Beyond Remote Work: The Bigger Message in Jamie Dimon’s Rant
Have you considered how lonely the food hall will be without you?
Jamie Dimon does not seem to like remote work. That much is clear. Leaked audio from a JP Morgan meeting caught him venting, lamenting—no, complaining. Maybe even fuming. Yes, he was definitely fuming.
The words varied, but the message was the same: get back to the office.
"A lot of you were on the fucking Zoom, and you were doing the following," Dimon is heard saying, "looking at your mail, sending texts to each other about what an asshole the other person is, not paying attention, not reading your stuff."
In my experience, he isn't entirely wrong. He's right to worry it slows down "efficiency" and "creativity." Like any tool, remote work tools are flawed when misused. See, the hammer wielded poorly, and the thumb it strikes.
This is a man who presides over a bank that is currently erecting a skyscraper worth billions—three, assuming you can believe what you read. Some would call it a fortress of capitalism. Others an architectural delight.
It's a building. And this isn’t an assault on free market capitalism. It’s on balance a good thing. This is an observation about the way things go.
The new JP Morgan home is 60-story building with an Irish pub, physical therapy, yoga, and a 19-restaurant food hall, they deliver to your desk. I assume there will be plenty of places to work. JP Morgan isn't paying for all this just so people can dial in from their couch.
“If you build it, they must come.” That could be the motto.
Predictably, the internet lost its mind. Boomer! Out of touch! People lined up to take their shots. "If I made what you do, I'd be in the office seven days a week as well." Dimon apparently took $39 million home last year. Others pointed out that the bank had record profits last year. "Why mess with a good thing?" they asked.
But all of that misses something. Something bigger.
Because here's the thing: this audio leak? Not an accident. I would not bet against it being a calculated communications tactic. In today's media landscape, nobody pays attention to press releases. They're the equivalent of junk mail. If you want your message to stick, you "accidentally" let it slip. Suddenly, it's news. It's controversy. It's compelling. If it bleeds, it leads, and few things bleed like a CEO complaining about work-from-home. The F-bombs don’t hurt.
Why would Dimon want this out there? Because, it's not about the employees on that call, or Zoom, or those lucky ones there in person. It's about a much bigger audience. It's about sounding tough. About playing the part. This is corporate theater, and Jamie Dimon is centerstage.
Back in 2016, Donald Trump was running for president. A journalist asked him: when exactly was America great? Trump landed on the 1950s. Then he backtracked to 1900. You know, peak industrial age. When bosses didn't coddle employees with things like "rights" or "weekends." When factories hummed, and nobody asked for a mental health day. That was the vibe.
Jamie Dimon is tapping into that. The take-it-or-leave-it leadership style. The message that work is work, and everything else is your problem. He's not just talking to his staff. He's talking to other CEOs, investors, and regulators. The guys at the top. The ones who shape how corporate America behaves.
Corporations love a pendulum swing. Well, they are unable to resist it, and love might be a tad too humanizing for this context. A few years ago, it was all about diversity initiatives and MeToo reckonings. Now? The tide is shifting. Look at Meta. Look at Twitter. Mass layoffs, record profits, massive influence, investors and supporters cheering. Corporate America is reading the room, and the room is the Oval Office, and it says, "Toughen up."
Or at least play the part.
Business Insider reported in January that JPMorgan is calling workers back to the office five days a week this March. That sounds absolute, but literally, the following sentence in the article reads: "The return-to-office mandate affects less than 30% of the bank's employees, mostly back-office workers, including tech staffers."
Dimon is playing along; maybe he is all in. Either way, he's subject to the moment like anyone. Because leaders of giant, heavily regulated companies don't just answer to their employees. They answer to Washington. They answer to Wall Street. And right now, the mood is: cut the fluff, costs, and perks. Get back in line.
So, sure, Dimon's rant sounds like your uncle complaining about "kids these days." But it's also strategy. A well-timed, well-placed message about which way the wind is blowing. The pendulum always swings.