B (2:24)

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And and if you heard a whole new world to the tune of Aladdin. That makes two of us.

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C (2:49)

Transform ad buys into brand defining moments where culture happens and fan doms thrive. Learn more at Disney Campaign manager.com that's Disney campaign manager.com Jamie Dimon wants his workers back in the office so badly he built them the nicest one in the world. Six years and $3 billion later, JP Morgan's towering new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan is finally open to workers. 10,000 finance professionals will call to 70 Park Ave Home, which the Wall Street Journal described as a temple to the workplace and and a love letter to Wall street culture. What does $3 billion buy you these days? For one, you won't have to doordash any meals because there are 19 restaurants inside. That's to go along with the coffee shops, company store and gym. There's even a full on English pub called Morgan's. The architect behind the project, Norman Foster, called it one of the crown jewels of his portfolio, which also includes Hearst Tower and Apple Park. In terms of leisure, entertainment, lifestyle, he told the Journal, I would say that every level of this tower pushes those boundaries further than anything we've done before. But make no mistake, this was Jamie Dimon's brainchild through and through, who's been searching for a new HQ almost as long he's been CEO of the bank. Diamond is perhaps the most outspoken advocate of in person work in the business world, having been caught in the past making multiple expletive field rants against remote work culture. So he turned to field of dreams to make his outlook on work a reality. He if you build it, you can force them to come. Neal it feels like this is Jamie Dimon searching for legacy. It wasn't enough to build JP Morgan into the biggest bank in the world. He also wanted a 60 story tower that embodies his his worldview on work leadership and permanence.

B (4:31)

This is like alpha male marking its territory in the animal world because JP Morgan just hasn't built this new headquarters, but they've been buying up a bunch of office buildings or leasing it all around this particular neighborhood and now a 6 million square feet of office space in the span of a few blocks that that's almost as much as Goldman Sachs has in all of north and South America. And it's really A sign of how JP Morgan has leapfrogged its rivals to become the biggest bank in the United States by far. Go back 10 years. It was basically the same size as rivals Wells Fargo, bank of America and Citigroup. Now it is worth more than all of those three banks combined. Last year had more profit than any bank in the history of the United States. And since Jamie Dimon became CEO at the start of 2000, he has nearly quadrupled JP Morgan's balance sheet to around $4.6 trillion. So this is him marking his legacy and saying, yeah, I came in like the rest of you folks, and I absolutely just demolished all the rest of you.

C (5:32)

Speaking of demolish, that's a great segue. It was a wild concept to tear down the original building in the first place. They had a 52 story HQ in the same spot. That was fine. There wasn't anything wrong with the building, but Jamie Dimon wanting something bigger. So they literally started going floor by floor. That's the way you tear down a big building surrounded by other big buildings. You have to take it AP piece by piece. That started in 2019. What came next was the pandemic. You're building this massive office space. You just had all your work shut down. What do you do? Do you keep going? They kind of ran a cost benefit analysis and said, yes, it does make sense to keep going. It is just crazy how much of a fortress this place actually is. They had to do, it's £400 million of steel. I can't even wrap my head around that. So they had to drill 100ft into, you know, the bedrock of Manhattan. There are, you know, subway lines and rail stations down there. They had to demolish a rail station and promise to rebuild it in order to make way for the foundation. So just as a piece of architecture, this thing is a behemoth. It is staggering in size and scale.

B (6:33)

It is a physical behemoth, but it's also symbolic in many ways of JP Morgan's obsession or Jamie Dimon's you know, obsession with finance and wanting to put his mark on New York City because we're at a time where maybe the new mayor elections are on. Donnie, who is the front runner, has decried billionaires. And maybe this is Jamie Dimon's way of saying, yeah, look, finance still runs this town. In actual. In actuality, JP Morgan has more employees in Texas than it does in New York City, but it doesn't have this massive skyscraper. And that's what Jamie Dimon wants to leave as his legacy.

C (7:08)

He kind of did hint at this. He says what we do is we move paper around. Diamond said this is a permanent thing. So you can see why he wants to pursue this line of building, like, you know, the biggest office space that in the finance world because it's just all fairy does. You know, I think back to the Wolf of Wall street scene where he's saying it's, it's all numbers. None of it is real. A building is real. So that's why Maybe he put $3 billion into it.

B (7:31)

Yeah. So next time you visit New York or Manhattan, you see a massive new building you can't miss.

C (7:35)

It's kind of scary looking too, because it's on these fans. It doesn't look like it should be able to be propped up by those flimsy little supports, but apparently they've done the math and hopefully it's all good.

B (7:44)

All right, so if you're a JP Morgan employee in New York City, let us know how the new office is because you're definitely going in. In a heist as daring as Nicolas Cage stealing the Declaration of Independence, mass thieves broke into the Louvre in Paris on Sunday morning, stealing jewels of quote, inestimable value from the world's most popular museum in broad daylight while people were in the museum. The Louvre closed down yesterday as investigators took inventory of the objects that were stolen and checked in with the Mona Lisa to make sure she was holding up okay. It's still shut down as of this morning. One of the most high profile museum thefts in recent memory took all of seven min. Officials said that intruders used a truck mounted furniture elevator on the sen side of the museum where construction is underway to access a gallery that held the French crown jewels and other treasures. They forced open a window using an angle grinder and smashed open two display cases. Then four individuals jetted off into the Paris morning with their loot on motorbikes. Interior Minister Loren Nunez called it a major robbery conducted by a very experienced team that clearly knew the site well. It may be impossible to put a price tag on what they grabbed. According to officials, the thieves nabbed priceless items from the Napoleonic jewelry collection. But at least one stolen jewel, Empress Eugenie's crown, was found broken outside the museum, which is not ideal considering it's covered in nearly 1400 diamonds and 56 emeralds. Beyond their market value, the items have inestimable heritage and historical value, Nunez said. Now a massive manhunt is on to find the perpetrators and recover these jewels while officials try to figure out how One of the most heavily guarded buildings in the French capital was breached so easily. For the French, this is a national embarrassment.

C (9:23)

Yeah. The police were piecing together how it was done. In addition to those angle grinders, they found a blowtorch, gasoline gloves, walkie talkies and a blanket. So it was this very professional grade operation. It wasn't just someone who walked by one day and said, I'm a rob the Louvre. They also found a yellow vest to disguise themselves as a workman a bit further away. And that is. I don't know if you've heard about the yellow vest theory, but basically, if you are wearing a workman's vest, you get access to places that you never should get access to. You can walk right into the movies, you can walk right into amusement parks if you are wearing this. So I would like to say that if I saw some people, you know, banging on the window of a Louvre in broad daylight, I would say, hey, something's amiss here. But if they're wearing workman's vest, then it does go a long way to disguising their actual intentions.

B (10:08)

Now, what do you do with these jewels? If you are the thieves, you have these priceless jewels, but obviously you want a price from them. That's the whole. That's the entire point of stealing them. Well, are we going to see them again? Are you going to see them pop up on ebay or the Internet? Well, a bunch of art experts say we're never going to see these jewels again. What they're going to do typically, is they take them apart essentially from the crown. They're going to take all these diamonds and all these emeralds from everything that they took and then reconstitute them somehow and then try to sell them in different ways. But art experts say it's really not that difficult to do this. So you will see the thieves tried to sell them unless the French authorities get them before this happens. But it's looking a little unlikely.

C (10:45)

We were talking before the show. It seems like much smarter to steal diamonds than to steal a painting, because you can't recut a Picasso, for instance. It always is going to be a Picasso. Its value is tied into exactly how it looks. With this, though, you can go and recut them and sell them on the black market. I also can't help but think back when I hear this story to January, which is when Macron kind of stood by the Mona Lisa and said, we are going to do this big Louvre renovation. Right now, there's too many visitors. We're going to have a new entrance. Some of the, you know, basic things like air conditioning is something that has been falling to the wayside. So we're going to plow all this money into redoing the Louvre, basically. And then nine months later, it has been broken into in very embarrassing fashion. So it does feel like this is striking at the heart of, you know, Parisian culture in a way, when you have just such a brazen robbery happen in broad daylight after you announce this big, you know, makeover of the museum.

B (11:38)

It's not the first robbery that happened at the Louvre. Maybe it won't be the last after this particular renovation. But go back back to 1911. This was probably the most famous robbery in art history. Someone who was working within the Louvre stole the Mona Lisa in 1911. And back then, which is very interesting, the Mona Lisa wasn't that famous of a painting. And it was this particular robbery that led to Mona Lisa becoming the most famous artwork in the entire world. It was recovered two years later in Florence when the guy tried to sell it. So there you go. But, but it does tie it in to this broader concern that French authorities have about their museums. In fact, it goes across Europe of museums not being particularly well protected. Just in September, $700,000 worth of gold was stolen from the Natural History Museum. There was another robbery also that month in another museum. 2019, there was a massive robbery back in Dresden, Germany, where people stole over $120 million worth of goods. So this is kind of a epidemic that is going around, especially as precious metals prices rise. There's going to be a lot more demand for these kind of things. Moving on. Welcome to Winners of the Weekend. The segment where Toby and I picked two things that went Apple picking and we're secure enough not to post about it. I won the pre show pumpkin carving competition, so I get to go first. And my winner is Wal Mart, because it's about to receive one of the most prized accolades in all of corporate America. A Harvard Business School case study. This fall, Walmart story will be taught to our future bosses, with a specific focus on one decision that changed the the company's trajectory, forever investing in its employees. According to the Wall Street Journal, the case study will dissect a momentous change Walmart made 10 years ago. It raised its starting wage to $9 an hour. As the largest private employer in the country, Walmart's move amounted to the biggest pay raise in U.S. history, but also cost it dearly. Shares plunged 10% on the announcement, causing more than $21 billion in market value to vanish in a matter of hours. But those investors turned out to be very wrong in the long run, as the case study will explain. The pay subsequent actions to invest in frontline employees proved fundamental to Wal Mart's return to growth after years of stagnation. Since the pay decision in 2015, US sales have grown each consecutive year, while shares have more than doubled in the past five. With revenue of $681 billion last year, Walmart has held onto a spot as the US Largest retailer by sales. Other executives are taking notes. Earlier this month, hundreds of leaders from firms like Blackstone and Bank of America traveled to Walmart HQ in Arkansas to learn how Walmart approaches worker management in the hopes of replicating its success. Herbert Jolly, a senior lecturer at HBS and co author of the case study, told the Journal his goal is to inspire more business leaders to have the courage and also the tools to be able to make the decision at Walmart did.

C (14:31)

Yeah, this wasn't benevolence, though. It wasn't necessarily just courage. It was, they looked at what was happening in their business. They saw a ton of turnover. They saw that customer service was deteriorating. Labor activists were also circling as well. And Amazon was, you know, breathing down its neck both culturally and operationally. So it said, we need to do something here and that something was raising, you know, the starting wage of Walmart employees. It also was at a point where they didn't even know if they could grow anymore. Walmart got to such a size even back in 2015, that they're like, how many more Walmarts can we even build? So they kind of had this culture of emphasizing profitability over growth. And so they were trying to always eke out more from less. But then they said, we can still grow. This is our way to growth, is by investing in people. So a fascinating turning point where it could have gone either direction. They said that people is the most important thing here. And it clearly worked in the long run.

B (15:24)

And if you go back to this announcement, it was a massive deal. This is like the Michael Scott shareholders meeting where they announced it in front of all of their investors. And they are, everyone started asking questions because this is going to cost them, you know, over $3 billion over the course of multiple years. It was going to hurt their margins by a lot to pay, you know, over their 1 million employees, more money. So they actually had to, like, as executives announced this, they received so many questions, they actually had to leave the stage. And then as they were heading back to the airport, Jim Cramer from CNBC called and said, guys, we did an interview earlier in the day. You did not mention this. You have to come back to the studio and talk about this because shareholders right now are in revolt. So this was a major drama and they really did have to stick their guns. And it seemed like it absolutely paid off in the long run as students at HBS will learn.

C (16:11)

Fascinating to see how they're going to navigate this next decade though, where, you know, automation starts coming into play, where AI starts coming into play. Do you still double down on human workers even more? Who knows, Maybe there's going to be another 10 year a decade later. Case study about what Walmart did at this moment in time that sets them up for the future and it really.

B (16:29)

Sets the tone because they are the largest employer in the United States. So when they raise their minimum wage to $9 an hour, pretty much every other retailer had to follow in order to retain and acquire workers. So target TJX over of the owner of TJ Max also responded right. Pretty much right after Wal Mart made the decision. So what Walmart does in this next 10 years, when it comes to automation robotics in their warehouses will set the industry standard.

C (16:54)

All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with my winner of the weekend.

B (17:01)

You know that saying, more money, more problems? Toby?

C (17:03)

Of course. Why do you think my life is so chaotic?

B (17:06)

Sure. Well, with startups it's more like more money, more security. Big enterprise deals usually come with even bigger security and compliance requirements.

C (17:15)

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C (18:27)

My winner of the weekend is first impressions. Because they matter so much, people are increasingly turning to a headshots to give them a leg up when applying for jobs. 88% of job seekers say that a Polish digital presence influences hiring decisions, a 45% jump year over year, according to Canva. But for a long time, professional photos have been something financially out of reach for a lot of people. Enter an explosion of AI headshot tools. Insta Headshots Photo Packs, AI Headshots Pro. They are all options that promise professional, quality images in minutes with no studio or photographer required, all for under 50 bucks. On the flip side, as AI generated portraits become nigh indistinguishable to the average viewer, that can hurt the business of photographers who have long relied on corporate sessions as a steady business model. Still, recruiters caution not to get too carried away. Sometimes using an AI headshot tool leads to an overly smooth feel, inconsistent details and lighting mismatches, which can feel inauthentic. A bad AI headshot is worse than a no headshot, said a career expert from ZipRecruiter, Neal. This is another example of AI inserting itself into the hiring process, one that is affecting all sides of the equation, from applicants to recruiters to the photographers themselves.

B (19:40)

Yeah, I guess the one benefit or one advantage that you could say I could, you know, I could use a headshot, no one will notice is these people have never seen you before the applicants, so they're just doing a quick cursory glance on LinkedIn. And that first impression is so important. And with the rise of headshots, I mean, it's understandable because headshots are very expensive. We were getting headshots. They're hundreds of dollars. And you can only have one particular background or the customers. Customization is somewhat limited with AI headshots. Think about it. You upload a selfie, you say, I want this particular background. You, you answer a few questions that they have, and then the customization is absolutely infinite. Put me in this background, make me give it a glamour shot. Make it look more professional. Put me in a suit, put me in a T shirt. And that's what these AI company headshot companies promise for a fraction of the price. I mean, some of the articles that we read, these people were doing AI headshots for $25. And you get, you know, hundreds and hundreds of photos that you can use for this very critical part of the hiring process.

C (20:41)

But it does seem like a lot of career experts say consider which industry you're applying in. For instance, actors or actresses. Very important to have a real headshot. You don't want to use AI there because you know, your face is your moneymaker in that regard. But if you work for, you know, something like a call center where it doesn't necessarily matter what you look like, then maybe AI headshots can help you. Some people reported having great success when they updated their LinkedIn profile using a more professional looking headshot, which honestly just take a out of it out of the equation. That's just a smart thing to do. They saw three to four times more inbound requests from recruiters. So it is smart to have a polished digital presence going about it using AI that is kind of up to you. It's almost a risk because if it comes off as inauthentic, then you're probably going to get skipped over more than if you just had a worse headshot.

B (21:29)

Now is interesting is what are LinkedIn rules around this? Does it allow an AI headshot for you to use? And yes it does the photo. The LinkedIn says it's okay, but the photo must reflect your likeness. Photos that don't comply with our user agreement may be removed. So LinkedIn says, yeah, if it looks like you, then that's okay. And I assume you would want to use one that looks like you. But overall zooming out, this is another threat to the photography business. You know, the headshots is a big part of their business. I wonder what's coming next, like are we going to get a wedding photography, like have me doing this cool dance move that I didn't do or have me do in the limbo from like 2ft below?

C (22:08)

I mean just get a little flexible, you know, you can do things yourself. Neil, listen, I think you can break it down on the dance floor with the best of them, but I feel for the photography industry because name an industry that's been more influx by, you know, different inventions. They went from film to digital. Then Photoshop got introduced and now and then smartphones got introduced where everyone was a photographer, now you throw AI into the mix. So it is one of those things. Where is it going to be a replacement or is it just going to be become another tool in the toolkit? Some of the best photographers say it's just a tool. You know, we've been under assault for, you know, decades in this industry. It's just going to, you still need the artistry. You still need the ability to capture someone's soul and essence rather than just outsourcing it to AI Completely. So fascinating to once again be in the shoes of saying, how is this going to disrupt our daily workflows again?

B (22:58)

All right, moving on. It is Monday, so here's what you need to know to stay ahead in the week. Ahead on Wall street, corporate earnings and an inflation report will test a market that's gotten a little more wobbly lately. Netflix and Tesla are the earnings headliners, joined by Procter & Gamble, GM, Coca Cola, IBM and Intel. Remember what these companies say about the economy has gotten even more important these days given the lack of data coming from the government because of the shutdown, which is still going on. Speaking of that, Friday will bring an inflation report for September. It was delayed from last week after the Bureau of Labor Statistics called back furloughed workers to put it together. They need to do it to calc the next Social Security cost of living increase.

C (23:38)

Everyone's coming back to the office. Our first real taste of data. Though hungry data dogs everywhere are about to eat. I am very excited. It feels like Christmas morning. This Friday report.

B (23:48)

Moving on to sports, who's ready for some basketball? The new NBA season tips off tomorrow night with plenty of soap opera level storylines. Is it going to be LeBron's final season? Can the Knicks put it all together to snag the title? And is Victor Wembanyama still growing? The spurs phenom is now listed at 7 foot 5 compared to last year's 7 foot 3. But many speculate he's even taller than that. Plus, the way you watch the NBA is going to change this year as a new TV rights deal kicks in. NBC will be airing games for the first time in 23 years. And Amazon Prime Video will also stream a slice of the action.

C (24:22)

Man, I saw one of those graphics of how to catch every, you know, opening day, what streaming services you need to sign up for. It's so many at this point it feels like we're just getting rag dolled around with sports. But seeing it, you know, laid out on a graphical fashion was brutal. We were also talking because you know, NBC is back in the fold about Round Ball Rock that are very iconic jingle and you were saying like they have to use it sparingly, like you can't use it coming out of time outbreak. So very interesting to see when's the first time they bust that out to bring back some of that nostalgia.

B (24:51)

And then today is the start of Diwali. The Indian festival of lights and celebrations are being shaken up due to surging precious metal prices. Typically ahead of Diwali, hundreds of thousands of Indians head to markets to scoop up gold, gold and silver coins and jewelry, believing it brings wealth and luck. But with gold and silver prices each up at least 60% this year, sellers thought they might be scared away. Not so. Business is even better this year as Julia buyers hoard precious metals, expecting their prices to rise only more.

C (25:20)

Yeah, I think a lot of us when we're talking on this show about gold, you think of it as an investment. But gold jewelry accounts for the largest share of India's overall gold demand by far. So it's mostly people just buying and gifting gold jewelry to each other. And so that's putting pressure on prices as well. Indian households hold $3.8 trillion worth of gold. That's nearly 90% of the country's GDP. So this is a country obsessed with gold right now, which is, you know, tough when prices are just absolutely through the roof.

B (25:48)

As for TV and movie releases, nobody wants this. A sleeper rom com hit on Netflix starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody is returning for its second season this week. And on Friday. The Bruce Springsteen biopic starring Jeremy Allen White as the Boss arrives in theaters on Friday.

C (26:03)

Jeremy Allen only plays parts in two word B shows. The Bear, the Boss. That's all I got.

B (26:10)

Actually, it's not even called the Boss, but he is playing the Boss and that should be a good movie. Finally, if you're a classical music lover, just want a new soundtrack for work. Check out the International Chopin Piano Competition which is wrapping up today and will feature concerts of the winners throughout the week. Held once every five years in Warsaw. Hundreds of competitors from all over the world play pieces by the legendary Polish composer Frederic chopin, judged by 17 experts on a scale of 1 to 25, with 25 being perfect, Sim 1 being God awful. Tens of millions of viewers turned tuned into the last competition and you can too by going to the Chopin Institute YouTube account.

C (26:49)

I partook in the YouTube account while prepping and I will tell you what, I do not have the ear to determine the difference between a 1 and a 25. They all sound amazing to me. But on the bright side, a new compliment just dropped up. On a scale of 1 to 10. You're at 25 at the International Chopin Competition.

B (27:05)

Well, well, thank you. That is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful start to the week. If you have any feedback on today's episode, send a note to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our executive producer. Raymond Lu is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair makeup is anti AI Hair headshots. Devin Emery is our president and our shows are production of Morning Brew.

C (27:30)

Great show today Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.

B (27:41)

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C (27:45)

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B (27:55)

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B (28:08)

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