Sharing my 14 favourite highlights from the Acquired Podcast Interview with Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

It reminded me of the eight wonderful years I spent working at JPM, enjoying working with many good people to serve our clients.

These operating principles heavily influenced how I have and will continue to operate:

1 | Having skin in the game.

Like I said, it is what you make it. I put half my money in the stock at the time. I was going to be the captain of the ship. I was going to go down with the ship. I made it clear to everyone. I was here permanently, and it’ll be what it is. So I got to work literally the next day.

2 | Having transparency.

When I got offered the job, I shook all their hands. I told them, I’m going to do the best I do. I’m going to tell you the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, the good, the bad, the ugly. We’re not going to bullshit. We’re going to try to build a great company. I’m going to need your help. And then they left.

3 | Willing to change the status quo.

They put them all in this conference room, nice, white, plush carpets. I walked in with a cup of coffee and they said, Jamie, we don’t drink coffee in here for obvious reasons. I looked at them, I looked at coffee, I looked at them, I said, you do now.

4  | Being risk-conscious, not risk-averse, be aware of the fat tails.

I’ve always been very risk-conscious. Risk-conscious does not mean getting rid of risk. It means properly pricing it and understanding the potential outcomes…. I always look what I call the fat tails and manage that we can handle all the fat tails. Not the stress test the Fed gives us, but all the fat tails.

5 | History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.

If you look around risk, there’s always this ecosystem. You’ve always heard it. Everyone’s doing it. Everyone’s okay. This is going to work. This time is different. History tells you, learn, teaches you a lot…If you go through history, there are tons of these things….1929, history does rhyme. Too much leverage, too much risk. Everyone thinks it’s going to be great. No one thinks it can go down a lot. That stock market went down 20% one year, 30% next year, 20% next year. At one point it was down 90%. Shit happens.

6 | Run your company well first, earn the right. 

I think the first thing is run your company well. People thought I was going to start doing deals immediately. I was like, no. We suck. We haven’t earned the right to run someone else’s company yet. When we’re running a good company, we can merge with somebody.

7 | Stick to what you know best, not overreacting, and you get to buy when others are fearful.

So just sticking to your knitting, constantly investing, not overreacting to the market. Markets are like accordions. Then sometimes if you’re strong when others aren’t, you have a chance to buy things you want to buy. 

8 | Be willing to think long-term, looking through the cycle and continuously investing.

It is literally continuously investing, gaining business at the margin, not stopping and not stop starting. The thing about margins too is that we have that margin while investing a lot. It’s much easier to have that margin. We can cut billions of dollars of marketing out tomorrow. We can stop opening branches and save a billion dollars next year. We could do a lot of things.

Your margins will go up, your growth will go down. Your long-term margins will probably get worse. So we look right through the cycle and we look at the actual economics that we do, not the accounting of what we do. And we’ve built it over time.

9 | Seek to see things from your customers’ viewpoint, driving win-win-win outcomes.

Then always look at the world from the point of view of the consumer. What do you want? How do you want it? How do you want to get it? Can we provide it to you in a way that makes sense for us too? Not going for the last dollar and not nothing like that. 

10 | Always do the right thing by your customers.

Well, first of all, if you work for me, I would tell you I don’t care what the incentive is. Don’t do the wrong thing. Don’t do the wrong thing to the client. If you’re the client, how would you want to be treated?

11 | Always do first-class business in a first-class way with good customers.

In the banking business, the character of the clients you have will reflect on your bank. The first thing is, who are you doing business with? How you’re doing business? And also making sure your compensation plans aren’t paying people for stuff which is stupid or unethical. You always have to review these things to make sure you have them right because they change all the time.

12 | Hire good people who are curious, smart, with heart and soul, who want to serve their clients.

Our people are curious and smart. They have heart, they have soul. They give a damn about the guards in the company and the receptionists. It’s not just about the big time bankers and people pounding their chest. We try not to put up with that. And we have big time bankers. They’re exceptional, but the company serves the clients, and I think the clients know that.

13 | Work hard every day at practice, and always give your best in whatever you do; don’t hold back.

Sports is a great analogy. If you have a sport team with a bunch of real jerks on it, are they going to be a great team? Almost never. You look at Tom Brady. Every day at practice he worked hard. If people are not giving their best, how you’re going to have a great team? It’s not that different in business. The difference in business, you can BS about it all the time. You can make up stories. But in sports, you see it on the playing field. Do they have the team? They play together. They don’t even have to be friends. They have to practice, know their teams. So I do think companies have that. It’s like a sauce that works. And you’ve seen it.

14 | Have a purpose, give it your best, and treat everyone with respect.

Have a purpose. It could be art, it could be science, it could be military, it could be business, it could be just being a great parent, a great teacher. But have a purpose. Then do the best you can. Give it your all. Don’t be one of those people who’s complaining all the time. You give it your best. And then treat everyone properly. Everyone. If there’s a bully beating up on someone, you had to stand up for the someone. You were not allowed to allow a bully to do it, so how you treat people you do.

https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/the-jamie-dimon-interview