Speaker 1: Ruby.
Speaker 2: Usually on The Unshakeables, we hear about small business owners
Speaker 2: stuck between a rock and a hard place, running up
Speaker 2: against a make or break situation. Well, moments like that
Speaker 2: don't just happen to small business owners. They also happened
Speaker 2: to big companies and their CEOs, people running some of
Speaker 2: the largest corporations in the country, people like my boss,
Speaker 2: Jamie Dimon.
Speaker 3: When I realized I was sitting at my desk, I
Speaker 3: didn't realize this to very of the problems I was
Speaker 3: going through, the actual trade positions, and my heart fell out.
Speaker 2: There were a series of trades that the London office
Speaker 2: of JP Morgan Chase made in twenty eleven and twenty
Speaker 2: twelve that would come to be known as the London Whale.
Speaker 2: As soon as he found out about them, Jamie knew
Speaker 2: he had a problem.
Speaker 3: And I knew at that moment we're going to lose
Speaker 3: billions of dollars. I had not expected that.
Speaker 2: It caught me off guard, but instead of panic, instead
Speaker 2: of lashing out, he calmly went to break the news
Speaker 2: to everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean to
Speaker 2: the board, to the media, but most importantly to his
Speaker 2: employees at the firm. Whatever was going to happen. Jamie
Speaker 2: took responsibility.
Speaker 3: All these bad headlight said, forget all of that, take
Speaker 3: a deep breath, don't overreact. We have a couple hundred
Speaker 3: thousand people work with this company. More important than that
Speaker 3: they serve. As you mentioned at the Times, by four
Speaker 3: million small businesses, serve your clients. Ignore the other stuff.
Speaker 3: Do a great job your clients and your communities. We're
Speaker 3: going to get through this.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 2: Everyone, it's Ben Walter with a big welcome back. We're
Speaker 2: officially kicking off season two of The Unshakeables, and I'm
Speaker 2: excited and ready to share some incredible stories with you.
Speaker 2: I'm impressed every day by small business owners, and I
Speaker 2: can honestly say that this season continues to surprise me.
Speaker 2: Just when I think we've heard it all, I speak
Speaker 2: with another small business owner that reminds me just how
Speaker 2: tenacious and creative you have to be to start and
Speaker 2: run a company. I can't wait for you to hear
Speaker 2: their stories. But today we're doing something different. Our guest
Speaker 2: is not only the CEO of America's largest bank, he's
Speaker 2: also a longtime champion of small business and its ability
Speaker 2: to lift up communities. My colleagues, and I get to
Speaker 2: learn from him every day. I'm thrilled to welcome to
Speaker 2: the show my colleague and my boss, Jamie Dimon, the
Speaker 2: chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Grilled to be here.
Speaker 2: I also have a great co pilot joining me. Kathleen
Speaker 2: Griffith is an entrepreneur, author, and founder and CEO of
Speaker 2: Build and Grayce & Co. She'll be joining me throughout the season. Kathleen,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Unshakeables. We're thrilled to have you.
Speaker 1: So glad to be here with you.
Speaker 2: Kathleen, you have so much experience as an entrepreneur and
Speaker 2: as a small business owner yourself, so I know you'll
Speaker 2: be a great addition to the show today. I'm looking
Speaker 2: forward to getting your take on Jamie's insights and advice
Speaker 2: ready when you are on today's episode. Chairman of the
Speaker 2: board and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon. The
Speaker 2: theme of our podcast what we talked to small business
Speaker 2: owners all the time is colloquially their oh Shit moment.
Speaker 2: We talked to them about the time that they really
Speaker 2: weren't sure they were going to make it. Have you
Speaker 2: had any of those moments running businesses in your career
Speaker 2: and can you tell people a little bit about it,
Speaker 2: what you learned from it and what you did with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people are talking my career and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: They almost never mentioned the fact I was fired from
Speaker 3: the place I'd worked for for fifteen years. That was
Speaker 3: kind of an O shit moment. But you know, listen,
Speaker 3: there's some of them are real, like when you make
Speaker 3: real mistakes, usually people mistakes. They're hard. Or you do
Speaker 3: acquisitions like Bear Sterns in the middle of a crisis.
Speaker 3: You're buying a company with thirty thousand people, three hundred
Speaker 3: million of assets. You're scared. You have to then execute
Speaker 3: all the consolidation, et cetera. That would be one. We
Speaker 3: had a big trading problem. It's called the London Whale.
Speaker 3: I'm sure when I've died, I'll be You know, you
Speaker 3: did a good job, but for the London Whale. But
Speaker 3: that to me, yes, that was O shit moment.
Speaker 2: For those of you who don't know, The London Whale
Speaker 2: was the name given to a significant loss incurred by
Speaker 2: JP Morgan Chase in twenty twelve. A series of investments
Speaker 2: made by one trader in the London office had gone bad.
Speaker 2: At first, the teams thought it looked like a relatively
Speaker 2: standard loss. Very quickly Jamie realized it was much larger.
Speaker 3: The loss was billions, and it could be billions more.
Speaker 3: I had not expected that, he caught me off guard.
Speaker 3: I immediately told the board, and I went on radio
Speaker 3: or TV. I said, we made a terrible mistake, bad
Speaker 3: risk management, bad this, bad that, and it's my fault,
Speaker 3: and I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Jamie didn't just own up to the public and the board.
Speaker 2: He talked to all the JP Morgan Chase employees.
Speaker 3: I got all the people together inside the company and
Speaker 3: I told them this is gonna be terrible. They're going
Speaker 3: to accuse us of this with the one bank that
Speaker 3: didn't have these proms and now we do, and Diamond
Speaker 3: off his white horse and all these bad Headlines I said,
Speaker 3: forget all that, because very often what happens, and you
Speaker 3: quote have this crisis a company, it makes it worse.
Speaker 3: The bosses crying and spilled milk, and everybody's waiting to
Speaker 3: see what's going to happen. Meanwhile, our day to day
Speaker 3: job didn't change.
Speaker 2: This is something we've heard a lot on the show.
Speaker 2: It's not just about what happens, but it's about how
Speaker 2: you respond to it that really matters. Jamie told the
Speaker 2: press as much. The day after the London whale story broke.
Speaker 2: He pulled up to the office around seven am and
Speaker 2: the press was already outside, cameras at the ready.
Speaker 3: I walked out. All the cameras can run up to me,
Speaker 3: you're gonna lose your job or how much money you're
Speaker 3: gonna lose. I looked up at them, I smiled, and
Speaker 3: I looked up to Bill and said, if you want
Speaker 3: to know something, there are seven thousand people work in
Speaker 3: this building, and how proud I am of every single
Speaker 3: one of them, and we're gonna do a great job
Speaker 3: every day for our clients.
Speaker 2: One of the recurring themes that comes up from every
Speaker 2: guest on the show is how deep inside them they
Speaker 2: had to reach to get through those moments to really
Speaker 2: find the grit and the drive and the energy. Where
Speaker 2: do you get yours from?
Speaker 3: I grew up with some basic value, do the best
Speaker 3: you can, treat every respect, make the world a better place.
Speaker 3: And I literally feel that way when I wake up,
Speaker 3: and then when I see our people around the world
Speaker 3: what they're doing for their clients and their communities and
Speaker 3: their countries. That's where I get my motivation. I feel
Speaker 3: being the boss is a responsibility and it's an honor
Speaker 3: and it's a privilege. But you owe the people, you
Speaker 3: owe the clients, and so I really feel that pressure
Speaker 3: to make sure I do a good job. If I don't,
Speaker 3: a lot of other people you get hurt.
Speaker 2: We're lucky, as you know, to serve more than six
Speaker 2: million small businesses every day, hopefully closing in on seven
Speaker 2: million soon. And the last few years have been interesting
Speaker 2: because business formation has been at levels we haven't seen
Speaker 2: ever in the history of the country. What should small
Speaker 2: businesses expect and how should they feel about their contribution
Speaker 2: to America in that environment?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, you know, small businesses have always been a
Speaker 3: critical part of the country. They're more than half full
Speaker 3: of the jobs, a lot of formation. It's for very
Speaker 3: strong economy, it's confidence, all those various things. But also,
Speaker 3: I should be playing a small business in big business
Speaker 3: a symbiotic. Very often when their plans is built somewhere
Speaker 3: for a big factory, three or four times as many
Speaker 3: jobs outside of the company, you know, doing small services
Speaker 3: and food and engineering and consulting and we're all kind
Speaker 3: of grow together each year.
Speaker 2: It's estimated that federal regulations cost small businesses around fourteen
Speaker 2: seven hundred dollars per employee. That's twenty percent higher than
Speaker 2: for larger businesses. Small businesses tell us that they feel
Speaker 2: the weight of regulation, and they feel the weight of
Speaker 2: all these changes on them, and sometimes they feel like
Speaker 2: they don't have a voice. How do we give them
Speaker 2: a bigger voice?
Speaker 3: We all go in these bus trips together and we
Speaker 3: always have lunches and dinners with a lot of small
Speaker 3: business people. You hear about the regulations, the audits, the local,
Speaker 3: the federal, the state audits, how long it takes to
Speaker 3: fill out their taxes and get permissions and licenses and permits.
Speaker 3: They have a voice, you know. They do have a
Speaker 3: voice through chambers around the country so much are actually
Speaker 3: quite capable around the SBA. But I think sitting here
Speaker 3: with you, Ben, we can help give a better voice
Speaker 3: too and get to the government all the things would
Speaker 3: do that can help foster, nurture and grow small businesses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we try to get them involved and we encourage
Speaker 2: them to use their voice and to speak up for
Speaker 2: the issues that they're passionate about and to try to
Speaker 2: give them a platform. I want to pivot to where
Speaker 2: people's heads are at the moment. I've followed the NFIB
Speaker 2: Confidence Survey now for the better part of fifteen years.
Speaker 2: It's been trekking along at an all time low. Suddenly
Speaker 2: spiked to a pretty high level actually after the election.
Speaker 2: The NFIB is the National Federation of Independent Businesses, and
Speaker 2: they publish something called the Small Business Optimism Index, which
Speaker 2: is a metric that shows us how small business owners
Speaker 2: are feeling about the state of business in America. Between
Speaker 2: November and December of twenty twenty four, I saw that
Speaker 2: number jump more than I had ever seen in a
Speaker 2: single month.
Speaker 3: I think, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, business actually
Speaker 3: feels pretty good about the oncoming pro business environment, pro
Speaker 3: investment environment, and things like that.
Speaker 2: But we are still hearing when we survey that rising taxes,
Speaker 2: wage costs, inflation, those things continue to weigh on businesses.
Speaker 2: And one of the things I've been lucky to learn
Speaker 2: from you is about risk management and how to really
Speaker 2: think about a risk culture. So what should small businesses
Speaker 2: be worried about and what should they do about it?
Speaker 3: In terms of risk management, it doesn't matter what business
Speaker 3: you're in. Obviously, every business is different. So if you're
Speaker 3: a bank, our biggest risks or interest rates and credit
Speaker 3: exposure and things like that. But if you're certain types
Speaker 3: of other companies, your biggest exposure might be what's the
Speaker 3: cost of oil, what's the cost of energy, what's the
Speaker 3: cost of transport, and other areas might just be what's
Speaker 3: the cost of wages or something like that. So I
Speaker 3: think every business should prepare and think through a wide
Speaker 3: range of potential pros and cons slower growth, higher costs,
Speaker 3: so they can handle it. Because survival is half the
Speaker 3: name of the game. You could talk to anyone out there,
Speaker 3: from big companies to smaller companies. If you can get
Speaker 3: through tough times, then you can really do quite well
Speaker 3: in good times and sure a better workforce and make
Speaker 3: different types of investments. That the economy is kind of
Speaker 3: like the weather. No matter what you think it is today,
Speaker 3: it may not be sunny tomorrow, and so you need
Speaker 3: to be prepared for that. So we just have very
Speaker 3: blunt open conversations. Can you handle this, What does it
Speaker 3: mean to you? How are you going to do it?
Speaker 3: So you're basically prepared. You're thinking through what a plan
Speaker 3: might be, how you might deal with it. It also
Speaker 3: very often stops you from overexpanding. People get exuberant and
Speaker 3: you know, over expanding. All of a sudden you have
Speaker 3: a downturn. Now you have a lot more overhead or
Speaker 3: something like that. So just being prepared, thinking through, having
Speaker 3: an honest assessment, always think about what can go wrong
Speaker 3: to not just about the things that can go right,
Speaker 3: and you get better and smart as you go on.
Speaker 2: So how do you lead a team through that when
Speaker 2: you see the bumps in the road coming, when you
Speaker 2: see the downturn coming, how do you convince people that
Speaker 2: work for you to persevere through that.
Speaker 3: First of all, we're totally honest with everybody. The things
Speaker 3: that we say publicly privately right about that you hear
Speaker 3: in the management meetings is the same stuff. You should
Speaker 3: always celebrate your positive you should always celebrate your wins,
Speaker 3: but every now and then to sit down, emphasize what
Speaker 3: you're not doing well and that sometimes there are bad
Speaker 3: times out there. So you've got to be a little prepared, And.
Speaker 2: How do you develop the judgment for you know, things
Speaker 2: are changing, maybe they're getting worse, maybe they're getting better. Nope,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna stick with my plan and I'm going to
Speaker 2: power through. Or it's time to think differently, it's time
Speaker 2: to stop, turn look and rethink things.
Speaker 3: Well, I think there's a bunch of things here. So
Speaker 3: when it comes to growing and investing and expanding, I
Speaker 3: try to run a business that we don't worry about
Speaker 3: the weather. I don't want you to change those plans.
Speaker 3: I do think you have to take a very deep
Speaker 3: look at yourself. Sometimes I don't care if you're a
Speaker 3: big company or a small company. Sometimes you're slowing down,
Speaker 3: the weeds are growing, Bureaucracy builds in you and your job.
Speaker 3: Ben you have to deal with risk, legal, credit, compliance, audit,
Speaker 3: finance from the big corporate headquarters who's making demands on you.
Speaker 3: They may not necessarily fully understand what those demands are,
Speaker 3: and so it's always important to like refresh it, rethink
Speaker 3: it through, be honest, criticize yourself. And we've had if
Speaker 3: you look at it, we've had a good time for
Speaker 3: it a long time. We have not had a real downturn.
Speaker 3: COVID had this you know, momentary downturn, but we haven't
Speaker 3: had a downturn for a long time.
Speaker 2: One of the things I tell people. I started my
Speaker 2: career in the mid nineties, and we actually haven't had
Speaker 2: a normal I'm gonna call it a normal garden variety
Speaker 2: recession in my entire career. We've had crises and good
Speaker 2: times and nothing in between. Right, people have forgotten about
Speaker 2: the normal business cycle.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's correct. Yeah, you had so you
Speaker 3: lived through the Internet bubble that was kind of temporary
Speaker 3: because this docks went up, they came down. You lived
Speaker 3: to the Great Financial Crisis. That absolutely is not a
Speaker 3: normal thing. But you're right, we have not had a
Speaker 3: normal garden variety recession in quite a long time. And
Speaker 3: it's not just a recession. You might have things that
Speaker 3: you don't expect, like interest rates going up in a recession,
Speaker 3: inflation not going down the way you'd expect it. And
Speaker 3: you see that today where you know, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: people saying, wait, inflation's not going away so quickly, and
Speaker 3: the Fed's gonna have to adjust. You always have to
Speaker 3: be prepared for things that you don't expect, and you
Speaker 3: always want to bank in your corner that's going to
Speaker 3: be there for you through good times and bad times.
Speaker 2: Kathleen, I think this would be a good time to
Speaker 2: get your take. A lot of that conversation focused on
Speaker 2: risk and managing risk and having a culture of risk
Speaker 2: in a business. So I'm curious, from your perspective, as
Speaker 2: someone who has started businesses and who works with small businesses,
Speaker 2: how do you tell them to think about risk.
Speaker 5: For a lot of small business owners, it's seen as
Speaker 5: an expensive luxury. It's boring and not something they think
Speaker 5: they can afford to do right now. You know, they're
Speaker 5: just kind of running fast with super sharp scissors. But
Speaker 5: as Jamie talked about in this episode, there are as
Speaker 5: many types of risks as there are types of businesses,
Speaker 5: everything from labor to lawsuits, to competitors to cybersecurity, to
Speaker 5: supply chain, to cash flow to cost of goods. The
Speaker 5: list goes on, and so you really need to first
Speaker 5: and foremost identify what those risks are for you as
Speaker 5: a small business owner. For me, the biggest risk is
Speaker 5: exposure and liability. So I put three things into place
Speaker 5: early in my business so I could sleep through the night.
Speaker 5: The first was just setting up a business that's protected
Speaker 5: the formation.
Speaker 1: Of the company.
Speaker 5: The second was making sure that I had liability insurance
Speaker 5: in place and all my exposure points were covered, and
Speaker 5: the third was really just managing contracts and agreements, making
Speaker 5: sure that those were ironclad, and paying for really good
Speaker 5: lawyers even before I could afford them.
Speaker 2: One of the things that people like me who work
Speaker 2: for big companies have the advantage of. Even as CEO
Speaker 2: of Chase for Business, I have a team that's designed
Speaker 2: to challenge me. It's designed to say, hey, Ben, did
Speaker 2: you think about this? Or what if this happens? But
Speaker 2: in a small company where it might be just you
Speaker 2: or you and a few people, how do you facilitate
Speaker 2: that sort of cognitive challenge? How do you make sure
Speaker 2: that there's somebody who's thinking about the other side of
Speaker 2: the trade right?
Speaker 5: The most important thing I would say is just to
Speaker 5: really focus on on owning that as a founder yourself,
Speaker 5: so you don't really have anyone to delegate to. You've
Speaker 5: got to be on your front foot thinking through everything
Speaker 5: that can possibly go wrong in your business.
Speaker 1: So it really is a lot of trial and error.
Speaker 1: You learn by making.
Speaker 5: Mistakes, a lot of them are costly, and you decide
Speaker 5: you're not going to do that again.
Speaker 2: One of the other things I want to talk about
Speaker 2: is the business cycle. I mentioned this to Jamie because
Speaker 2: I think about this a lot, particularly from a bank perspective.
Speaker 2: We haven't really had a normal business cycle. We had
Speaker 2: the dot com bubble, and then we had the Great
Speaker 2: Financial Crisis, and then we had COVID. These were sort
Speaker 2: of headline type, you know, the world is melting down
Speaker 2: kind of things, as opposed to we had growth, and
Speaker 2: then we had a recession, and then things got better
Speaker 2: and we had growth again.
Speaker 5: How do you think that small businesses should prepare for that?
Speaker 2: My view is there's no real way to prepare for
Speaker 2: something like COVID, where some businesses had, you know, an
Speaker 2: eighty five or ninety percent drop in demand. I just
Speaker 2: don't think that's a reason that's such a black Swan event.
Speaker 2: But I think you can plan for what if I
Speaker 2: lost my largest client, or what if demand in the
Speaker 2: aggregate were down fifteen to twenty percent? What would I do?
Speaker 2: How would I survive that? When I talk to clients,
Speaker 2: I always say plan for the sort of middle of
Speaker 2: the Bell curve, not the very extreme ends of the
Speaker 2: Bell curve. Not that you can't think about some of
Speaker 2: those things, but those kinds of things are what insurance
Speaker 2: is for, or for other things because there's no way
Speaker 2: you'd have the financial wherewithal to stomach it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I liked a lot what Jamie was saying
Speaker 5: about people get over exuberant and so over expand and
Speaker 5: so really taking a step back and assessing your business
Speaker 5: periodically to make some you know, strategic changes to make
Speaker 5: sure that we're prepared for changing times.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other advice I have for small business owners with
Speaker 2: respect to this is you can have too much of
Speaker 2: a good thing. And I don't know what that good
Speaker 2: thing is. It's different for every business. But whenever something
Speaker 2: is going really well and just constantly, constantly going really well,
Speaker 2: over and over and over again, that should also make
Speaker 2: your antenna go.
Speaker 5: Up right, and so you may have the sense that
Speaker 5: you've got a really healthy business. We hear all the
Speaker 5: time when you get under the hood of the car
Speaker 5: and you're asking about allocation, someone saying, well, eighty percent
Speaker 5: of my business is coming from this one retailer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what if they go under, You're out of business.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get back to Jamie. Jamie and I had
Speaker 2: a wide ranging discussion about risk, and we ended up
Speaker 2: talking about one of the specific types of risk that
Speaker 2: we have to manage at JP Morgan Chase. A few
Speaker 2: weeks ago, on Joe Rogan's podcast, Mark Andreesson whos
Speaker 2: a prominent venture capitalist, talked about de banking and that's
Speaker 2: something you and I have had to deal with, is
Speaker 2: some of the myths and truths around that. Can you
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about how that works and what
Speaker 2: is debanking and how do we think about it here
Speaker 2: at JP Morgan Chase.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I called Mark Andreessen after that as your friend
Speaker 3: of mine, I want to explain to him we have
Speaker 3: not debanked anyone because of political or religious relationships period
Speaker 3: Now when we debank so and they often blame that reason,
Speaker 3: but that's not a reason. We don't bank marijuana companies
Speaker 3: because there's no federal law around it. We simply can't
Speaker 3: follow the law. If there's a federal law, we probably would,
Speaker 3: and we do bank some crypto companies and very carefully.
Speaker 3: We are responsible in the law to fight sex trafficking,
Speaker 3: money laundering, tax avoidance.
Speaker 2: It's the Bank Secrecy Act right.
Speaker 3: Bank Secrecy Act, and we have to follow that.
Speaker 2: The Bank Secrecy Act went into law in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2: It requires financial institutions to assess the risks the clients
Speaker 2: posed to the firm and act accordingly. It also specifically
Speaker 2: requires firms to identify and flag activity that could suggest
Speaker 2: criminal behavior like drug trafficking, human trafficking, or terrorism financing,
Speaker 2: and there are serious consequences for banks that keep such
Speaker 2: accounts open.
Speaker 3: But where Mark is right is all these examples where
Speaker 3: they put a lot of pressure on us and they
Speaker 3: tell us what it's high risk, and if we don't
Speaker 3: debank so and then something goes wrong, we can be
Speaker 3: one hundred million dollars of fines. So a lot of
Speaker 3: banks are kind of guessing like we should get rid
Speaker 3: of these people, because we don't get rid of them,
Speaker 3: we'll be fined. And you've seen that over and over
Speaker 3: and over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the language and the law is ambiguous in parts,
Speaker 2: but also has some specific requirements that mean sometimes we
Speaker 2: have to close accounts and we can't give a specific explanation.
Speaker 2: It's just incredibly frustrating for clients.
Speaker 3: You probably don't know a lot of people listening to
Speaker 3: this podcast. We're not allowed to tell you why we
Speaker 3: debanked you. So if we think there's a risk of fraud,
Speaker 3: we think there's a risk of money laundering. If we
Speaker 3: don't debank you, we'll get in big trouble. There's even
Speaker 3: a chance that they might be stepping over the line.
Speaker 3: But you know what if someone who's innocent and then
Speaker 3: five years later they're proven guilty, it can cost us
Speaker 3: on hundred million of dollars. I think we should be
Speaker 3: allowed to tell you, and I think when we report stuff,
Speaker 3: the federal government should probably know about it. And there's
Speaker 3: been far cleaner lines about what we have to do
Speaker 3: and we don't have to do or things like that.
Speaker 3: So we've been complaining about this for years. We need
Speaker 3: to fix it, but it wasn't full the things that
Speaker 3: Joe Rogan and Mark Andries spoke about.
Speaker 2: I think what I hear you saying is we and
Speaker 2: other banks comply with the law, but the law is
Speaker 2: not entirely perfect, and there are ways to reform it
Speaker 2: and make it better.
Speaker 3: We have to apply with the law, but it's ambiguous
Speaker 3: and we're punished if we make a mistake in our
Speaker 3: judgment in either direction. In either direction, and our judgment
Speaker 3: can't be perfect because we simply don't know for.
Speaker 2: All its flaws. Why is the Bank Secrecy Act important
Speaker 2: and why is a bank's role in preventing crimes so critical.
Speaker 3: We are guardians of the financial system. All your businesses
Speaker 3: have an interest in keeping the American system safe, and
Speaker 3: that means the Anti money Learning, Know your Customer Bank
Speaker 3: Secrecy Act. We don't want to facilitate bad actors. We
Speaker 3: don't want to help people who are doing sex trafficking
Speaker 3: or terrorism financing. So that is our job. We agree
Speaker 3: with that whole concept. The other thing is banks have
Speaker 3: to make risk judgments and think of risk judgments around
Speaker 3: a business. We need to make judgment calls. That's not
Speaker 3: the same thing as the Bank Secrecy Act, but it's
Speaker 3: a judgment call. There are certain industries we may think
Speaker 3: are risky than other people, and vice or versus so
Speaker 3: the system. I mean, there are a lot of banks
Speaker 3: out there, bank a lot of different people, but we
Speaker 3: need to make proper judgment calls. J.P Morgan himself said he
Speaker 3: would lend not all the money in the world on gold,
Speaker 3: but on the character of the individual that comes first.
Speaker 2: That's why I love working with small business owners and entrepreneurs,
Speaker 2: particularly because of the positive impact they have not just
Speaker 2: on themselves but on their communities and indeed on the
Speaker 2: whole country. So let's talk about the country for a second.
Speaker 2: You talk a lot about how business is a force
Speaker 2: for good for the country and how government is only
Speaker 2: sometimes a force for good for the country. What would
Speaker 2: you like to see from government and its partnership with
Speaker 2: business over the next few years. And we have a
Speaker 2: change in administration, but that's a moment in time. What
Speaker 2: structurally would you like to see change?
Speaker 3: So when we say business is a force for good, eighty percent
Speaker 3: of old jobs come from business. And remember even the
Speaker 3: jobs and not in business, the military, fireman, police, teachers,
Speaker 3: who old in high regard. It's paid for by the economy. Okay,
Speaker 3: our national power, our economic power creates our military power,
Speaker 3: is what drives all this. We should never forget that.
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean businesses don't make mistake. Sometimes businesses go
Speaker 3: into Washington, DC and state capitals and they're very selfish
Speaker 3: about what they want and how they want it. But
Speaker 3: that's what drives it all. It drives jobs, it drives healthcare,
Speaker 3: it drives big business, small business symbiotics. So when you
Speaker 3: talk about what Washington can do, you know, America is
Speaker 3: the greatest country in the planet. I think some of
Speaker 3: the grievances you hear about during politics, for both the
Speaker 3: left and the right were true. The bottom twenty percent
Speaker 3: of our society didn't get a pay race for twenty years,
Speaker 3: and they're dying younger, and a lot of them don't
Speaker 3: have health care. We're America. We should have fixed that,
Speaker 3: and that went on through democratic Republican administration and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. I think that the people of America don't
Speaker 3: think government's efficient, and then you know, acknowledge that government
Speaker 3: has been quite inefficient. And I think when government's inefficient,
Speaker 3: people whose trust in the ability of government to get
Speaker 3: things done, and that becomes a real problem. So to
Speaker 3: restore that trust, prove your competency. I could probably all
Speaker 3: have another whole long list of public can fix about mortgages,
Speaker 3: affordable housing, regulations, immigration.
Speaker 2: But you're still long America, very long America.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, if you haven't travel a lot
Speaker 3: around the world, go with me to some of these
Speaker 3: countries we do business in. When you come back here,
Speaker 3: you will kiss the ground and whenever you read the papers.
Speaker 3: We're still deeply respect about the world, our morality, our capability,
Speaker 3: our culture. People still want so we need to celebrate
Speaker 3: that more and explain to people and explain more to
Speaker 3: our own kids who kind of take it all for granted.
Speaker 2: Kathleen, one of the things we love about working with
Speaker 2: small businesses is that they really are the engine of
Speaker 2: the American economy. I mean, it's two thirds of all
Speaker 2: new private sector jobs created, It's forty four percent of USGDP.
Speaker 2: It's one of the things that distinguishes the US from
Speaker 2: other modern developed economies is the dynamism of our entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Speaker 2: I work for a big business, you work with small businesses.
Speaker 2: Talk about the synergy that you see between big business
Speaker 2: and small business.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is interesting because I have a very unique
Speaker 5: vantage point in that I consult for Fortune one hundred businesses,
Speaker 5: so some of the biggest brands in the world, and
Speaker 5: then work with thousands of small business owners. And they're
Speaker 5: often seen as worlds apart from each other, right, But
Speaker 5: there is so much symbiosis, as Jamie was talking about,
Speaker 5: they are so related where big business then has this
Speaker 5: halo effect on impacting smaller businesses. And I think there's
Speaker 5: also a lot to be learned. Like from big business,
Speaker 5: you can learn so much. You learn operations, risk management,
Speaker 5: hr brand marketing, right and innversly. I think big businesses
Speaker 5: can learn a lot from small businesses, how to do
Speaker 5: digital performance marketing, how to be agile and nimble, how
Speaker 5: to use AI, how to evolve.
Speaker 1: With the time.
Speaker 5: So there is so much shared learning that can happen.
Speaker 2: It Chase. We work really hard to contribute to the
Speaker 2: communities that we serve. We provide small business loans, we
Speaker 2: build affordable housing. We have a consultant program for small
Speaker 2: businesses that many take advantage of, and we're really proud
Speaker 2: of those programs and we get great feedback on them.
Speaker 2: But actually what we get the best feedback on is
Speaker 2: when we support someone else's business just being successful in
Speaker 2: the marketplace. When businesses are successful and they grow. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can't tell you how many of our clients have
Speaker 2: come to us and say, you know, you helped me
Speaker 2: be successful. And what I'm so proud of is the
Speaker 2: four other businesses that I have helped support that have
Speaker 2: gotten up off the ground. We've met businesses who've helped
Speaker 2: competitors launch. I mean, it's amazing and done so with gusto.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it is neat.
Speaker 5: It is collaboration over competition with a lot of small
Speaker 5: business owners and they are so desperate for help and
Speaker 5: resources because so many the lion's share small business owners
Speaker 5: are actually solopreneurs doing it alone, going it alone, feeling
Speaker 5: alone in the woods.
Speaker 2: So our clients who either have bankers or consultants assigned
Speaker 2: to them, have advisors, and they typically operate as part
Speaker 2: of an advice ecosystem that ends up being really important
Speaker 2: for small businesses. That typically consists of your lawyer, your accountants,
Speaker 2: your CPA accountant whichever you have, your insurance agent, and
Speaker 2: your bank is a big part of that. They form
Speaker 2: a network of people who help entrepreneurs feel frankly less alone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we're really proud to be part of that because
Speaker 2: it is lonely.
Speaker 5: It's one of the hardest things to navigate when you're
Speaker 5: starting your business. You're not used to that level of isolation,
Speaker 5: especially for people who worked in corporate before and are
Speaker 5: used to bigger teams and working with others, you know.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it fills a gap.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about character a bit. You've done business for
Speaker 2: years all over the world, talk about what you look
Speaker 2: for in someone you know that you want to do
Speaker 2: business with.
Speaker 3: So I do think what causes success in business is
Speaker 3: true for small business and for larger companies. I think
Speaker 3: it's easier to hide in a larger company. You know,
Speaker 3: a small business they don't have the luxury sometimes of
Speaker 3: making the mistakes that we can make here or something
Speaker 3: like that. So I think we probably attract slightly more
Speaker 3: bureaucrats than a small business is because you can't afford
Speaker 3: to have someone slows it down. Small businesses are extremely resilient,
Speaker 3: very focused in that customer. They want every customer to
Speaker 3: walk out that store, that restaurant, that delivery of an
Speaker 3: industrial product, feeling great about the customer. And small businesses,
Speaker 3: you know, you all notice like sometimes you know, Saturday
Speaker 3: Sundays can be disrupted and you got to negotiate with vendors,
Speaker 3: you got to negotiate with customers, you got to negotiate
Speaker 3: with governments, which is not necessarily true for everyone. In
Speaker 3: a big company. A lot of that stuff kind of
Speaker 3: gets done for you. But the basic things are always
Speaker 3: the basic, which is you got to know the fact,
Speaker 3: the detail, the analysis, I mean, really understanding a detailed level.
Speaker 3: And if you don't have sony company does that, you
Speaker 3: got to have other people to do it. You have
Speaker 3: to administer things well. I've seen a lot of people
Speaker 3: are kind of a hot mess, and how the minister
Speaker 3: always late, things don't get done. That doesn't work. It
Speaker 3: doesn't work with your running in a military, a big company,
Speaker 3: or you know, a restaurant. And the other thing, which
Speaker 3: I think is maybe the most important a couple of things,
Speaker 3: is that people want to work for people that they trust.
Speaker 3: That doesn't matter whether you or a small business or
Speaker 3: a big company. You got to earn that trust every
Speaker 3: day from your employees and your customers. I call that heart,
Speaker 3: you know. It's like heart and curiosity matter a lot.
Speaker 3: You are a lot of people don't talk about in
Speaker 3: big companies, but I think it really does matter, and
Speaker 3: people know that you actually are trying to do the
Speaker 3: best job you can for the company or the client,
Speaker 3: the customer, etc. And I'll add a couple other quick
Speaker 3: words grit And I know you guys small, but you've
Speaker 3: got a lot of grit. You know. I'm sure you
Speaker 3: wake up in the morning and you've got to get going.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how you feel, what's going on at resiliency,
Speaker 3: rapid response, all those other things. So it's the whole
Speaker 3: basket of things that make people successful.
Speaker 2: We've been blown away by the grit and resilience of
Speaker 2: every guest we've had on the show, some of the
Speaker 2: stuff they've been through has been incredible. Jamie, thank you
Speaker 2: very much for being on the show today. It's been
Speaker 2: a pleasure having you.
Speaker 3: Ben. Thank you. It's been pleasure to having you at
Speaker 3: the company. I'm thrilled the success of the show, so
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Kathleen. One of the things that Jamie
Speaker 2: talked about was we talked about characteristics that make a
Speaker 2: successful business owner and an entrepreneur, and he talked a
Speaker 2: lot about grit and resilience, which really has been a
Speaker 2: running theme of The Unshakables, and the questions I get
Speaker 2: a lot from clients are really about hiring. People are
Speaker 2: still telling me, even though it's twenty twenty five, people
Speaker 2: are still saying that it's hard to find people.
Speaker 1: Who should I hire?
Speaker 5: Is one of the most asked questions, It really is.
Speaker 5: And you can afford to make a mistake because usually
Speaker 5: you don't have much money to spend on your first hire.
Speaker 5: So the first piece of advice I give is to
Speaker 5: do an honest appraisal of what your skills are as
Speaker 5: a founder, and then you want to hire for complementary
Speaker 5: skill sets. The second piece is they need to be
Speaker 5: a revenue or sales driver. They've just got to drive
Speaker 5: your bottom line. And so you've got to look for
Speaker 5: someone who's going to help you grow the business. And
Speaker 5: if someone's mediocre, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: How do you squeeze out when there's trouble there?
Speaker 5: I love the Sheryl Sandberg question that she asked forever
Speaker 5: and ever, which is, walk me through the worst crisis
Speaker 5: you ever managed and how you managed it. And so
Speaker 5: I like to ask those really tough questions initially, but
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, you just got to
Speaker 5: get someone in the chair for ninety days before you
Speaker 5: even know. So it makes a lot of sense to
Speaker 5: hire contractors before full time. Do tempt to perm if
Speaker 5: you can, just so you get to see whether they're
Speaker 5: able to really operate in a startup small business environment,
Speaker 5: because it is different and you've got to be super resourceful,
Speaker 5: and if you're not, you're just not going to hack it.
Speaker 2: If something feels off, do you just make the call
Speaker 2: real quick and make a change, or do you try
Speaker 2: to work it out?
Speaker 1: You trust your gut.
Speaker 5: I love the saying hire slowly, firefast.
Speaker 1: It's like someone's got to go. Then you have to
Speaker 1: trust your gut because you don't have time. It's not
Speaker 1: on your side. You have a limited runway when you're
Speaker 1: running a small business.
Speaker 2: The one I always hear is I fired him too soon,
Speaker 2: said no one ever. So that's good talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about inflection points in the growth cycle, because one
Speaker 2: of the things I've noticed is there's these inflection points
Speaker 2: at these key numbers, like your first hire one, and
Speaker 2: then actually two is another big milestone, right, and then
Speaker 2: there's another one at about ten, and then there's another
Speaker 2: sort of one at twenty five.
Speaker 5: I know someone actually who had a rule you would't
Speaker 5: hire over thirty, who is like that is the size
Speaker 5: of the company that I want to build. I'm not
Speaker 5: going to exceed that because there are these profound cultural shifts.
Speaker 5: It is something you really need to ask yourself, how
Speaker 5: big is big?
Speaker 1: And what do I want to build toward?
Speaker 5: Because you go from being a founder who is very
Speaker 5: connected to the business that over time becomes you know,
Speaker 5: more and more elevated the more you scale and grow,
Speaker 5: and then you have another inflection point where you've got
Speaker 5: to ask yourself, am I really the right CEO for
Speaker 5: this business, or do I need to bring in someone
Speaker 5: who has that skill set?
Speaker 2: That is one hundred percent an issue. And there's really
Speaker 2: two kinds of entrepreneurs. There's those who they founded it
Speaker 2: to run a company. That's what they always wanted to do,
Speaker 2: that's what they do as they build it. And then
Speaker 2: there's the kind who were passionate about the thing that
Speaker 2: they were doing, but once it gets to a certain
Speaker 2: size and it becomes about management, they are not professional managers.
Speaker 2: The smart ones, I think, find a different role for
Speaker 2: themselves in the company.
Speaker 5: And identifying what sort of founder you are to your point,
Speaker 5: I think just to double click on that, like are
Speaker 5: you a technical founder? Are you a marketing founder slash
Speaker 5: creative founder? Are you more of an operations founder? And
Speaker 5: then trying to find that counterpoint for yourself or series
Speaker 5: of counterpoints based on knowing what breed of founder you
Speaker 5: actually are.
Speaker 2: That's good advice, Kathleen. What one piece of advice do
Speaker 2: you have for small business owners as we head into
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: What's the worst thing that could happen? Imagine that can
Speaker 5: you live with it?
Speaker 1: If you can? Good if you can't fix it?
Speaker 2: Kathleen this has been terrific. I know you'll be joining
Speaker 2: us for a few more episodes this season, so really
Speaker 2: looking forward to having you on the show again.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Thank you once again to Jamie Dimon and to Kathleen
Speaker 2: Griffith for joining me. And welcome back to The Unshakeables
Speaker 2: Season two. If you know someone who would love the show,
Speaker 2: please share it. On the next episode, we'll be taking
Speaker 2: a trip back to the nineteen nineties in southern California's
Speaker 2: punk scene. Punk was a way of life in Sokel
Speaker 2: and a way of dressing. One man was so inspired
Speaker 2: by it all that he started making his own shoes
Speaker 2: to wear to the shows.
Speaker 4: And I would buy vintage shoes, but they never quite fit.
Speaker 4: And on one of these trips to Baha, I saw
Speaker 4: a sign that said boot maker and I walked in.
Speaker 4: I said, Hey, can you guys make me a pair
Speaker 4: of shoes if I give you a quick sketch. They
Speaker 4: made me a pair of shoes and that was it.
Speaker 2: I'm Ben Walter and this is The Unshakeables from Chase
Speaker 2: for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. We'll see you
Speaker 2: here again soon.