Jamie Dimon is "Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of JP Morgan Chase & Co., a global financial services firm with assets of $3.2 trillion and operations worldwide." That description comes from the Morgan Chase & Company website.
Dimon's picture, above, comes from a news article published on the Bloomberg website, which reports on a recent Dimon order to all employees, requiring them to start working from the office, and not remotely. That order stated that this new rule would take effect in March. The order has caused a lot of consternation, and many employees don't like it. Bloomberg's article was titled this way: "It’s Not What Jamie Dimon Said About WFH. It’s How He Said It."
A full copy of a Wall Street Journal opinion column, which discusses Dimon's order, is presented below. I am making this column available to anyone who reads my daily blog postings, because however Jamie Dimon said it, I think he is essentially right about our need, in almost every context, to be present to each other "in person," and in "real life," and not in "online" alternatives. As far as I am concerned, our "human world" will be lost if we all end up living and working alone, with our contact with others being mediated by the platforms owned and operated by gigantic corporations.
Think about it!
oooOOOooo
Jamie Dimon making the case for a return to the office.
By Matthew Hennessey
February 19, 2025 Jamie Dimon has enough to worry about. The JPMorgan Chase CEO runs America’s biggest bank. He sails a choppy sea of regulators and rate-setters, customers and competitors, business cycles and board politics—and now he has Donald Trump to worry about. A mole hunt is the last thing he needs.
Barron’s published a leaked recording last week of remarks made by Mr. Dimon, 68, in a supposedly private meeting. Starting in March, JPMorgan will require employees to work in the office five days a week. Anyone who doesn’t like it can leave. “You don’t have to work at JPMorgan,” he says forcefully. “It’s a free country. You can walk with your feet.”
A petition against the in-person policy has circulated at the bank, and some employees have reportedly consulted with the Communications Workers of America about setting up a local. “Don’t waste time on it,” Mr. Dimon warns. “I don’t care how many people sign that f— petition.”
Mr. Dimon speaks with the slightly salty speech of a native New Yorker who has risen to the top of the banking world and managed to stay there for nearly 20 years. The recording makes clear that he’s tough, tested and uninterested in being second-guessed on a policy that he has decided is good for the company.
“I’ve been working seven days a goddamn week since Covid,” he says. “I come in, and where’s everybody else? They’re here, they’re there.” Many absent employees are “on the f— Zoom . . . sending texts to each other about what an a—h— the other person is.” Having everyone work together in the office advances the organization’s interest by ensuring a continuity of culture. From Mr. Dimon’s point of view, this is probably the most urgent concern.
The big losers from remote work are employees at the beginning of their careers. “The young generation is being damaged by this,” he says. “They’re being left behind socially—ideas, meeting people.”
He’s right, as anyone who works in an office with young people knows. FaceTime is no replacement for face time. The little things you pick up from day in, day out exposure to senior colleagues are invaluable and often unquantifiable: how to handle yourself in the job, how to manage a crisis, how to take criticism, how to celebrate success. This stuff is ephemeral but important. You can’t learn it in an online training session.
All that is important to JPMorgan Chase, but the leak of Mr. Dimon’s remarks points to a problem bigger than preserving a single company’s culture: This is the age of the citizen spy. It’s never been easier to record someone without consent. In 2025 wannabe whistleblowers and disgruntled employees have previously undreamed-of power to settle professional scores. All they have to do is tape a meeting and leak it to a competitor or the press. To be on the safe side, CEOs should probably assume they’re being recorded at all times.
This is another reason to require workers to come into the office. Recording a Zoom call or a Google meeting is a piece of cake. Even a baby boomer can do it. If an employee is motivated to try to sink your company by recording private conversations with colleagues, at least force him to summon the courage to do it in person. He may chicken out.
The surreptitiously recorded tirade is one of the great guilty pleasures of digital life. I rewatch Bill O’Reilly’s “do it live” video at least once a year. (Look it up.) A few minutes marveling at the incandescence of Mr. O’Reilly’s rage never fails to put wind in my sails. But, as amusing as these leaks can be, it’s worth remembering that each one is a betrayal.
Mr. Dimon spends all day, every day thinking about how to make JPMorgan Chase successful, and some grunt who doesn’t want to leave his couch decides he knows better? It’s grotesque.
Every leader ought to spend at least a little time thinking about how to avoid being secretly recorded. Banning phones and computers from meetings is one option, though it could breed resentment and make you seem paranoid. Depending on your assessment of the actual risk, this trade-off might be worth it. Hard call, but you’re the boss. You get paid to make such decisions.
An old rule of thumb had it that you should never put anything in an email you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper. Increasingly, CEOs and top managers also have to watch what they say behind closed doors. You never know who’ll be listening.
Mr. Hennessey is the Journal’s deputy editorial features editor
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