Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase by Duff McDonald

1. BANKING IN THE BLOOD
Jamie Dimon is a banker by blood. His paternal grandfather, Panos
Papademetriou, was a Greek from Smyrna who worked in banking before
leaving Greece during its war with Turkey. He arrived in New York in
1921, by way of France and Canada, settling in Manhattan and promptly
shortening his last name to Dimon. The mischievous immigrant later
offered his son two stories about the changing of his name. In the first, he
sought work as a busboy but found that no one would hire Greeks. “Dimon”
sounded French—and Papademetriou was fluent in French—so he changed
it to get a job. In the second version, he fell in love with a French girl and
chose the name for amorous purposes. Either way, he clearly felt he would
do better with an American-sounding French name than with a Greek one.
Panos didn’t last long as a busboy—family lore has it that he was fired, and
he subsequently found work at the recently opened branch of the Bank of
Athens, a subsidiary of the National Bank of Greece. After working his way
up to vice president in charge of loans, he left the bank in 1949 to become a
stockbroker at Shearson Hammill.
Panos’s son Theodore became a stockbroker, too, joining his father at
Shearson Hammill in 1953, a year after his marriage to Themis Annastasia
Kalos, also the child of Greek immigrants. The brokerage, founded at the
turn of the twentieth century, had a national presence as well as a reputable
investment banking operation. Shortly thereafter, Theodore and his wife
moved to East Williston, Long Island. Just 25 miles from New York City,
the village was enjoying a burst in population growth as Americans
embraced the postwar suburban ideal.
Their first son, Peter, was born in 1954. Fraternal twins soon followed—
Jamie and Ted Jr.—on March 13, 1956. Ted Sr., who commuted to Shearson
Hammill’s offices on 44th Street and Fifth Avenue in his gray Convertible
Dodge, soon grew tired of the commute, and persuaded his wife to move
back to New York. The family of five settled in a rental apartment in
Jackson Heights, Queens, where young Jamie attended PS 69 from
kindergarten through the fifth grade.
Jamie was a precocious child. His mother remembers him looking at her “as
if he was an adult” as early as the age of two. He also felt a need to keep up
appearances. Even as a youngster, he refused to come out of his bedroom in
his pajamas if his parents had guests. He was also extremely active, prone
to leaping across the room rather than walking. Fluent with numbers from a
young age—he remembered phone numbers as a small child—Dimon
launched his first business at the age of six, attempting to sell greeting
cards. The effort failed, but there was no doubt about his enterprising
nature.
In this, he took after his grandfather, Panos. An elegant and intellectual
man, Panos spoke several languages, and he dabbled in psychoanalysis
while dissecting balance sheets. Young Jamie’s father was also an early
influence, particularly in his choice of profession. Dimon later said that he
learned a great deal about the brokerage industry “across the kitchen table.”
For a child from a comfortable background, Jamie exhibited an unusually
early desire to be financially successful. At the age of nine, he announced to
his father that he was going to make a fortune when he grew up. Whether
his parents took him seriously or not, Dimon never wavered from that goal.
The family photo collection includes a picture of him at the age of 21
studying J. Paul Getty’s How to Be Rich, a collection of columns he’d
written for Playboy on the subject.
He was, in most other ways, a typical boy, getting into the occasional
scrape. Dimon and his twin brother Teddy were in a kids’ “gang” they
called Lightning Squad, and they battled older boys (including their own
brother) in the courtyard of their apartment building.
(Dimon’s relationship with his parents has always been close. When he
threatened to run away from home at the age of five, his mother replied by
asking him where he would go. “To the woods,” he said. She asked him
what he would eat: “Wild berries and flowers.” What would he drink?
“Water from a lake.” Where would he sleep? “I’ll make a bed from twigs
and leaves.” Finally, she asked, where would he go for love? After thinking
for a minute, he said, “I’ll come home.” In the end, Dimon decided not to
run away.)

Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase by Duff McDonald