Jamie and Sandy

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently became the focal point in banking sector. The "London whale" loss brought him into a series congressional hearings that may cause new banking regulations. Right after this bump, JPM's succession plan was reported such that younger executives move up the ladder. Some speculated that Dimon is planning his successor. Maybe simply a coincidence, Jamie's old mentor and boss, Sandy Weills got some face time by commenting big banks should be broken up.

These two figures showed almost at the same time is rare. After Dimon was fired by Weills, there has been no report the two had conversations. Weills once on a New York Times interview expressed that firing Dimon might be a mistake. But that is all. One can hardly understand how close the two was. Here is compiled section from "Last Man Standing" on how they started their long relationship.

Dimon graduated from Harvard Business School in 1982. He got three offers from Goldman, Lehman, and Morgan Stanley. The most obvious pick was Goldman. Dimon wasn't sure and asked advice from Weills. Weills was the chairman of the executive committee of American Express and in charge of all the treasury and financial functions at AE. Weills hadn't been such a large organization and in his learning curve. He floated a fourth option to Dimon. "How would you like to come be my assistant and we can learn this thing together? We can learn a heck of a lot about how corporate America works and how a diversified financial services company works. You probably won't make half of what you'd be making at Goldman, but that's a far more concentrated and high-pressure job, and I don't know what you'd be building." Goldman's investment banking model didn't build anything, indeed, but take commission in trades. Dimon was intrigued by this proposal that he could build something. As Dimon put it, "My goal in life was not to be an investment banker. I loved the concept of helping build a company. And Sandy had done it before with Shearson. I thought I could always change my mind if it didn't work out. It was a little risky, because Sandy was just chairman of the executive committee at American Express --- whatever that meant --- but he was honest with me. He said, "I'm not sure it's going to work out here, but I think you're a smart kid and we'll see how it develops.'"

This was a good fit between them back then: Weills needed a young talented protege and Dimon thought Weills could send him to executive suite quicker. This relationship worked out very well at AE and later at Citi Bank. Regardless what happened later, Dimon was lucky to have Weills' honest advice. He must have had very good connection even in his school days so that he could dial Weills' number and had an open talk. This story is more intriguing and worth exploring more but largely unknown. But we can tell that Dimon indeed is a high power figure before his days came.

At this point, Gerald Loeb, the most quoted Wall Street pro,once said that, "one's greatest assets are his mental competence to do something useful and his connections. Therefore, establish some emergency connections away from home." Loeb stressed away from was to hedge risks from home turf. But the point is clear enough.