See also papers in SH Archive Financial Institutions box 1.

Dimon, Jamie (Subject); J P Morgan Chase & Co

This biography covers mostly the business side of Jaime Dimon's rise to the peak of the Wall Street banking titans. I was rather surprised being a business oriented type book it was also an interesting read. Dimon of course has been around for a long time and it took him a while to step out from the shadow of Sandy Weill his mentor and later somewhat antagonist.

Dimon is widely admired for his steady and studied way of operating in an environment of chaos that the banking industry has become. Chaos by the bankers design I might add. With the huge compensation these bankers take down each year, in some cases win or lose. Their motivation beyond money seems driven by their enormous egos. Dimon is not much different in this respect sitting rather comfortably with a net worth around $300 million I surmise you have to have something else to get you up in the morning.

Dimon has for the most part been able to escape the image of the excesses that have come down and vilified some of the business leaders. Example in the book is one of the bankers who threw himself a birthday party for...... a cool $3 million. What financial crisis?

Since the the book was released JPMorgan Chase ran into a bit of a red faced moment when one of their derivative trades went sour under Dimon's watch and what was announced as a not crippling $2 billion..... with a 'B' loss later mushroomed in around $5 billion.... with a 'B' loss. Oh well still not crippling. And in his testimony before Congress surrounding this mishap Dimon using his skills at talking his way around the significance of the blunder basically came across as telling these eminent politicians, look I'm still a lot smarter then you guys. ( )