Jamie Dimon: The Most Powerful Man In America Who’s Not a President
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
1
sentences flagged
Toxicity
7
sentences flagged
Summary
Whether you love or hate Jamie Dimon, you gotta know what this guy came up from. By the way, this guy was an assistant, a personal assistant, in 1982 for American Express, working for Sandy Wild, where Sandy eventually became the CEO of Citi. This guy s an assistant. A regular guy. Working for another guy. Eventually, whatever he touches turns to gold. And later on, he gets fired by Sandy Wild. And today, he s CEO of a company that processes, ready, $10 Trillion a day in 170 currencies in 120 countries and named the Most Systemically Important Bank in the World by the G20.
Transcript
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Whether you love or hate Jamie Dimon, you gotta know what this guy came up from.
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By the way, this guy was an assistant, a personal assistant, in 1982 for American Express,
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working for Sandy Wild, where Sandy eventually...
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This guy's an assistant, regular guy, working for another guy.
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And today, CEO of a company that processes, ready, $10 trillion a day
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JPMorgan Chase is the most systemically important bank in the world by G20.
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When we learn about this man's come up, what he's done, you're finally going to realize
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why so many people behind closed doors want to see this guy run for office.
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So some people wonder, well, you know, is Jamie rich?
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Well, let me just tell you, when it comes down to Jamie, do you know what he believes in a lot?
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Do you know how big his personal art collection is?
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Here's a look into his $900 million personal art collection, which has a hidden staircase,
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Because this guy understands investments and alternative assets.
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But Masterworks makes it easy for you to invest in a $10 million piece of art and just buy a piece
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of it, whether it's Banksy, Warhol, Picasso, it doesn't matter.
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But contemporary art, 23.2% during high inflation.
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Click on the link below to learn more about Masterworks.
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If you get value out of this video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel.
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But before we go into how he became the CEO of the largest bank in the world, the most important
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bank in the world, how does this story really begin?
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This goes all the way back to his grandfather when he immigrated in 1921 and started a successful
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His father was also a wealthy stockbroker, would make Diamond look at balance sheets and
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earnings of a company, then determine what the stock price should be based on, the financials.
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Let's just say he's got the right genetics so far.
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And then also, it's fair to say that his family was upper class during his childhood, but Diamond
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was very ambitious and wanted to make his own fortune.
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Then he attended Tufts instead, which, by the way, is still a great school, but he was
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very angry about the fact that Brown said no to him.
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Then Diamond applies to get transferred to Princeton, gets rejected again.
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He eventually ends up graduating at the top of his class at Tufts and got accepted into
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And at Harvard, he ends up graduating in the top 5% of his class.
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So you know how sometimes a lot of these big companies are like, we got to recruit that
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He's one of those guys that everybody wants to recruit.
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So rather than taking any of these offers, he decides to work for a family friend named Sandy
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Weil for a third of what everybody else offered him to make.
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Meaning, if others paid him $200,000 a year, Sandy could only pay him $70,000.
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So this is when the duo, Sandy and Diamond, go on nearly a 20-year run together.
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Weil ends up selling his company to American Express for $900 million and gets hired as
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the president and hires Jamie Diamond as his personal assistant at American Express.
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Weil quit after a disagreement with the company's board and Diamond followed him out of loyalty.
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Even though Weil said, you don't want to do this.
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So once Weil knew he couldn't stop Diamond from following him, he says, look, let's start
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They ended up finding commercial credit company, CCC, which gave credit to low-income households
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Diamond eventually ends up finding hidden value in the company.
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CCC had a low return on equity, 4%, while competitors had 15% return on equity.
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Diamond realized that CCC has a lot of assets that could be sold and caused to be cut.
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They end up reaching out to Warren Buffett for some money, and Warren Buffett says, I'm
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After Warren Buffett said no, they said, look, we're going to use our own money.
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They end up using a significant portion of their own money to buy 10% of CCC and raise
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They sold enough of the company to obtain an investment-grade credit rating, and Weil made
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Diamond, the CFO, and he laid out 10% of CCC's employees on the first day, 18% ROE, return
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After one year of running the company, this caused the credit rating to increase.
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Eventually, when 1987 crash occurred, CCC had a healthier balance sheet than most competitors,
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One of the distressed companies they bought was Primera, and then eventually, all of these
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companies together in 1998 turned into Citigroup, at the time, the biggest financial company
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So while this is taking place, Jamie Dimon's aspirations was to eventually be the CEO of
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He does become the president, but Jamie, in the back of his mind, is like, when am I going
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At the same time, something very interesting happened.
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When Sandy's daughter gets hired to work in Diamond's division, and Diamond had a major
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disagreement with Weil, while Vanguard launched the first low-cost index fund, Jamie wanted
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to use the same strategy and eventually wins the argument.
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Weil's daughter was responsible for the low-cost index fund division, and it was massively underperforming
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Jamie scrutinized her and ultimately refused to promote her.
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So while all this stuff is taking place, and Jamie's on track, and all of a sudden, boom,
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Jamie thought for sure he was going to be the CEO.
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Matter of fact, both of them were asked this question afterwards.
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Jamie Dimon says, this impacted my net worth, but not self-worth.
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And Sandy Weil said, I fired Jamie Dimon because he wanted to be CEO.
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The problem was in 1999, he wanted to be the CEO, and I didn't want to retire.
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I don't know what else could have been done except for him to be more patient.
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So both of them give their own point of view, but at the end of the day, he was fired.
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This guy's not going to have a hard time finding a job, and he found a job very quickly.
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Jamie gets hired as the CEO of a struggling bank one, and here's what he does.
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He fires not 10 people, not 100 people, not 1,000 people, not 10,000 people.
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We're getting the best guy to be the CEO of a bank one.
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12,000 people get fired, and he cuts executive compensation.
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He took away company cars, 401k matching, executive bonuses, gifts, financial planning, started
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selling underperforming parts of the business, took $4.4 billion in write-downs and loan loss
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Bank one posted a yearly loss of $500 million in 2000.
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The company stock starts going up because Wall Street liked what Jamie Dimon was doing.
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And Dimon prioritized a fortress balance sheet more than anything else.
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Lots of cash, good collateral, treasuries and gold, assets with real value, healthy amount
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Bank one, just a year later, post-profits, ready?
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So obviously, the market is saying, oh my God, look at this guy.
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Executive people are leaving, and he's the worst guy to work for.
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You never want to work for a guy like this.
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And then all of a sudden, the market says, damn, this guy kind of knows what he's doing.
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At the same time, Chase is struggling because they had the scandal with Enron, and they're
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kind of trying to figure out a way to figure this thing out and clean it up.
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JP Morgan merges with Bank One in 2004 because it wants Diamond as a CEO.
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The main reason we're doing it, Beyond Closer, is not telling anybody, we kind of want that
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After the merger, JP Morgan is the second largest bank with Citigroup at first.
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Now remember, Citigroup was where he's, you know what I'm saying, Sandy and Daughter
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So there's a point to prove right there as well.
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When Diamond took control of JP Morgan, he cut costs, reshaped incentive structure, started
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building his fortress balance sheet, immediately offloaded the toxic subprime loans, and meanwhile
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Citigroup, complete opposite end, they're sitting there saying, hey man, this kind
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of subprime stuff is very profitable, man, we're making a lot of money here.
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Until 2008, when the market hits, Jamie knew this was coming, and it was going to be bad,
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and he didn't want JP Morgan Chase to have exposure to the moment he took over.
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The company's CEO, Charles Prince, was forced to resign November 2008.
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Chase had the smallest loss of all banks in 2008, with only $1.2 billion.
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So at the same time, when you think about 2008, a lot of these companies are going out
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But Bear Stearns, you know, most companies can't afford to buy this company.
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The government quickly identified that JP Morgan was the only bank capable of absorbing Bear
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The Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, begged Diamond to buy Bear Stearns.
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Government sweetened the deal with a $30 billion to reduce Diamond's risk exposure.
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Diamond never acted like it was a luxury and said he did it for the financial system, but
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Wall Street viewed it as a great deal for the bank because it helped JP Morgan expand
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into areas like investment banking and prime brokerage dealing.
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In 2008, Wamu was the bank, like I was with Wamu back in the days.
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It was the largest bank failure in U.S. history.
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JP Morgan buys it for $1.9 billion, pennies on a dollar.
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2023, first Republic Bank failure resulted in acquisition by JP Morgan.
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Bargain price from the FDIC, second largest bank failure in U.S. history.
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The second largest, he buys because he's got this fortress of cash available to him to
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make these types of decisions when everything is cheap.
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Now, there's obviously a lot of different takeaways from this.
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Haven't you seen the story about, you know, him being linked with, you know, Epstein and
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How about the fact that during the time of him being the CEO of the company, they paid
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How can we recognize somebody like this that they've had to pay these types of fines?
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These are real numbers, by the way, and they're valid points.
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But here's what I want you to think about here.
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Let's take the best, and then I'll tell you why some people want this guy to run for office.
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Number one, there's something that he was famous for saying.
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He said, if there's a problem you tell me about, it's our problem.
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If there's a problem you don't tell me about, it's your problem.
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Believe me, you don't want to have a problem, which means if something's not working, talk
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If you don't bring it up to me, you best fix it or else you're fired.
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That's my interpretation of how he runs the company.
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Number two, involved in all aspects of the business from top to bottom, using highly efficient
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meetings with agendas, an action pointer to be addressed, always carry it around a sheet
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of paper with the topic needed to be addressed, encourages transparency and direct feedback
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from all employees, wants constant feedback from the people who directly deal with the
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customers, and number one business philosophy was maintain the Fortress balance sheet.
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His friends say that he doesn't do much aside from run the business.
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I want you to watch it and tell me what you think about this.
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The other way around, America has the best hand ever dealt of any country on this planet
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And Americans don't fully appreciate what I'm about to say.
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We have peaceful, wonderful neighbors in Canada and Mexico.
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We've got the biggest military barriers ever built called the Atlantic and the Pacific.
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We have all the food, water, and energy we will ever need.
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We have the best military on the planet, and we will for as long as we have the best economy.
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And if you're a liberal, listen closely to me in that one, okay?
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Because the Chinese would love to have our economy.
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There are great ones elsewhere, but these are the best.
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We still educate, you know, most of the kids who start businesses around the world.
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If you don't believe me, and we talk about Britain, Brazil, Russia, India, Venezuela, Argentina,
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You can ask anyone in this room, what can you do to be more productive?
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We're the widest and deepest financial markets the world's ever seen.
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And if you, I just made a list of these things, and maybe I missed something.
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But, you know, when I hear people down, if you travel around the world, I mean, get an airplane,
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travel around the world, and go to all these other countries, and tell me what you think.
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So, look, whether you like him or not, you know, you hear a message like that of somebody
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But when I see Putin selling Russia, I respect the fact that someone's got that kind of pride
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I don't like the fact that a lot of Americans want to bash America.
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Finally, we got some leaders that are saying great things about their own country, and they're
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In regards to you being uncomfortable with some of the business dealings or whatever,
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When you're around for as long as this guy's been around, and the bank is as big as it is,
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You can read more about it and say, I don't like this.
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This is the reason why I would never want a guy like this to run.
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What you can respect about a guy like this is a few things.
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One, he chose the right person to run with for 16 years, and he became that person's
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You got to give him credit for running with that guy, being loyal, and look what happened
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He loved the fact that he's running with somebody that's super hungry.
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Sandy loved the fact that he's got a guy that's willing to go out there and do the
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Obviously, sometimes you bring a daughter in, you don't want to promote.
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That lasts a long time, has a philosophy, stays clear to it, is about cash, calculated
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There's a lot of things to be said about this, and his story is a story that somebody right
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now working at whatever position you're at right now, if you have the ambition, you're
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working behind closed doors to improve yourself, eventually one day you can do something big
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where people will say, I never thought he would be there.
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I never thought you would be at a position like this, because no matter how much people
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laugh at you, only one person knows how determined you are about your vision.
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So there's a reason why guys like Ackman, Bill Ackman, and all these other guys saying,
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So obviously, there's a lot of other bills out there that want to see a guy like this
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You know, one thing about Jamie, he's always very diplomatic in the way he answers.
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I've spent some time with, you know, Goldman Sachs folks, similar.
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Or he'll say stuff like, hey, Jamie, are you a Republican or a Democrat?
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Well, listen, you know, I'm a Democrat in my heart, but I'm a Republican in my brain.
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It's kind of like gives those types of answers like, oh, should I get upset at him or not?
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Because he knows he's got Democratic clients and Republican.
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But eventually, if this guy decides to run, he's got to choose one party to be a part of.
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What a story to go from an assistant to all of a sudden you're running the biggest bank in
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You got to give him credit for that part of it.
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If you got value out of this video, I got another one I want you to watch on generational
00:16:54.000
What a story on Vanderbilt's, Rothschild, Medici family, what these guys did with their money.
00:16:59.340
What did they do right and what did they do wrong?
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If you've never seen it, click here to watch it.