Money Stuff: The Podcast

Episode: Indoor Cat: JPM, AI, 777
Date: October 24, 2025
Hosts: Matt Levine & Katie Greifeld

Episode Overview

This episode revolves around three major topics in the world of finance and Wall Street gossip: the grand opening of JPMorgan's massive new headquarters, the encroachment of AI on junior banking roles, and a string of credit "cockroach" scandals including the saga of 777 Partners. Matt Levine and Katie Greifeld deliver their signature blend of droll observation, insider anecdotes, and technical clarity as they break down why these stories matter—and what they reveal about how money moves (and occasionally vanishes) on Wall Street.

Segment 1: JPMorgan’s New HQ — Big Buildings, Bigger Symbolism

Timestamps: 02:04 – 14:11

Key Discussion Points

• Katie recaps field reporting at JP Morgan's ribbon-cutting for their headquarters at 270 Park Avenue, describing herself as “an indoor cat” who’d rather be in a studio than “screaming at a camera” in the wild.
• Discussion of the building’s size, design, and unique features:
  • 60 stories, nearly 1,400 ft tall, six years to build
  • Designed by Lord Norman Foster (of Apple Park fame)
  • Lobby raised 80 feet off the ground for outdoor space
  • Amenities: a reservation-only pub named Morgan’s (complete with imported Guinness taps), a fitness center (controversial with Jamie Dimon), and notable architectural overhangs.
• The building is part of a larger JP Morgan “district” in Midtown, now approaching 6 million square feet of office space.
• The symbolism of the building—its permanence and monolithic presence—sparks both admiration and anxiety.

Noteworthy Quotes

• On building attendance:
  Matt Levine: “Boy, you’re an indoor cat.” (02:12)
  Katie Greifeld: “Boy, do I love sitting behind a desk and screaming at a camera.” (02:14)

• On the building’s grandeur and urban impact:
  Katie Greifeld: “It’s nearly 1400ft tall… the ceilings are super high. The lobby is raised 80ft off the ground…” (06:01)

• On office architecture panic:
  Matt Levine: “I find the overhang slightly alarming… if you’re on that overhang, it’s like, yeah, there’s a big building above me.” (06:28)

• On office amenities and the pub:
  Katie Greifeld: “JP Morgan imported the parts needed to pour a proper pint of Guinness at Morgan’s, so just know it’s quality.” (08:34)

• On the bank HQ arms race:
  Matt Levine: “All told, JP Morgan has nearly 6 million square feet of office space, which is almost as much as Goldman has in all of north and South America. So the physical footprint of JP Morgan is pretty stunning.” (11:29)

• On the HQ as monument to ephemeral work:
  Matt Levine: “He’s [Jamie Dimon] got on record as saying … it’s a monument to … it’s something permanent. You know, what do we do? We push paper all day.” (13:56)

Segment 2: AI vs. Junior Bankers — The Great Pitchbook Replacement

Timestamps: 16:50 – 26:35

Key Discussion Points

• AI’s incursion into banking, especially via OpenAI’s “Project Mercury,” which tasks ex-bankers with training AI to build LBO (Leverage Buyout) models and produce “pitchbooks” with perfect formatting.
• The joke (with a hint of seriousness) that meticulous pitchbook formatting is a stand-in for banker competence—and thus must be replicated by AI.
• The tension bankers feel about automating away entry-level work, with some participating in their own disruption for $150/hr.
• The question of whether automating modeling is “hollowing out the bench” and undermining career training for future senior bankers.
• Broader implications: Are we losing essential skills by skipping grunt work, and is this a finance story or just a life story?

Noteworthy Quotes

• On AI replacing analysts:
  Matt Levine: “What you don’t want when you fire all the analysts and replace them with AI, what you don’t want is to be annoyed at the formatting of the output.” (17:14)

• On formatting (and banks) as organizational psychology:
  Matt Levine: “It’s a signaling thing… if they give you bad formatting, then you worry about what else is in the pitchbook that’s wrong.” (18:47) Katie Greifeld: “That sounds like broken window theory.” (19:45)

• On ex-bankers training their replacements:
  Matt Levine: “Would you like to get paid $150 an hour for a month to put everyone in your industry out of work? … I think if you went to a lot of investment banking analysts, you’d get a pretty good hit rate. They’d be like, ah, I hated it.” (21:04)

• On legacy and ego in modeling:
  Matt Levine: “The opportunity to have their LBO model enshrined perpetually as the official ChatGPT LBO model… I think that would be kind of cool.” (21:12)

• On career training and the skills gap:
  Katie Greifeld: “The idea that you’re just hollowing out the bench… you do the tough work, then that leads you to be able to do the higher level, more conceptual things.” (25:23, quoting Bridgewater CEO)

  Matt Levine: “That’s not an investment banking thing, that’s a life thing. Right. Like, you see that in school now… you use AI to do all your homework. The kids can’t read.” (26:15)

Segment 3: Cockroach Season — Credit Blowups, “Sloppy Collateral,” and 777 Partners

Timestamps: 29:21 – 35:35

Key Discussion Points

• Recap of recent credit market scandals—dubbed "cockroach" events (“when you see one cockroach, there will be more”).
• The double-pledging of collateral emerges as a common theme in recent failures (Zions Bank, Western Alliance, 777 Partners).
• 777 Partners: A company involved in sports team investment and lottery payouts, now facing allegations (and criminal charges for its founder) of double-pledging its loan collateral.
• The “cockroach” metaphor expands to cover a proliferation of smaller credit blowups, many stemming from the opaque, indirect nature of modern lending: banks lending to lenders who lend to other lenders.
• Risks of secondary/tertiary lending and the hazards of banks being one or more steps removed from the underlying assets.
• These stories may signal late-stage exuberance in the credit cycle.

Noteworthy Quotes

• On collateral sloppiness:
  Matt Levine: “The real estate lending firm… did not actually own the mortgages that they were buying against or like they did and then they sold them… there’s all this stuff where there’s sloppiness around collateral.” (31:07) Matt Levine (on 777 Partners): “The founder was charged criminally last week… the lender called them to be like, what’s all this then? And the founder on a recorded line was like, yeah, we did do that, but it’s because our computer systems are sloppy and we’ll fix it.” (32:15)

• On late-cycle risk:
  Matt Levine: “These stories seem symptomatic of late cycle exuberance, as Mark Rowan would say, specifically like indirect lending where, because it is indirect, it is a little bit easier to get hoodwinked out of collateral.” (35:08)

• On the “cockroach” metaphor:
  Matt Levine: “When you see one cockroach, there will be more. And it’s definitely since he said that there have been a lot of these credit problems that all have similar features.” (33:18)

Memorable Moments & Humor

• Hidden office pub banter: The hosts fantasize about recording an episode inside Morgan’s pub at JP Morgan, inviting Jamie Dimon—or, better yet, the bartender—as their special guest. (08:19-08:31)
• The eternal bank HQ arms race: “Imagine if they spent $5 billion on this building and then cut the ribbon wrong.” (04:22, Katie Greifeld)
• AI analogies and meta-commentary: Matt admits he’d be flattered if OpenAI asked him to train it to “explain finance topics the way you would,” noting “I feel like they’re already trained on my work.” (21:39-22:04)
• Self-aware journalism: Katie’s relatable nostalgia for her days as a “baby reporter just doing these bullet point fixtures” that few people read, paralleling the risk of losing foundational career skills to automation. (26:17)

Structure Recap with Timestamps

1. JPMorgan HQ Deep Dive & Urban Impact (02:04–14:11)
2. AI Replacing Bankers & Cultural Fallout (16:50–26:35)
3. Credit Cockroaches, 777 Partners, and Collateral Sloppiness (29:21–35:35)

Overall Tone & Takeaways

The episode dances between tongue-in-cheek observations about the foibles of finance culture (“cutting the ribbon the wrong way,” obsessing over formatting) and incisive breakdowns of major trends: the symbolic stakes of towering buildings, the subtle threats and promises of AI, and the recurring risks buried in the shadowy corners of the credit markets.

Quote to sum it up:
Matt Levine: “It’s a monument to … it’s something permanent. You know, what do we do? We push paper all day.” (13:56)

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