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- [00:03]
Ben Wolter
Ruby, usually on the unshakeables, we hear about small business owners stuck between a rock and a hard place running up against a make or break situation. Well, moments like that don't just happen to small business owners. They also happen to big companies and their CEOs. People running some of the largest corporations in the country. People like my boss, Jamie Dimon.
- [00:28]
Jamie Dimon
When I realized I was sitting at my desk, I didn't realize the severity of the. I was going through the actual trade positions and my heart fell out.
- [00:38]
Ben Wolter
There were a series of trades that the London office of JP Morgan Chase made in 2011 and 2012 that would come to be known as the London Whale. As soon as he found out about them, Jamie knew he had a problem.
- [00:51]
Jamie Dimon
And I knew at that moment we were going to lose billions of dollars. I had not expected that. It caught me off guard.
- [00:59]
Ben Wolter
But instead of panicking, instead of lashing out, he calmly went to break the news to everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean to the board, to the media, but most importantly, to his employees at the firm. Whatever was going to happen, Jamie took responsibility.
- [01:15]
Jamie Dimon
All these bad headlines said, forget all that. Take a deep breath, don't overreact. We have a couple hundred thousand people work at this company. More important than that, they serve, as you mentioned at the time, by 4 million small businesses. Serve your clients. Ignore the other stuff. Do a great job for your clients and your communities. We're going to get through this.
- [01:40]
Ben Wolter
Hi, everyone, it's Ben Wolter with a big welcome back. We're officially kicking off season two of the Unshakeables, and I'm excited and ready to share some incredible stories with you. I'm impressed every day by the small business owners and I can honestly say that this season continues to surprise me. Just when I think we've heard it all, I speak with another small business owner. That reminds me just how tenacious and creative you have to be to start and run a company. I can't wait for you to hear their stories, but today we're doing something different. Our guest is not only the CEO of America's largest bank, he's also a longtime champion of small business and its ability to lift up communities. My colleagues and I get to learn from him every day. I'm thrilled to welcome to the show my colleague and my boss, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. Welcome to the show.
- [02:27]
Jamie Dimon
Thrilled to be here.
- [02:28]
Ben Wolter
I also have a great copilot joining me. Kathleen Griffith is an entrepreneur, author, and founder and CEO of Build and Grace and company. She'll be joining me throughout the season. Kathleen, welcome to the Unshakeables. We're thrilled to have you.
- [02:43]
Kathleen Griffith
So glad to be here with you.
- [02:45]
Ben Wolter
Kathleen, you have so much experience as an entrepreneur and as a small business owner yourself. So I know you'll be a great addition to the show today. I'm looking forward to getting your take on Jamie's insights and advice ready when you are on today's episode. Chairman of the board and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon. The theme of our podcast what we talk to small business owners all the time is colloquially their oh, shit moment. We talked to them about the time that they really weren't sure they were going to make it. Have you had any of those moments running businesses in your career? And can you tell people a little bit about what you learned from it and what you did with it?
- [03:21]
Jamie Dimon
Yeah, people talk about career and stuff like that. They almost never mention the fact I was fired from the place I'd worked for for 15 years. That was kind of an oh shit moment. But, you know, listen, there's. Some of them are real, like when you make real mistakes, usually people mistakes, they're hard. Or when you do acquisitions like Bear Stearns in the middle of a crisis, you're buying a company with 30,000 people, 300 billion of assets. You're scared. You have to then execute all the consolidation, et cetera. That would be one. We had a big trading problem. It's called the London Whale. I'm sure when I die, it'll be, you know, he did a good job. But for the London Whale. But that to me, yes, that was oh shit moment.
- [04:00]
Ben Wolter
For those of you who don't know, the London Whale was the name given to a significant loss incurred by JPMorgan Chase in 2012. A series of investments made by one trader in the London office had gone bad. At first, the teams thought it looked like a relatively standard loss. Very quickly, Jamie realized it was much larger.
- [04:20]
Jamie Dimon
The loss was billions and it could be billions more. I had not expected that. It caught me off guard. I immediately told the board and I went on radio or tv. I said, we made a terrible mistake. Bad risk management, bad this, bad that, and it's my fault and I'm sorry.
- [04:37]
Ben Wolter
Jamie didn't just own up to the public and the board. He talked to all the JPMorgan Chase employees.
- [04:43]
Jamie Dimon
I got all the people together inside the company and I told them, this is gonna be terrible. They're gonna accuse us of this. We're the one bank that didn't have all these problems and now we do, and diamond off his white horse and all these bad headlines. Forget all that because very often what happens and you quote, have this crisis, a company makes it worse. The boss is crying and spilled milk and everyone's waiting to see what's gonna happen. Meanwhile, our day to day job didn't change.
- [05:09]
Ben Wolter
This is something we've heard a lot on the show. It's not just about what happens, but it's about how you respond to it that really matters. Jamie told the press as much the day after the London Whale story broke. He pulled up to the office around 7am and the press was already outside, cameras at the ready.
- [05:27]
Jamie Dimon
I walked out, all the cameras came running up to me, you gonna lose your job or how much money you gonna lose? I looked up at them, I smoked, I looked up to the building and said, you want to know something? There are 7,000 people working in this building and how proud I am of every single one of them. And we're going to do a great job every day for our clients.
- [05:47]
Ben Wolter
One of the recurring themes that comes up from every guest on the show is how deep inside them they had to reach to get through those moments, to really find the grit and the drive and the energy. Where do you get yours from?
- [05:58]
Jamie Dimon
I grew up with some basic values. Do the best you can, treat everyone with respect, make the world a better place. And I literally feel that way when I wake up. And then when I see our people around the world, what they're doing for their clients and their communities and their countries, that's where I get my motivation. I feel being the boss is a responsibility and it's an honor and it's a privilege. But you owe the people, you owe the clients. And so I really feel that pressure to make sure I do a good job, because if I don't, a lot of other people can get hurt.
- [06:31]
Ben Wolter
We're lucky, as you know, to serve more than 6 million small businesses every day, hopefully closing in on 7 million soon. And the last few years have been interesting because business formation has been at levels we haven't seen ever in the history of the country. What should small businesses expect and how should they feel about their contribution to America in that environment?
- [06:49]
Jamie Dimon
Yeah, so, you know, small businesses have always been a critical part of the country. They're more than half all the jobs, a lot of formation, it's a very strong economy, it's confidence, all those various things. But also, I should be pointing out, small business and big business are symbiotic. Very often when their plant is built somewhere for a big factory, three or four times as many jobs outside of the company. You know, doing small services and food and engineering and consulting, and we all kind of grow together.
- [07:18]
Ben Wolter
Each year it's estimated that federal regulations cost small businesses around $14,700 per employee. That's 20% higher than for larger businesses. Small businesses tell us that they feel the weight of regulation and they feel the weight of all these changes on them, and sometimes they feel like they don't have a voice. How do we give them a bigger voice?
- [07:40]
Jamie Dimon
We all go on these bus trips together and we always have lunches and dinners with a lot of small business people. You hear about the regulations, the audits, the local, the federal, the state audits, how long it takes to fill out their taxes and get permissions and licenses and permits. They have a voice, you know, they do have a voice through chambers around the country, some of which are actually quite capable around the sba. But I think sitting here with you, Ben, we can help give a better voice too and get to the government. All the things we do that can help foster, nurture, and grow small businesses.
- [08:12]
Ben Wolter
Yeah, we try to get them involved and we encourage them to use their voice and to speak up for the issues that they're passionate about and to try to give them a platform. I want to pivot to where people's heads are at the moment. I've followed the NFIB confidence survey now for the better part of 15 years, it's been tracking along at an all time low suddenly spiked to a pretty high level actually after the election. The NFIB is the National Federation of Independent Businesses and they published something called the Small Business Optimism Index, which is a metric that shows us how small business owners are feeling about the state of business in America. Between November and December of 2024, I saw that number jump more than I had ever seen in a single month.
- [08:54]
Jamie Dimon
I think whether you're Democrat or Republican, business actually feels pretty good about the oncoming pro business environment, pro investment environment and things like that.
- [09:04]
Ben Wolter
But we are still hearing when we survey that rising taxes, wage costs, inflation, those things continue to weigh on businesses. One of the things I've been lucky to learn from you is about risk management and how to really think about a risk culture. So what should small businesses be worried about and what should they do about.
- [09:20]
Jamie Dimon
It in terms of risk management? It doesn't matter what business you're in. Obviously every business is different. So if you're a bank, our biggest risks are Interest rates and credit exposure, things like that. But if you're certain types of the companies, your biggest exposure might be what's the cost of oil, what's the cost of energy, what's the cost of transport? And other areas might just be what's the cost of wages? Or something like that. So I think every business should prepare and think through a wide range of potential pros and cons. Slower growth, higher costs, so they can handle it. Because survival is half the name of the game. You can talk to anyone out there, from big companies to small companies. If you can get through tough times, then you can really do quite well in good times and nurture a better workforce and make different types of investments. The economy is kind of like the weather. No matter what you think it is today, it may not be sunny tomorrow. And so you need to be prepared for that. So we just have very blunt, open conversations. Can you handle this? What does it mean to you? How are you going to do it? So you're basically prepared. You're thinking through what a plan might be, how you might deal with it. It also very often stops you from over expanding. People get exuberant and, you know, over expanding, all of a sudden you have a downturn. Now you have a lot more overhead or something like that. So just being prepared it through, having honest assessment, always think about what can go wrong too, not just about the things that can go right. And you get better and smarter as you go on.
- [10:39]
Ben Wolter
So how do you lead a team through that? When you see the bumps in the road coming, when you see the downturn coming, how do you convince people that work for you to persevere through that?
- [10:48]
Jamie Dimon
First of all, we're totally honest with everybody. The things that we say publicly, privately, write about, that you hear in the management meetings is the same stuff. You should always celebrate your positives, you should always celebrate your wins. But every now and then you should sit down, emphasize where you're not doing well, and that sometimes there are bad times out there, so we gotta be a little prepared.
- [11:07]
Ben Wolter
And how do you develop the judgment for, you know, things are changing, maybe they're getting worse, maybe they're getting better. Nope, I'm gonna stick with my plan and I'm gonna power through. Or it's time to think differently, it's time to stop, turn, look and rethink things.
- [11:19]
Jamie Dimon
Well, I think there's a bunch of things here. So when it comes to growing and investing and expanding, I try to run a business that we don't worry about the weather. I don't want you to change those plans. I do think you have to take a very deep look at yourself sometime. I don't care if you're a big company or a small company, sometimes you're slowing down, the weeds are growing. Bureaucracy builds in you and your job, Ben. You have to deal with risk, legal credit compliance, audit finance from the big corporate headquarters who's making demands on you. They may not necessarily fully understand what those demands are. And so it's always important to like refresh it, rethink it through, be honest, criticize yourself. And we've had, if you look at it, we've had a good time for a long time. We have not had a real down. I mean, Covid had this momentary downturn, but we haven't had a downturn for a long time.
- [12:08]
Ben Wolter
One of the things I tell people, I started my career in the mid-90s and we actually haven't had a normal, I'm going to call it a normal garden variety recession in my entire career. We've had crises and good times and nothing in between. People have forgotten about the normal business cycle. I feel like that's correct.
- [12:23]
Jamie Dimon
Yeah. You had. So you lived through the Internet bubble that was kind of temporary because the stocks went up, they came down. You lived through the great financial crisis. That absolutely is not a normal thing. But you're right, we have not had a normal garden variety recession in quite a long time. And it's not just a recession. You might have things that you don't expect, like interest rates going up in a recession, inflation not going down the way you'd expect it. And you see that today where, you know, all of a sudden people saying, wait, inflation's not going away so quickly and the Fed's going to have to adjust. You always have to be prepared for things that you don't expect. And you sure you want a bank in your corner that's gonna be there for you through good times and bad times.
- [13:00]
Ben Wolter
Kathleen, I think this would be a good time to get your take. A lot of that conversation focused on risk and managing risk and having a culture of risk in a business. So I'm curious from your perspective, as someone who has started businesses and who works with small businesses, how do you tell them to think about risk?
- [13:17]
Kathleen Griffith
For a lot of small business owners, it's seen as an expensive luxury. It's boring and not they think they can afford to do right now. You know, they're just kind of running fast with super sharp scissors. But as Jamie talked about in this episode, there are as Many types of risks as there are types of businesses, everything from labor to lawsuits to competitors to cybersecurity to supply chain to cash flow to cost of goods, the list goes on. And so you really need to first and foremost identify what those risks are for you as a small business owner. For me, the biggest risk is exposure and liability. So I put three things into place early in my business so I could sleep through the night. The first was just setting up a business that's protected the formation of the company. The second was making sure that I had liability insurance in place and all my exposure points were covered. And the third was really just managing contracts and agreements, making sure that those were ironclad and paying for really good lawyers even before I could afford them.
- [14:31]
Ben Wolter
One of the things that people like me who work for big companies have the advantage of, even as CEO of Chase for Business, I have a team that's designed to challenge me. It's designed to say, hey, Ben, did you think about this? Or what if this happens? But in a small company where it might be just you or you and a few people, how do you facilitate that sort of cognitive challenge? How do you make sure that there's somebody who's thinking about the other side of the trade? Right.
- [14:56]
Kathleen Griffith
The most important thing I would say is just to really focus on owning that as a founder yourself, so you don't really have anyone to delegate to. You've got to be on your front foot thinking through everything that can possibly go wrong in your business. So it really is a lot of trial and error. You learn by making mistakes. A lot of them are costly and you decide you're not going to do that again.
- [15:22]
Ben Wolter
One of the other things I want to talk about is the business cycle. I mentioned this to Jamie because I think about this a lot, particularly from a bank perspective. We haven't really had a normal business cycle. We had the dot com bubble and then we had the great financial crisis and then we had Covid. These were sort of headline type, you know, the world is melting down kind of things, as opposed to we had growth and then we had a recession and then things got better and we had growth again.
- [15:49]
Kathleen Griffith
How do you think that small businesses should prepare for that?
- [15:52]
Ben Wolter
My view is there's no real way to prepare for something like Covid, where some businesses had, you know, an 85 or 90% drop in demand overnight. I just don't think that's a reason that's such a black swan event. But I think you can plan for what if I lost my largest client or what if demand in the aggregate were down 15 to 20%? What would I do? How would I survive that? When I talk to clients, I always say plan for the sort of middle of the bell curve, not the very extreme ends of the bell curve. Not that you can't think about some of those things, but those kinds of things are what insurance is for or for other things, because there's no way you'd have the financial wherewithal to stomach it.
- [16:31]
Kathleen Griffith
Yeah. And I liked a lot what Jamie was saying about people get overexuberant and so overexpand. And so really taking a step back and assessing your business periodically to make some, you know, strategic changes to make sure that we're prepared for changing times.
- [16:50]
Ben Wolter
Yeah. The other advice I have for small business owners with respect to this is you can have too much of a good thing. And I don't know what that good thing is. It's different for every business. But whenever something is going really well and just constantly, constantly going really well over and over and over again, that should also make your antenna go up. Right.
- [17:08]
Kathleen Griffith
And so you may have the sense that you've got a really healthy business. We hear all the time, when you get under the hood of the car and you're asking about allocation, someone's saying, well, 80% of my business is coming from this one retailer. Yeah, what if they go under? You're out of business.
- [17:24]
Ben Wolter
Okay, let's get back to Jamie. Jamie and I had a wide ranging discussion about risk, and we ended up talking about one of the specific types of risk that we have to manage at JPMorgan Chase. A few weeks ago, on Joe Rogan's podcast, Marc Andreessen, who's a prominent venture capitalist, talked about debanking. And that's something you and I have had to deal with, is some of the myths and truths around that. Can you talk a little bit about how that works and what is debanking and how do we think about it here at JPMorgan Chase?
- [17:53]
Jamie Dimon
Yeah. I called Mark Andreessen after that. He's a friend of mine, and I wanted to explain to him we have not debanked anyone because of political or religious relationships, period. Now, when we debank someone, they often blame that reason, but that's not a reason. We don't bank marijuana companies because there's no federal law around it. We simply can't follow the law. If there's a federal law, we probably would. And we do bank some crypto companies. And very carefully, we are responsible under law to fight sex trafficking. Money laundering, tax avoidance.
- [18:25]
Ben Wolter
It's the Bank Secrecy Act.
- [18:26]
Jamie Dimon
Right, Bank Secrecy act, and we have to follow that.
- [18:29]
Ben Wolter
The Bank Secrecy act went into law in 1970. It requires financial institutions to assess the risks that clients pose to the firm and act accordingly. It also specifically requires firms to identify and flag activity that could suggest criminal behavior like drug trafficking, human trafficking, or terrorism financing. And there are serious consequences for banks that keep such accounts open.
- [18:53]
Jamie Dimon
But where Mark is right is all these examples where they put a lot of pressure on us and they tell us what's high risk. And if we don't deal debank someone and something goes wrong, we could pay hundreds of millions of dollars of fines. So a lot of banks are kind of guessing, like, we should get rid of these people, because we don't get rid of them, we'll be fined. And you've seen that over and over and over.
- [19:13]
Ben Wolter
Yeah. The language in the law is ambiguous in parts, but also has some specific requirements that mean sometimes we have to close accounts and we can't give a specific explanation. It's just incredibly frustrating for clients.
- [19:23]
Jamie Dimon
You probably don't know a lot of people listening to this podcast. We're not allowed to tell you why we debanked you. So if we think there's a risk of fraud, we think there's a risk of money laundering. If we don't debank you, we'll get in big trouble. There's even a chance that they might be stepping over the line. But you know what? If someone who's innocent and then five years later they're proven guilty, it can cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. I think we should be allowed to tell you, and I think when we report stuff, the federal government should probably know about it, and there should be far cleaner lines about what we have to do and we don't have to do or things like that. So we've been complaining about this for years. We need to fix it. But it wasn't for all the things that Joe Rogan and Mark Andreessen spoke about.
- [20:00]
Ben Wolter
I think what I hear you saying is we and other banks comply with the law, but the law is not entirely perfect. And there are ways to reform it and make it better.
- [20:08]
Jamie Dimon
We have to apply with the law, but it's ambiguous. And we're punished if we make a mistake in our judgment.
- [20:14]
Ben Wolter
In either direction.
- [20:15]
Jamie Dimon
In either direction. And our judgment can't be perfect because we simply don't know for all its flaws.
- [20:20]
Ben Wolter
Why is the Bank Secrecy act important? And why is a bank's role in preventing crime so critical.
- [20:26]
Jamie Dimon
We are guardians of the financial system. All your businesses have an interest in keeping the American system safe. And that means the anti money laundering know your customer Bank Secrecy Act. We don't want to facilitate bad actors. We don't want to help people who are doing sex trafficking or terrorism financing. So that is our job. We agree with that whole concept. The other thing is banks have to make risk judgments and think of risk judgments around a business. We need to make judgment calls. That's not the same thing as the Bank Secrecy act, but it's a judgment call. There are certain industries we may think are riskier than other people and vice versa. So the system works. I mean, there are a lot of banks out there banking, a lot of different people. But we need to make proper judgment calls. JP Morgan himself said he would lend not all the money in the world on gold, but on the character of the individual that comes first.
- [21:14]
Ben Wolter
That's why I love working with small business owners and entrepreneurs, particularly because of the positive impact they have not just on themselves, but on their communities and indeed on the whole country. So let's talk about the country for a second. You talk a lot about how business is a force for good for the country and how government is only sometimes a force for good for the country. What would you like to see from government and its partnership with business over the next few years? We have a change in administration, but that's a moment in time. What structurally would you like to see change?
- [21:43]
Jamie Dimon
So when we say business, of course we're good. 80% of all jobs come from business. And remember, even the jobs that are not in business, the military, firemen, police, teachers, we hold in high regards Guard. It's paid for by the economy. Okay? Our national power, our economic power creates our military power. The economy is what drives all this. We should never forget that. That doesn't mean businesses don't make mistake. Sometimes businesses go into Washington D.C. and state capitals and they're very selfish about what they want and how they want it. But that's what drives it all. It drives jobs, it drives health care, it drives big business, small business symbiotics. So when you talk about what Washington can do, you know, America is the greatest country on the planet. I think some of the grievances you hear about during politics from both the left and the right were true. The bottom 20% of our society didn't get a pay raise for 20 years. And they're dying younger and a lot of them don't have health care. We're America. We should have fixed that and that that went on through Democratic Republican administration and stuff like that. I think that the people of America don't think government's efficient and then, you know, acknowledge that government has been quite inefficient. And I think when government's inefficient, people lose trust in the ability of government to get things done and that becomes a real problem. So to restore that trust, prove your competency. I could probably have another whole long list of stuff we could fix about mortgages, affordable housing regulations, immigration.
- [23:03]
Ben Wolter
But you're still long America, very long America.
- [23:05]
Jamie Dimon
I mean, you know, if you haven't traveled a lot around the world, go with me to some of these countries we do business in. When you come back here, you will kiss the ground. And whatever you read in the papers, we still deeply respect about the world, our morality, our capability, our culture, people still want. So we need to celebrate that more and explain to people and explain more to our own kids who kind of take it all for granted.
- [23:37]
D
When you run a business, it helps to have a full service banking solution that has products, tools and resources designed with your growth in mind. That's what you'll get when you switch to Chase for business As a new customer, you'll even get rewarded with a special bonus. Choose Chase and you'll receive the personal attention you deserve along with a large scale presence including 4700 local branches and 15,000 ATMs. Plus you can enjoy innovations like the Chase Mobile app which lets you do your banking on your phone. There are so many easy ways to get the guidance and tools you need to grow with Chase. You can meet with a banker in person, use the online support center or find helpful information in the resource center. And Chase Business Complete banking offers built in card acceptance, a wide range of options for accepting payments and making deposits. So switch today@chase.com choosechase and get rewarded with a special bonus. This account has a monthly service fee that can be reduced from $15 to $0. Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. Deposit and credit card products provided by JPMorgan Chase bank and a member FDIC. Copyright 2024 JPMorgan Chase & Co. Kathleen.
- [24:43]
Ben Wolter
1 of the things we love about working with small businesses is that they really are the engine of the American economy. I mean it's 2/3 of all new private sector jobs created. It's 44% of US GDP. It's one of the things that distinguishes the US from other modern developed economies is the dynamism of our Entrepreneurial ecosystem. I work for a big business. You work with small businesses. Talk about the synergy that you see between big business and small business.
- [25:10]
Kathleen Griffith
Yeah. It is interesting because I have a very unique vantage point in that I consult for Fortune 100 businesses, so some of the biggest brands in the world, and then work with thousands of small business owners. And they're often seen as worlds apart from each other.
- [25:24]
Ben Wolter
Right.
- [25:24]
Kathleen Griffith
But there is so much symbiosis, as Jamie was talking about. They are so related where big business then has this halo effect on impacting smaller businesses. And I think there's also a lot to be learned. Like, from big business, you can learn so much. You learn opt operations, risk management, hr, brand marketing. Right. And inversely, I think big businesses can learn a lot from small businesses. How to do digital performance marketing, how to be agile and nimble, how to use AI, how to evolve with the time. So there is so much shared learning that can happen.
- [26:03]
Ben Wolter
At Chase, we work really hard to contribute to the communities that we serve. We provide small business loans. We build affordable housing. We have a consultant program for small businesses that many take advantage of. And we're really proud of those programs and we get great feedback on them. But actually, what we get the best feedback on is when we support someone else's business just being successful in the marketplace. When businesses are successful and they grow. I mean, I can't tell you how many of our clients have come to us and say, you know, you helped me be successful. And what I'm so proud of is the four other businesses that I have helped support that have gotten up off the ground. We've met businesses who've helped competitors launch. I mean, it's amazing and done so with gusto.
- [26:44]
Kathleen Griffith
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it is neat. It is collaboration over competition with a lot of small business owners. And they are so desperate for help and resources because so many. The lion's share of small business owners are actually solopreneurs. Doing it alone, going it alone, feeling alone in the woods.
- [27:02]
Ben Wolter
So our clients, who either have bankers or consultants assigned to them, have advisors, and they typically operate as part of an advice ecosystem that ends up being really important for small businesses. That typically consists of your lawyer, your accountants, your CPA accountant, whichever you have, your insurance agent and your bank is a big part of that. They form a network of people who help entrepreneurs feel, frankly, less alone.
- [27:29]
Kathleen Griffith
Yeah.
- [27:30]
Ben Wolter
And we're really proud to be part of that because it is lonely.
- [27:33]
Kathleen Griffith
It's one of the hardest things to navigate when you're starting your business. You're not used to that level of isolation, especially for people who worked in corporate before and are used to bigger teams and working with others, you know, so it fills a gap.
- [27:48]
Ben Wolter
Let's talk about character a bit. You've done business for years all over the world. Talk about what you look for in someone, you know that you want to do business with.
- [27:57]
Jamie Dimon
So I do think what causes success in business is true for small business and for larger companies. I think it's easier to hide in a larger company. You know, a small business, they don't have the luxury sometimes of making the mistakes that we can make here or something like that. So I think we probably attract slightly more bureaucrats than small businesses because you can't afford to have someone slows it down. Small businesses are extremely resilient, very focused on that customer. They want every customer walk out that store, that restaurant, that delivery of a industrial product, feeling great about the customer. And small businesses, you know, you all know what it's like sometimes, you know, Saturday, Sunday is going to be disrupted and you got to negotiate with vendors, you got to negotiate with customers, you got to negotiate with governments, which is not necessarily true for everyone In a big company. A lot of that stuff kind of gets done for you. But the basic things are always the basic, which is you got to know the facts, the detail, the analysis. I mean, really understanding a detailed level. And if you don't have so many company does that, you got to have other people do it. You have to administer things. Well, I've seen a lot of people are kind of a hot mess now. The administrator, always late. Things don't get done. They're. That doesn't work. It doesn't work whether you're running in a military, a big company or you know, a restaurant. And the other thing which I think is maybe the most important a couple of things is that people want to work for people that they trust. It doesn't matter whether you are a small business or a big company. You got to earn that trust every day from your employees and your customers. I call that heart. You know, it's like heart and curiosity matter a lot. You hear a lot of people don't talk about in big companies. But I think if it really does matter and people know that you actually are trying to do the best job you can for the company or the client, the customer, et cetera. And I'll add a couple other quick words, grit. And I know you guys small, you've got a lot of grit. You know, I'm sure you wake up in the morning, you got to get going. It doesn't matter how you feel or what's going on. Resiliency, rapid response, all those other things. So it's the whole basket of things that make people successful.
- [29:46]
Ben Wolter
We've been blown away by the grit and resilience of every guest we've had on the show. Some of the stuff they've been through has been incredible. Jamie, thank you very much for being on the show today. It's been a pleasure having you.
- [29:55]
Jamie Dimon
Ben, thank you. It's been a pleasure having you at the company. I'm thrilled with the success of the show, so thank you.
- [30:01]
Ben Wolter
Thanks a lot. Kathleen. One of the things that Jamie talked about was we talked about characteristics that make a successful business owner and entrepreneur, and he talked a lot about grit and resilience, which really has been a running theme of the Unshakables. And the questions I get a lot from clients are really about hiring. People are still telling me, Even though it's 2025, people are still saying that it's hard to find people.
- [30:28]
Kathleen Griffith
Who should I hire? Is one of the most asked questions. It really is. And you can't afford to make a mistake because usually you don't have much money to spend on your first hire. So the first piece of advice I give is to do an honest appraisal of what your skills are as a founder, and then you want to hire for complimentary skill sets. The second piece is they need to be a revenue or sales driver. They've just got to drive your bottom line. And so you've got to look for someone who's going to help you grow the business. And if someone's mediocre, it doesn't work.
- [31:06]
Ben Wolter
How do you squeeze out when there's trouble there?
- [31:09]
Kathleen Griffith
I love the Sheryl Sandberg question that she asked forever and ever, which is walk me through the worst crisis you ever managed and how you managed it. And so I like to ask those really tough questions initially, but at the end of the day, you just gotta get someone in the chair for 90 days before you even know. So it makes a lot of sense to hire contractors before full time, do temp to perm if you can, just so you get to see whether they're able to really operate in a startup small business environment, because it is different and you've gotta be super resourceful. And if you're not, you're just not gonna hack it.
- [31:53]
Ben Wolter
If something feels off, do you just make the call real quick and make a change or do you try to work it out?
- [31:58]
Kathleen Griffith
You Trust your gut. I love the saying, hire slowly, fire fast. It's like someone's gotta go. Then you have to trust your gut because you don't have time. That's not on your side. You have a limited Runway when you're running a small business.
- [32:12]
Ben Wolter
The one I always hear is, I fired him too soon. Said no one ever.
- [32:17]
Kathleen Griffith
That's good.
- [32:19]
Ben Wolter
Talk a little bit about inflection points in the growth cycle, because one of the things I've noticed is there's these inflection points at these key numbers. Like your first hire, one, and then actually two is another big milestone, right? And then there's another one at about 10, and then there's another sort of one at 25.
- [32:36]
Kathleen Griffith
I know someone actually who had a role, he wouldn't hire over 30. He was like, that is the size of the company that I want to build. I'm not going to exceed that because there are these profound cultural shifts. It is something you really need to ask yourself, how big is big and what do I want to build toward? Because you go from being a founder who is very connected to the business that over time becomes, you know, more and more elevated the more you scale and grow. And then you have another inflection point where you've got to ask yourself, am I really the right CEO for this business, or do I need to bring in someone who has that skill set.
- [33:16]
Ben Wolter
That is 100% an issue? And there's really two kinds of entrepreneurs. There's those who they founded it to run a company. That's what they always wanted to do. That's what they do as they build it. And then there's the kind who were passionate about the thing that they were doing. But once it gets to a certain size and it becomes about management, they are not professional managers. The smart ones, I think, find a different role for themselves in the company.
- [33:41]
Kathleen Griffith
And identifying what sort of founder you are, to your point, I think just to double click on that, like, are you a technical founder? Are you a marketing founder slash creative founder? Are you more of an operations founder? And then. And trying to find that counterpoint for yourself or series of counterpoints based on knowing what breed of founder you actually are.
- [34:04]
Ben Wolter
That's good advice. Kathleen, what one piece of advice do you have for small business owners as we head into 2025?
- [34:11]
Kathleen Griffith
What's the worst thing that could happen? Imagine that. Can you live with it? If you can, good. If you can't, fix it.
- [34:21]
Ben Wolter
Kathleen, this has been terrific. I know you'll be joining us for a few more episodes this season. So really looking forward to having you on the show again.
- [34:27]
Kathleen Griffith
Thanks for having me.
- [34:32]
Ben Wolter
Thank you once again to Jamie Dimon and to Kathleen Griffith for joining me. And welcome back to The Unshakeables, Season 2. If you know someone who would love the show, please share it on the next episode. We'll be taking a trip back to the 1990s and Southern California's punk scene. Punk was a way of life in SoCal and a way of dressing. One man was so inspired by it all that he started making his own shoes to wear to shows. And I would buy vintage shoes, but they never quite fit. And on one of these trips to Baja, I saw a sign that said bootmaker. And I walked in, I said, hey, can you guys make me a pair of shoes if I give you a quick sketch? They made me a pair of shoes. And that was it. I'm Ben Walter, and this is the Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. We'll see you here again soon.