Jamie Dimon quotes: the billionaire’s best content.
“If you want to be a winner, then compare yourself to the best and acknowledge that it will never happen without hard work.”
“You can never have equal outcomes, but you can have equal opportunity.”
“Among those people not graduating, there might be a Steve Jobs or Barack Obama. We’ll never know.”
“Normality is a good thing, not a bad thing.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, and don’t waste money. Let everybody else waste money and do stupid things.”
“Humility is the realization that those who came before you paved the way. Never fool yourself into thinking that your success is just your own.”
“You know, the benefit in life is to say, ‘Maybe you made a mistake, let’s dig deep.'”
“You can compromise without violating your principles, but it is nearly impossible to compromise when you turn principles into ideology.”
“I’m a little bit of an eternal optimist. People always say to me, ‘If you go do this and it fails, what are you going to do?’ I don’t care. I’m going to give it my best shot. That’s what I’m going to do. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. And I’ll try again.”
“Each of us should read and listen to great thinkers who have an alternative point of view.”
“You need all the right people in the room.”
“If you have the choice, it’s far better to say, ‘That person has the job, and they really don’t need that much of my oversight.’ Maybe they don’t need any of it.”
“You can learn more from speaking to people in 15 minutes than if you spend your life doing something.”
“I always tell people, ‘There’s a book on everyone.’ I get some of that book before I do anything. If I want to deeply understand someone’s reputation, I’ll talk to their friends, their former bosses, their peers, and I’ll learn a lot about them. I want them to be trusted. I want them to be respected. I want them to give a sh*t. Then there are the intangibles: physical and emotional stamina, the ability to confront issues. I can ask all I want about those things, but I also have to see a lot of it.”
“Most decisions are not binary, and there are usually better answers waiting to be found if you do the analysis and involve the right people.”
“If you’re going to be a leader, you know what I ask myself? Would I want to work for you in this job? Would I let my children work for you?”
“I think that technology is the best thing that ever happened to mankind. It’s an absurd notion that somehow, ‘My God, what are we going to do when driverless cars come along?’ It’s going to save lives on the road. And maybe, one day, we’ll all be working four days a week and not five or six days a week.”
“There are downsides to a lot of things. There are downsides to flying—people die every now and then. Do you want to stop all air flights? There are downsides to pharma; sometimes they’re misused. Do you want to stop using pills?”
“It is true that too many people are not getting a fair opportunity to get ahead. We must find ways to help them move up the economic ladder, and everyone—business, government, and nonprofits—needs to play a role.”
“Everything needs to work at the same time. But what keeps society vibrant permanently is jobs, industry, business and stuff like that. It pays for everything else.”
“Just because you have a good hand today doesn’t mean it’s good tomorrow.”
“No one can forecast the economy with certainty, but most of us in business have got growth plans that have nothing to do with the actual state of the economy.”
“You don’t run a business hoping you don’t have a recession.”
“No one has the right to not assume that the business cycle will turn! Every five years or so, you have got to assume that something bad will happen.”
“Economies of scale are a good thing. If we didn’t have them, we’d still be living in tents and eating buffalo.”
“Companies that grow for the sake of growth or that expand into areas outside their core business strategy often stumble. On the other hand, companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time.”
“I advise other companies’ CEOs, don’t fall into the trap where you go, ‘Where’s the growth? Where’s the growth? Where’s the growth?’ They feel a tremendous pressure to grow. Well, sometimes you can’t grow. Sometimes you don’t want to grow. In certain businesses, growth means you either take on bad clients, excess risk, or too much leverage.”
“The coronavirus pandemic is a wake-up call to build a more inclusive society that recognizes the financial situations of all parties involved in the economy.”
“Finance went from being a small business, effectively, to being a big business. In part, that’s the growth of the world’s wealth. That’s called savings.”
“Businesses can be opaque. They are complex. You don’t know how aircraft engines work either.”
“The best way to look at any business is from the standpoint of the clients.”
“People need to understand: businesses are going to make mistakes. They shouldn’t be shot and hung every time.”
“People and companies make mistakes. I guarantee we’ll make a mistake next quarter. So what? Businesses make mistakes. Hopefully smaller, and fewer.”
“The toughest are people mistakes, when you put the wrong person in a job. Sometimes you’re too slow to move them out. Or not getting the right people involved to solve a problem, or doing something out of anger; you learn, just don’t do that.”
“Look, every institution will make mistakes. I acknowledge we make mistakes, and they can hurt my reputation and our company’s. But you also must be willing to let go a little bit, trust others, and not always be so stringent, provided you have robust controls.”
“If I ran the whole place like it was my way or the highway, we would not be as good a company. I’m going to have mistakes—they’ll be made on my watch and will embarrass me. But I’ll also make sure the company learns from them so it can become a better company.”
“If business doesn’t thrive, it hurts America. We need improved relations, more collaboration, more thought and more consistency as we go about trying to make sure we have the best country in the world.”
“Business has to have a seat at the table. Infrastructure isn’t going to be built properly if business doesn’t have a seat at the table. A school is not going to happen if businesses don’t work with schools about what kind of jobs they really need.”
“It’s good for America when the rest of the world grows, because you can sell more to the rest of the world.”
“America has the best hand ever dealt to any country on this planet, ever. Yes, we have problems, but you travel around the world, you’ll see we have it all.”
“America is best when we come together with clear leadership, expertise, and the political will to take on difficult challenges and get things done. No one should ever doubt the strength and resilience of our country and our democracy.”
“I’ve always wanted to help build a better society and build a better company, and I always wanted a healthy, vibrant company, a healthy, vibrant society. We take care of our people, we provide them with opportunity. But I’ve always believed business is here to serve your clients, your shareholders, your communities. If we do this well, everyone benefits. We have to do a good job for all of them.”
“I am a patriot: I want to help my country and help it grow.”
“I was a normal human being, but I did like that. I read a lot. I also liked math and science.”
“That’s my contribution: running a sound, healthy company that serves millions of customers well and employs hundreds of thousands of people. What else am I going to do? I’m not an artist. I’m not a writer. I’m not a musician. I’d love to be a tennis player or musician. I’m not.”
“If you’re blindly loyal to me, then you’re just acting like a crony of mine. If you say you admire me because of the principles for which I stand, I understand that, but then you also have the right to call me to the carpet when you think I’m falling short.”
“I am not embarrassed to be a banker. I am not embarrassed to be in business.”
“I get to deal with presidents and prime ministers and… and employees from tellers on up. And I love it.”
“My retirement date, every time you ask me that, I’m going to say five years. I don’t want to retire.”
“I’ve seen people, when they get into these bigger and bigger jobs, it goes to their heads. I’ve seen it. Some people in life change who they are, and some don’t. I’m basically the same guy I’ve always been.”
“Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and because you’re rich you’re bad, I don’t understand it.”
“I don’t necessarily assume I’m going to live for 10 years. And you want to live very deliberately. You want to end every day and say, ‘That was a good day.'”
