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CNBC
21 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
Amazon CEO: People in their 20s tend to make this mistake—I was 'lucky' to avoid it
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has spent the past 28 years helping turn the e-commerce giant into one of the biggest companies on earth. But the 57-year-old executive didn't start his career with aspirations of being a high-powered CEO. In a May 15 podcast appearance on "How Leaders Lead with David Novak," Jassy said he too often sees young people who think they should be entering the professional world knowing what they want to do with the rest of their lives. "I have a 21-year-old son and a 24-year-old daughter, and one of the things I see with them and their peers is they all feel like they have to know what they want to do with their life at that age," he said. "And I really don't believe that's true." Before Jassy landed at Amazon in 1997 at age 29, he tried his hand at sportscasting, sports production, product management and entrepreneurship, he said. On top of that, he spent time working at a retail golf store, coaching his high school soccer team and investment banking. Even though many of those jobs didn't work out as he might've hoped, the experiences helped him understand the type of career that he wanted — and didn't want — to have, he said. "I think early on it's just as important to learn what you don't want to do as what you want to do because it actually helps you figure out what you want to do," said Jassy. "I do feel like one of the lucky parts for me was that I tried lots of things and was able to sort for myself what appealed to me and what didn't."Jassy credited his eventual success to his willingness to find out what he was good at and what he liked, rather than doggedly following a strong vision of what he wanted to do: "I think your attitude is an embarrassing amount of your success or lack thereof." Being reliable, trustworthy, hard-working and a good learner are more important than being good at every single thing you try, Jassy added. "I feel like those are things that you can control. It's actually amazing to me how often people don't. I worked hard at those things over time," he said. The Amazon CEO isn't alone in preaching dependability: Being a reliable and hard worker is the No. 1 way to build a strong reputation in the workplace, author and former Google executive Maha Abouelenein told CNBC Make It on Oct. 9. Having a consistent level of effort and doing your best to anticipate the needs of those around you will get you recognized, no matter where your career takes you, said Abouelenein. "Reputation is like a currency," she said. "It's the only thing you own, and I want you to invest in it ... Without your [personal brand], you can't do anything."
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Jamie Dimon says he didn't run for president because he knew winning the White House would mean barely seeing his family for 4 years
Jamie Dimon said that while he "would never rule it out," running for president is tough. The JPMorgan CEO said in a podcast that being president would mean being away from his family. "Some people are prepared for that, I was unprepared for it at the time," Dimon said. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said his family was one reason he did not run for president. "I tell people, had I run and won, when I was walking into that White House, I'd be waving goodbye to my family for four years. They'd be saying, 'See ya, dad,'" Dimon told David Novak on the latest episode of the "How Leaders Lead" podcast, which aired on January 30. "I'm not sure my wife would have gone with me, there." Dimon added that the presidency means "subjecting your family to some very tough stuff." "Some people are prepared for that, I was unprepared for it at the time," Dimon said. Dimon said that while he "would never rule it out," running for president would be difficult for him because of other reasons, too. "I do think there are skills that people have in the business world that may translate to the political world, but I think it's a mistake to automatically think that's true," Dimon said, adding that he didn't think he had the necessary political skills to make the transition. That's on top of the experience one should accrue from smaller political appointments before gunning for the presidency, Dimon told Novak. "I literally think you should kind of have a warm-up before you go for president. A warm-up could be Congress, or Senate, or governor," Dimon said. "You have seen people learn those skills before you go for the big enchilada." Running for president would also mean having to give up his job at JPMorgan, which he enjoys, Dimon said. "I'm damn proud of it so — I think I add a lot here. I'd be giving that up for kind of a wild goose chase," Dimon said. Dimon's age and health were also factors in his decision. "I think it's hard. I'm 68 years old. As you know, I have had a health problem or two. So when you put it together, it just didn't seem like the right thing for me to do," Dimon said. In 2014, JPMorgan said Dimon had been diagnosed with throat cancer, though it went into remission after treatment. In 2020, Dimon had another health scare — he was rushed to the hospital for emergency heart surgery. Representatives for Dimon at JPMorgan did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. This isn't the first time Dimon has been asked about his political ambitions. The 68-year-old banker said at an investors meeting in May that his retirement timeline was "not five years anymore," and that a plan to name his successor was "well on its way." Then, in October, Dimon told analysts in an earnings call that he had no plans to join President Donald Trump's second administration if he was offered a role. "I think the chance of that is almost nil, and probably I'm not going to do it," Dimon said. "I intend to be doing what I'm doing — I almost guarantee I'll be doing this — for a long period of time, or at least until the board kicks me out," he added. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Jamie Dimon spoke to Jeff Bezos about joining Amazon as president before JPMorgan career
When Jamie Dimon left , he considered everything from setting up his own bank to teaching or writing a book. Ultimately, the lure of the 'big game' kept him in the market for corporate America, and the likes of Amazon and Home Depot came knocking. It's hard to imagine Wall Street without JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon—and yet that was very nearly the case if the billionaire banker had chosen differently earlier in his career. The man dubbed the 'white knight of Wall Street' revealed he came close to taking a job in Big Tech, a route that meant he would have left the finance world behind and instead reported to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Dimon's career story is well known: He began his career at American Express before moving to Commercial Credit as CFO. During that tenure Commercial Credit acquired the Travelers Corp., where Dimon moved to serve as COO. Concurrently, he served as COO of Travelers subsidiary, Smith Barney. In 1997, Smith Barney merged with Salomon Brothers, and Dimon was named co-CEO. A year later Dimon took the job of president at Citigroup. Two years later, Dimon joined Bank One as chairman and CEO, before moving up the ranks at JPMorgan when his company was acquired in 2004. By 2006 Dimon was named CEO and a year later, chairman of the board. But in the gap between Citigroup and Bank One, Dimon confirmed he had considered leaving the world of banking—and the obligatory suit—behind. 'I decided to take the summer off, take the kids around the world, and start really thinking about September,' Dimon told the How Leaders Lead podcast in an episode aired last week. 'But I did take a lot of phone calls—I took every one respectfully, some you could call almost insulting what they were offering me. I made sure the headhunters knew I wanted to work,' Dimon continued. 'When I came back in September … I had an office, I started seeing people, and I had ideas. I [was] going to start my own merchant bank, I wrote up documents, I spoke to people, getting partners ... didn't love it. 'I could've just been my own investor ... I didn't love it. I thought about just teaching or writing, and I realized I wasn't done with the big game yet,' he added. Those options ranged from heading up global investment at a large European bank ('After dinner I said, 'There's no way I'd work for these guys'') to president of Amazon. 'Jeff Bezos, who I hit it off with in 1999, was looking for a president. He and I hit it off, I still talk to him, he's an outstanding guy, it was just a bridge too far for me,' Dimon recalled. 'I didn't necessarily fully understand the business, I'd have to move my family to Seattle,' he added, but: 'I loved the idea of never having to put a suit on again and getting a houseboat somewhere.' In June 1999, Amazon named Joseph Galli as its president and COO, after Galli made the move from power tools supplier Black & Decker. The man paid $39 million for his work in 2024 said the company which tempted him the most to leave the financial sector was DIY giant, Home Depot. A far cry from FiDi, Dimon nonetheless hit it off with the team at the Georgia-based giant. 'Home Depot, I love those people,' the Harvard Business alum said. 'When I first met them, I said: 'Just so you guys know, I want you to know this, until you called me I'd never been in a Home Depot. So it's not my natural habitat.' 'They were very much like, 'We don't care about that, you'll learn, we want the guy with the heart and the soul.'' Dimon, 68, got as far as visiting Home Depot stores and drawing up plans for moving. 'I actually shopped houses in Atlanta—we were taking it seriously—looked at schools for the kids,' Dimon continued. When the call came from embattled Bank One, Dimon admits speculators may have been 'surprised' by his move to take on the Chicago-based lender. 'I put half my net worth into it at the time, I tied my shoes to it—I was going to go with the ship or not,' he added. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Jamie Dimon says he was in a war room five times a day, every day for a year, starting at 5 a.m. and finishing at 10 p.m. during the financial crisis
Jamie Dimon summoned JPMorgan staff back to the office at 9 p.m. on a Thursday night following a call from Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz, in which he said he needed $30 billion. Dimon discussed on a recent podcast how he prepared his bank for the 2008 financial crisis when no one else saw it coming. The 2008 financial crisis plunged everyone from CEOs of major companies to individual homeowners into a state of chaos—and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was in the trenches as well. The boss of America's largest bank was tasked with steering the lender through the economic meltdown after landing the top job a couple of years prior. But the billionaire banker said he had been prepared for the crash and subsequent recession as he had seen his father—a broker—navigating slumps in the 1970s and 1980s. As such, Dimon learned the lesson of 'serve your clients, do a great job in the downs—not just the ups. Don't celebrate the rising tide, be prepared for the tide to go out.' The reason JPMorgan therefore fared better than other lenders, Dimon said, was because he was tough on capital, liquidity, and profitability as soon as he was CEO. 'I knew that if the shit had hit the fan early on, we would've had a real problem,' Dimon told the How Leaders Lead podcast in an episode released this week. Under his stewardship, risk management was also deployed more widely, with extreme stress tests put in place to ensure that JPMorgan would survive in the face of a financial crisis. Some colleagues told Dimon such an eventuality would never come to pass, he added: '[But] I said, 'I don't care if it happens [or not] ... I want to know if it happens that we survive to serve our client.' 'Then the shit hit the fan, but we were ready by then.' That preparedness also meant Dimon had built an 'army' of workers to navigate such an outcome. 'People say, 'What did you do differently?' Nothing,' Dimon told podcast host David Novak, former PepsiCo executive and Yum! Brands CEO. 'We already had teams, we already had an army, we had things to go.' The only thing that changed was the meeting of the risk committee, which, prior to the crisis, met once a week for a couple of hours. When the market began to collapse, 'all of a sudden ... it was meeting five times a day, every day, for a year,' Dimon recalled. 'And I mean, every day. I mean going to 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. because you had Asia—we had to be up for that. We were on calls all the time with regulators of governments and clients, but the machine was working.' Dimon, who was paid $39 million for his work in 2024, said his team was making 'battlefield decisions' for clients, highlighting which individuals could deal with the stress and which couldn't. Dimon, 68, said one of the most nail-biting moments of the 2008 crisis was when he received a call from then-CEO of Bear Stearns Alan Schwartz. The investment bank and brokerage had been hemorrhaging money throughout the first quarter of 2008, losing more than $19 billion from its market cap in a little over a year. On March 13, 2008, Dimon was in a Greek restaurant with his parents when his phone rang at around 9 p.m. He stepped out of the restaurant, and Schwartz told him: 'Jamie, I need $30 billion tonight, otherwise we're going to go bankrupt in Asia in the morning.' 'Even I said, 'Alan, I don't even know how to get $30 billion,'' Dimon recounted. ''But have you spoken to the secretary of the Treasury?' I called up our senior people and said, 'Get dressed and go to the office.'' Hundreds of JPMorgan staffers returned to their desks, and as they had done for their own books at JPMorgan, went through Bear Stearns's client list line by line to see if they could finance them until the weekend. 'We did six months of work in two days, and bought Bear Stearns that night,' Dimon said. 'That kind of thing is the moment where you're breathless.' This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
