Jamie Dimon's Frantic Call To His Wife
“Can you do me a favour, get in your car and drive out there!”
“BizStory is useful because it makes me sound smart at work.”
- Goldman Sachs VP
Good morning, everyone.
Whilst in New York last week, I met with finance CEO’s, had lunch with bankers and dinner with PR firms.
I got the burger at Tavern On The Green, and the club sandwich at The Plaza’s Champagne Bar, making frequent stops in grimy sports bars to catch World Cup games, before risking my life at the Jelly Cat Diner in FAO Schwarz.
It’s funny. The Financial District is becoming increasingly quiet as an area. Wall Street is sparsely populated now, even mid-week, with a ton of large banks, hedge funds and asset managers upping sticks to Midtown. Such an iconic area, with The Charging Bull, The NYSE, loads of cool spots - but just doesn’t seem in favour at the moment.
A friend from school who works in the City managed to somehow get tickets to the England vs Panama game at the MetLife. He said we could go, but only on the condition that we dressed as Knights of The Roundtable…
This week’s newsletter: Jamie Dimon doing Jamie Dimon things, Mike Bloomberg at the World Cup, CNBC turns into The Soprano’s, and is a CFA really worth it?
Jamie Dimon’s Guide To Killing Bureaucracy
Jamie Dimon thought JP Morgan was running flawlessly - but one frantic phone call from his wife exposed a secret…
In the mid-2000s, Jamie was at the top of his game.
Newly installed as the CEO of JP Morgan after their merger with Bank One, respected across Wall Street, and building one of the strongest banks in the world.
Dashboards were green, and reports were clean.
But one afternoon, he received a call that changed everything…
Jamie's wife Judith had gone to Walgreens, and wanted to take some cash out of an ATM.
But - the ATM was faulty.
Judith called Jamie and told him about the error.
Jamie passed the complaint to the correct team internally. A staff member called him back immediately and said: “Don’t’ worry - it’s working.”
Problem solved.
But then Judith called again: “Jamie…it’s still not working.”
Jamie called back the executive, and they again replied: “No, no, please don't worry – it’s working fine.”
Jamie told the executive:
“Can you do me a favour? Get in your car and drive out there!”
The exec immediately drove to the exact ATM to check it out. When he arrived, he saw instantly that it was broken. The screen was squiggly, the system or screen was faulty. You couldn’t use the machine or any of its services, and you couldn’t take any cash out.
Jamie asked the team to investigate what happened.
It turned out JP Morgan were outsourcing ATM tracking to an outside vendor, who were making frequent errors that no-one was checking. When Jamie found out, he was furious: “Fire the vendor. And I want to be paid back for the last six months!”
JP Morgan now efficiently tracks ATM’s with their own internal system.
Jamie summed up his approach to leading from the front:
“You gotta kill bureaucracy. Get out there and see things for yourself - you can’t run a business sitting behind a screen”.
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Finance Culture
30% more people took the CFA Level 1 exam this year versus last year, the pass rate has dropped to 39%. This might sound controversial, but is the CFA certification still a valuable asset in 2026? If you have zero finance knowledge then yes, but if we agree that AI is going to commoditize knowledge to some extent, then what is the point of spending 3-4 years and thousands of hours on that very knowledge. Unlike an MBA, there doesn’t seem to be a built-in network. My bias here is that I don’t have a CFA. Am I wrong here?
JP Morgan’s new office on Park Avenue is epic. It’s enormous, and looks like something from Sim City 2000. They have a 55-seater British Pub on the 13th floor for employees only, called “Morgan’s”. When it first opened, pints of Guinness used to include an imprint of Jamie Dimon’s face on the foamy top. Jamie caught wind of this and apparently told them to stop it immediately. If i ever get an invitation to Morgan’s, you’ll be the first to know.
Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham went on CNBC last week to talk about his fund, but instead found himself on the end of a scolding from co-host Joe Kernan. Joe layed into Jeremy about his bear-ish views over the past decades, Jeremy layed into Joe about Bitcoin. It all ended in an ugly mêlée, when Joe said that his co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin was the person who wanted Jeremy on the show, not him, and the interview was just a promotion for Sorkin’s new 1929 book. Pretty intense, but it made me stop what I’m doing and watch the entire thing. See for yourself below.
Finance World Cup: Mike Bloomberg saw France Vs Sweden at the
MetlifeNew York/New Jersey stadium, and SkyBridge Capital Founder and long-time Bitcoin bull, Anthony Scaramucci, saw England vs Panama. I know that the World Cup is being shown in a bunch of finance offices in midtown, on trading floors across New York. I’m less sure if anyone on the floor is actually paying attention…
Anthony Scaramucci@ScaramucciCarrying some @GoalhangerHQ England loyalties here in NY! 🏴
8:50 PM · Jun 27, 2026 · 182K Views147 Replies · 61 Reposts · 2.76K Likes
Mike Bloomberg@MikeBloombergThe World Cup is more than a tournament. It’s a reminder of how sports can bring people, cultures and communities together.
9:36 PM · Jun 30, 2026 · 200K Views299 Replies · 388 Reposts · 4.38K Likes
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Recommendation
Check out this internal JP Morgan management seminar Jamie gave that they published on YouTube. So many great stories and lessons.
I now have an X/Twitter account and an Instagram account. Hardly any followers yet, but I did notice one or two Bloomberg reporters have started to follow…
Why Is Wall Street “Going Direct”?
Silicon Valley hotshots have adopted a new way of getting themselves out there. And Wall Street CEO’s are just starting to catch-on. Here’s what is really happening…
If this week’s edition was interesting, forward on to one person who might also like it.
Joseph Cass