# Story 1: Jamie Dimon's leaked Gen-Z rant - **Episode:** [172](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/172.md) (2025-02-18) - **Type:** news-roundup - **Tags:** jamie-dimon, gen-z, leadership, workplace-culture - **Time:** 2:20–8:52 (start 140s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/172?t=140](https://truthliesandwork.com/172?t=140) --- [2:20] Leanne Elliott: JP Morgan CEO lost his shiz. Have you seen this? No, I haven't [2:26] Al Elliott: Oh, actually, no, I did. Was it like a— was it a sneak Zoom secret recording that was leaked or something? [2:32] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, it was basically like he's, he's been recorded on tape and it's been leaked. And it's, um, I think the poor fella needs a holiday, to be honest. But this is what happened. So a leaked audio recording of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has surfaced, um, and as I said, he really did lose his shiz. Um, he is fuming, fuming furious, Al, about Gen Z, remote work, bureaucracy, and apparently how hard it is to get anyone on the phone on a Friday Tell me about it. Um, so this recording, first reported by Barron's, really does kind of demonstrate the growing frustrations we're starting to see between employers and employees. If you're curious as to what exactly happened in the recording, Mr. Dimon goes on a sweary rant about remote work. He claims that younger employees, the Gen Z or Zoomers as he calls them, are slacking off and hiding behind video calls instead of being physically present in the office. He explicitly calls out work-from-home Fridays, saying, and this is a direct quote, so excuse the swears, please. Don't give me this shit that work-from-home Friday works. I call a lot of people on Friday and there's not a goddamn person you can get a hold of [3:39] Al Elliott: Sounds like an episode of Suits. Goddamn it, do your job [3:43] Anna Reddy: I know [3:44] Leanne Elliott: But he then, right, honestly, he's in a very stressful place. He then goes on to basically criticise his own managers for failing to control remote work, saying, There is no chance that I will leave up to managers. Zero chance. The abuse that took place is extraordinary. According to Mr. Dimon, employees have also been misusing remote work, zoning out on video calls and texting during meetings, and generally being unproductive. Those unproductive little pesky Gen Zs. Um, he's basically saying the workforce has lost, lost its discipline. Um, what's interesting is this isn't really coming out of nowhere. JP Morgan has previously allowed employees to work from home or in a situation and has just recently scrapped hybrid work altogether and demanded that employees come back to the office 5 days a week. Understandably, this hasn't gone down particularly well with employees, and there may have been a number of staff petitions being signed. Mr. Dimon's response? Well, he said, I don't care how many people sign that fucking petition. Goodness [4:45] Al Elliott: Apologies to those people [4:47] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, this isn't me, this is Mr. Dimon. This isn't me. I would never say such a word [4:51] Al Elliott: No, of course you wouldn't [4:52] Leanne Elliott: So yeah, so apparently as well, he's gone as far to say, if you don't like it, do one. Again, this is a quote from this leaked tape. You don't have to work at JP Morgan. So the people of you who don't want to work at the company, that's fine with me. It's a free country. You can walk with your feet [5:10] Al Elliott: Walk with your feet. I think that's the only way you can walk. But anyway, carry on [5:14] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, well, there you go. He also then went on to have a rant about the bureaucracy at JP Morgan, complaining about how slow the pace of decision-making is. He said, um, someone told me that to approve something in wealth management, they had to go through 14 committees. I'm dying to get the name of the 14 committees, and I feel like firing 14 chairmen of committees, or indeed chairperson, Mr. Dimon. Um, he didn't stop there. He also trashed performance reviews, um, saying, I get the thing and I throw it in the goddamn garbage can. It's 100% balaam and bullshit [5:47] Al Elliott: Wow, this poor guy [5:50] Leanne Elliott: I know. And what's slightly ironic about this, um, is he is furious about these inefficiencies, but it's actually his job, um, to help design the corporate structure at JP Morgan, and he's been there for a little while. Um, so it is a little bit ironic, um, don't you think, Al? [6:06] Anna Reddy: Thoughts? [6:07] Al Elliott: Yeah, poor guy. Um, well, I say poor guy, I mean, he's, he's worth an awful lot of money, and, um, he's the CEO of a huge bank. So, you know, this is the job. Them's the breaks. That's the job. Um, I It's just taken on face value. It seems very, very boomer-like. That said, that said, and I'm not agreeing with him, but I also, you know, if some days you just want to rant, Leanne had a little rant at me before we pressed record here. And imagine if someone had recorded that and then leaked it. It would look like you were a terrible person when in actual fact I just annoyed you in just a small way, which I tend to do sort of several times a day. So I think there's part of it is like, it's potentially out of context. It's also a little unfair that this has gone You know, viral, as the kids would say, because it could be taken out of context. But taken at face value, it looks like the guy, like you say, he needs a holiday [6:57] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, well, well, yeah, you could say it was at face value. But there's been another leaked audio clipping that came out just today of Mr. Dimon. He was then apparently speaking at the company's internal town hall. And in the audio, he has allegedly criticised the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of the United States, Mr. Rohit Chopra, Well, he did have some good things to say about the Bureau in terms of protecting consumers. He also said they must— this is another quote— they massively overstepped their authority. I think this guy Chopra or whatever his name is was just an arrogant son of a bitch who just made things worse for a lot of Americans. Now, I don't want to lie, I understand this power struggle. I think my beef kind of comes with that power struggle that you're getting a bit irritable, you're starting to, you know, Just kind of put new rules in place and do it this way, goddamn it, or leave. It's like, well, people would do that for so long, but they're not going to stick around if they have a better alternative, like Citibank, for example, who've just doubled down on their commitments to remote and hybrid working. Um, I also wonder if this is actually genuinely a little bit of burnout, anger, irritability, detachment from work, not feeling part of the current culture. Um, I think, Mr. Dimon, you might need to take a little vacation [8:14] Al Elliott: Or, and I think his actual name is Dimon, because I always thought it was Jamie Dimon, but it's Jamie Dimon, I think [8:20] Leanne Elliott: Oh, Dimon [8:20] Anna Reddy: Anyway [8:21] Leanne Elliott: Dimon. Tomato, tomato [8:23] Al Elliott: You're going to find out if there's a bit of leaked audio from the meeting [8:26] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, you can rant at me for that [8:27] Al Elliott: Yeah. Plot twist. What if this is actually just a really smart PR move? Because there's going to be a percentage of people, of Americans under their new leadership, their new president, who are going to be like, yeah, work at home is rubbish. Everything's a load of rubbish. I want to, I want to bank with a bank that has the same values as me. So maybe it's just clever PR. I don't know [8:50] Leanne Elliott: Maybe, Al, maybe [8:52] Al Elliott: Well, there you go [8:52] Leanne Elliott: What have you seen this week?