"F*cking Zoom": Jamie Dimon Launches Into Tirade, Railing On Complacency, Work From Home, At JPM Meeting

While the rest of the world gives Jamie Dimon flak for the leaked audio of him running a tight ship at his bank this past week, it was mostly music to our ears.

After years of junior bankers on Wall Street - many of whom are now starting with salaries close to $200,000/year - complaining about not having enough time off, being forced to work weekends and lack of vegan options in the company cafeteria (we just assume), audio surfaced this past week with JP Morgan's Chief Executive Officer launching into a tirade about 'working from home'.

As Barron's notes, employees are frustrated by the bank’s upcoming five-day office mandate and lower-than-expected raises and bonuses despite record profits. Dimon made remarks to a group of employees at an internal town hall this week.

"We allowed three days and two days. But here are the problems, OK? And they are substantial. The younger generation is being damaged by this. They may or may not be in your particular staff, but they are being left behind—socially, in terms of ideas, and in meeting people. In fact, my guess is most of you live in communities a hell of a lot less diverse than this room," Dimon said.

"And so, it had all these kinds of effects. We actually see these other kids slowly being left behind, and I won’t do that to younger kids. Now, it’s hard to say… ‘You come in, but not your bosses.’ And the other thing, which was full of sh—, which I couldn’t stand listening to anymore, is, ‘Well, if I come in, I just Zoomed to people somewhere.’ So, I also said what you can’t do—which is, we have people Zooming in from different floors. If you’re in the building, go to the meeting."

"We also had—and you know I’m right about this one—a lot of you were on the f— Zoom, and you were doing the following: looking at your mail, sending texts to each other about what an a— the other person is, not paying attention, not reading your stuff. And if you don’t think that slows down efficiency, creativity, and creates rudeness—it does."

The CEO continued, railing on the bank's headcount: "Meanwhile, headcount has gone up by 50,000 people in four, five years. And people tell me, ‘Well, you know…’"

"We don’t need all those people. We were putting people in jobs because the people weren’t doing the job they were hired to do in the first place. It simply doesn’t work. I will not be responsible for a company like that, OK? And I’m sorry. Now—you have a choice. You don’t have to work at JPMorgan. So, for those of you who don’t want to work at the company, that’s fine with me."

"I’m not mad at you, don’t be mad at me. It’s a free country, you can walk with your feet. But this company is going to set our own standards and do it our own way. I’ve had it with this kind of stuff. I’ve been working seven days a goddamn week since COVID, and I come in, and—where is everybody else? They’re here, they’re there, the Zooms, and the Zooms don’t show up… That’s not how you run a great company."

He continued: "We didn’t build this great company by doing that, by doing the same…s— that everyone else does. So, you wait and see what happens over time to companies that are in this business. I mean, I think you can be in other industries and do it."

The other thing—and this has nothing to do with work from home, so I apologize. There will be some exceptions made, but I will see them personally, OK? I’m not going to put up with any of this stuff… There’s no special deals in this company.

"When I found out that people were doing that—you don’t do that in my goddamn meetings. If you’re going to meet with me, you’ve got my attention, you’ve got my focus, I don’t bring my goddamn phone, I’m not sending texts to people. It simply doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for creativity, it slows down decision-making. And don’t give me this s— that work-from-home Friday works. I call a lot of people on Fridays, and there’s not a goddamn person you can get a hold of."

Dimon concluded: "And remember, the team’s got to work. I manage a company, and we have an operating committee meeting, and we’re not all there. Sometimes, there’s people Zooming in from somewhere, they travel, but all day, we’re talking to each other—‘What about this? What about that?’ with the constant follow-up, which you don’t have by Zoom on any team."

"Most of these big financial companies, everyone had winks and nods and friends of friends, and special this—there’s none of that. And that’s what this became, OK? I think that pollutes a company over time.

The other thing which I’ve noticed more and more is the creeping—and you guys know I hate bureaucracy, remember bureaucracy busters?—it just doesn’t stop. It’s us. I blame myself, too. How many of you take training classes that you think are a waste of time? Compliance classes that you think are a waste of time? Or go through legal, risk, compliance-type stuff—multiple committees to get multiple approvals? How many of you think there’s a lot of bureaucracy that we gotta do something about? Just raise your hand in general. That’s part of the problem."

"That’s unacceptable to me. What I worry about—I want the company to be as successful in 10 years as it is today. What happened to GE, Sears, Kmart? What happened to Nokia, BlackBerry? And then you had Apple and Amazon. It’s even worse in financial services—what happened to Bear Stearns? Lehman Brothers? Travelers? Citibank? A hundred percent of mortgage brokerages—all bankrupt."

"Everyone fired, jobs lost, reputations lost, and it was complacency and bureaucracy. In every single case. The people weren’t stupid, but the places got slower and more accepting of not doing their homework, and stuff like that. And I won’t put up with it."

And the cherry on top -- as we noted earlier in the week, Dimon, who was once all in on DEI initiatives, is now railing against them: