which would afford a lot of safety nets, a lot of infrastructure, had a lot of taxes, and we didn't do it. And it's around, you know, basic things.

Do I start to do more of that? What are the things that we could do?

They can, you know, foster growth, secure the country, make it healthier, place lift up all of our citizens, almost all of the bad policies we have.

The thing, though, that inner city schools don't work, immigration policy, you know, some of the stuff we do in immigration permitting policies, schools, almost all of that hurts low paid people more than anyone in this room. So in some ways we could ignore it

room. So in some ways we could ignore it because it's not really affecting us directly.

Your kids don't go to those schools. You know, I was worried about that.

You know, they have the lower income folks have worse health care, worse job prospects is become intergenerational. Their schools don't work.

They have more crime. And that's what we did.

That was just that was all policy. And, you know, and then people stayed behind ideology or morality, you know, on both sides, you know, thinking that they did stuff to fix it and they didn't, you know.

And so I you know, I have frustration around that.

Obviously, I feel the same way about the security, resiliency, things, things like permitting. I make a list of what are the more how

like permitting. I make a list of what are the more how are we do mortgage mortgages, affordable housing.

So we may start a new one called the American Dream.

We do a lot to do mortgages, affordable housing, health care, skills, jobs.

You know, I would double the program target or something like that.

There are a lot of things we could do that would go to 3% and help all of our citizens and secure the nation. And we better do it pretty quick because on the security side, we don't have forever.

Of all the things you do is the most enjoyable.

Getting to meet with members of Congress when you come down here.

Is that an uplifting experience? When you come down and meet with members, how do you like that? So you should know, I do it all the time. You know, it's part of my job.

time. You know, it's part of my job.

I like years ago I said, you know, government deserves another line of business. It is.

business. It is.

We take it seriously. And to make an important point here in the chamber, does this which you I think they do a great job, but there are a lot of people in the Congress, House and Senate, who want to do the right job and they need help to do the right job. I'm not insulting their intelligence.

They're quite bright. But, you know, they need the research, the facts, the analysis to figure out what to do when these complex issues come up. So I think we all need to do it.

come up. So I think we all need to do it.

And the only thing I would urge you all to do when you do it don't always make it parochial about your own self-interest.

It should also be about which, in the interest the United States of America, you're all going to find anyway. What happens from, you know, unions and government and businesses where the self-interest is so high.

It actually is part of why we have 2% growth.

And I think we should all like open our eyes a little bit, make sure we do the right things. You know, it's okay to fight for.

right things. You know, it's okay to fight for.

It's for you, you know, for your own interests.

But but there's too much of that going on.

I mean, you can't be working all the time.

Do you have any hobbies, do anything other than three about worry about the Jp morgan, my daughters, who I also love deeply and I've wonderful son in law, was once said to be Dad, you need more hobbies.

And I was like, What are you talking about?

We take all our family vacations together, you know, around the world.

We enjoy it. I love history of wine and the music of reading. I love arts, I love we watch movies

reading. I love arts, I love we watch movies together. That's what I like.

together. That's what I like.

I'm not looking to do other stuff and we hike together.

So that's what I like. Those are my sports.

We all do a gym together. We have lunches and dinners together, family dinners, like almost every Saturday or Sunday night.

That's what I like and that's what I'm going to do until I'm no longer here.

And. Do you?

Have you ever had your credit card denied?

I mean, you have a lot of anybody ever denied Jamie Dimon.

Yes. My own credit cards denied me several times. So what do you what do you tell them who

times. So what do you what do you tell them who you are? Well,

you are? Well, it doesn't work to tell them who you are.

They don't know who I am. How did your parents live to see your success? And what did they say to.

success? And what did they say to.

They say we always knew you were going to be the CEO of Jp morgan.

It was going to do well. What did they say?

My mom had a little of that. You'll be a general one day or something like that. But they both died in 2016, literally

like that. But they both died in 2016, literally together in the same bed, same within 12 hours of each other.

So they got to see, you know, a lot of it.

And we're quite proud. You know, my you know, my grandparents were all Greek immigrants who didn't finish high school.

If I'm part of that story and they instilled in all of us, you know, values and the values have a purpose, work hard, make the world a better place, treat everyone, treat everyone properly and equally.

What would you like people to know the most about Jp morgan?

If they walk away from here today. What would you like people to take back in their head about Jp morgan, about what it is, what it's done, or what it stands for? That we will stand by.

stands for? That we will stand by.

Good clients. The thicker thin that we always try to be better, that we are strong. But their strength is for you.

That we want their community better. We want your company to be better.

We want the country to be better. We'll do our part in making this a better world. And we do it with aforethought and with

better world. And we do it with aforethought and with every sinew of our body to try to do the best we can.

And if you and we God knows we make mistakes, we will say we made a mistake, we're sorry and we'll fix it. That's what we'll do.

Do.