Jamie Dimon's Horrendous Executive Retreat
Sandy barged into a meeting and yelled: “Who the **** told him to say that?"
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It seems like the European financial culture of taking huge chunks of time off in summer is seeping into London. Add a healthy dollop of 35 degree/95F heat with barely any air conditioning, and you could actually be in Europe.
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This week’s newsletter: Private group chats of wildly successful hedge fund CEO’s, Steve Schwarzman’s on how to scare the crap out of yourself, Howard Marks $70m holiday home and Jamie Dimon’s dramatic firing.
The Executive Retreat From Hell
Jamie Dimon was brutally fired by his lifelong mentor on an executive retreat. Here’s the unbelievable true story of ambition, power and betrayal…
Fresh out of Harvard Business School in 1982, Jamie became Executive Assistant to finance legend Sandy Weill at American Express. When Sandy left American Express and acquired Commercial Credit, he invited Jamie to become his new CFO.
The pair were inseparable.
On Sunday mornings, Jamie’s Volvo could be found in Sandy’s driveway as the two brainstormed. Together, they built a financial empire, buying up businesses to create Citigroup - the largest financial services company in the world at the time.
At only 35, Jamie was seen by Wall Street as the heir to Sandy, and the next CEO of Citigroup.
However, this strong relationship was about to collapse - in a very big way.
Tensions emerged over Jamie’s growing influence. The New York Times ran an article in which Citigroup board member Joe Califano said: “Jamie runs the place”. Accompanying the article was a picture of Jamie front and center, with Sandy in the background.
The next day, Sandy barged into a meeting and reportedly yelled: “Who the **** told Joe Califano to say that? And who chose that photo!”.
On top of this, Sandy’s daughter Jessica was hired into a senior role under Jamie’s supervision. Over time, Jamie excluded her from key decisions, citing poor performance. Jessica eventually resigned. Sandy took this as a sign of disrespect, allegedly roaring at Jamie: “You insulted her!”
Everything came to a head during a Citigroup executive retreat.
After 15 years of loyalty, Sandy called Jamie into a private room. Jamie thought it might be to discuss a new promotion. Instead, he was told to resign immediately.
Jamie was stunned: “I was totally surprised…it was a hell of a run, but he fired me”.
Blindsided and humiliated, Jamie faced professional collapse. But instead of retreating, he joined Bank One, quickly turned the company around and set the stage for his spectacular rise as CEO of JP Morgan Chase. Looking back on that time, Sandy confessed he “made a very bad decision.”
Jamie summed up his experience of being fired: “You gotta keep going. Being fired impacted my net worth, not my self-worth.”
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Finance Culture
You might be planning a summer break to Mallorca. Whilst there, why not check out these two side by side villa’s that Oaktree legend Howard Marks has just put up for sale for a combined $70 million. Howard is obviously in the mood to cash out of his vacation homes, as a few months back he also put his Malibu mansion on the market for $38.5 million.
A few weeks ago I wrote about Ken Griffin paying for the US
SoccerFootball coach Mauricio Pochettino aka Poch. Apparently, I’d massively overlooked the influence of Diameter Capital Founder and credit impresario - Scott Goodwin. Bloomberg reported that Scott was in a group chat that included a few ex-US players and Sean Feeney, the ex-Goldman credit trader turned restauranteur. The potential bill to hire Poch: $20 million dollars. When presented with the figure, Scott said: “Wow, that’s more than I expected. Can I have a phone-a-friend?”. The friend was…Ken Griffin. The pair got it done, and Poch became US Head Coach.This week I asked a friend who works at Barbour about their ‘Icons’ jacket you see everywhere. They’ve sold out of nearly every style. The biggest buyers: women who work in the City of London. BizStory readership is apparently 98.3% men, so if you want to buy a gift - here is one of the few left (unsponsored link).
A live streamer you might have heard of and probably hate - iShowSpeed - was in the VIP box for the Spain vs France World Cup game. At one point, Speed was called over for a selfie by none other than Ana Botin - Executive Chairman of Banco Santander, who pitched her worth by claiming Santander are like “The JP Morgan of Europe”. Full clip below.
When Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson quit their jobs and formed Blackstone in 1987, they took out a full page advert in the New York Times to announce it to the world. I guess the equivalent today is posting a 1-minute splashy video on Linkedin about how your start-up is ‘Uber for (insert sector here)’. Interestingly - after they started Blackstone, Steve and Pete sent out 500 hand written letters to people they knew. Strong relationships they’d built from decades working in finance. No-one replied. Steve said: “if you want to scare the crap out of yourself, send out 500 letters to people you know well - and see what comes back”.
Will Manidis@WillManidisblackstone announcing the formation of the firm in a full page ad in the times (1987) so sick, more firms should do this
12:43 PM · Jul 15, 2026 · 65.7K Views23 Replies · 29 Reposts · 863 Likes
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Recommendation
Jamie shot an interview with Wilfred Frost (son of David Frost), if you have an hour spare it’s worth your time.
If you’ve got 7 minutes, watch Jamie recount the crazy Executive Retreat story here.
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Joseph Cass