The Jamie Dimon Interview

**Ben Gilbert** (0:00)
David, we completely blew it. We went into Jamie Dimon's office, had our little meet and greet. We did not ask about the dual pistols.

**David Rosenthal** (0:09)
Yeah. From the dual, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, which JPMorgan owns and keeps in their headquarters. And we blew it, we didn't ask to see them. We'll just have to come back.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:21)
When they finish the new building, I'm sure they will be in the executive floor. We can go get a viewing of the piece of American history.

**David Rosenthal** (0:29)
All right. Speaking of American history, let's do it.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:32)
Let's do it. Welcome to the summer 2025 season of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert.

**David Rosenthal** (1:08)
I'm David Rosenthal.

**Ben Gilbert** (1:10)
And we are your hosts. Today's episode is the story of a rising star on Wall Street in the 1980s, who worked with his mentor to merge and acquire their way to the top of the financial world in the 90s, who then got fired unexpectedly by that same mentor, who cast about deciding what to do next, and then in 2000 accepted a job turning around a poorly run Midwestern bank. Then over the next 25 years, he would orchestrate one of the most remarkable runs in banking history and really all of corporate history. This is the story of Jamie Dimon and how he created the modern financial behemoth, JPMorgan Chase, out of the beleaguered component parts of Bank One, JPMorgan Chase, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual and First Republic. Jamie is now the longest serving CEO of any major Wall Street bank and is viewed as kind of the great stabilizer of the American financial system, especially during the 2008 financial crisis. He now sits atop the largest bank in the US with an over $800 billion market cap, which is more than twice their nearest competitor. They are the only bank within spitting distance of the sort of big trillion-dollar tech companies that we've covered here on Acquired. And to really put a finer point on the dominance, they are the most valuable company east of the Mississippi in the United States and the only company east of the Mississippi worth more than half a trillion dollars. Incredible. So the question, of course, is how did he do it? I mean, banks fail. Financial firms often have spectacular blowups and large organizations, period, financial or not, can often get so bloated that they slow down to a crawl. So what did Jamie Dimon do differently? Well, today's episode, we have Jamie with us, himself, to tell the story. We recorded this live in front of 6,000 Acquired fans at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. So you'll notice it's a different format than our usual episode. We're always trying to figure out what version of Acquired works live with an audience. And this is our latest iteration. The Radio City Show also had a second act, a late night talk show, where we had conversations with the CEO of the New York Times, Meredith Coveit-Levian, and the chairman of IAC, Barry Diller, plus some cameos from around the Acquired cinematic universe. And we cannot wait to share all of that with you at a later date. Well, if you want to know every time an episode drops, check out our email list, Acquired.fm slash email. Come join the Slack and talk about this with us afterwards. Acquired.fm slash Slack. If you want more acquired between each monthly episode, check out ACQ2, our interview show, where we talk with founders and CEOs building businesses in areas we've covered on the show. And before we dive in, we want to briefly thank our presenting partner, JP. Morgan.

**David Rosenthal** (4:00)
Yes, the same JP. Morgan, which is funny because when we started planning this show together, gosh, almost a year ago, it was immediately clear to Ben and me that the very best person who acquired Good Interview in New York also happened to be their CEO.

**Ben Gilbert** (4:15)
And as you all know from the episodes over the last couple of years, JP. Morgan has been a fantastic partner of ours, and their payments team demoed all kinds of cool technology at the event. Our huge thanks to the JP. Morgan team for putting on the show with us. And if you ever want to learn more, just click the link in the show notes and tell them that Ben and David sent you. So with that, this show is not investment advice. David and I may have investments in the companies we discuss, and this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. On to our conversation with Jamie Dimon. Well, this feels appropriate.