Jamie Dimon: Address to HBS MBA Class of 2009, Class Day June 21, 2009

we're very pleased to have you here on our campus for a very special two days for someone we know is very special to you I also have a special welcome to two very important guests Jamie and Judy diamond Jamie up here on stage with me Judy in the front row Harvard Business School class of 1982 met here and had a transformational experience and have been together as part of that transformational experience ever since we're thrilled to have you back and we'll hear from Jamie later on one of the leaders of an American institution that has truly shown he's a leader who makes a difference in the world ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming our 2009 classic speaker chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase mr. Jamie Dimon thank you very much I just wonder why make it absolutely clear I left Citigroup ten years ago okay go so good afternoon everybody section I thank you you know I was just think you guys talk about your school experience when you first got here Legos and beanbags and stuff like that and we didn't send them I like kindergarten to me we didn't have any of that stuff we were right down to business and Dean Lite jobadder echo they were both teachers of mind by the way fabulous and outstanding teachers jobadder echo by the way I know he's very good I know he brings very high when you score him every year but the year that I was here was his first year we taught him how to teach well I'm sure you all had some first-year teachers and you can torch them just a little bit parents friends HBS graduates we're very proud of you my wife and I both graduate from here we both loved it here and my daughter Julia and her now fiance as of last Sunday you're both coming here next year so I know they'll enjoy as much as we did yeah it is a well-earned you should feel great about graduating this school it is well learned it's not just the two years here as years of hard work it does come with some very very deep obligations going to talk about a little bit later I'm actually you stick to exactly what the you all asked me to speak about three subjects one was career management learning dealing with failure building your brand as when it was putting the piece of paper I got family and things like that the second leadership quaza leadership what's important and particularly lessons in a crisis and the third is our obligations society and each other I'm going to caution you and I'm going to go through a bunch of things here I'm always hesitant to give advice because it sounds like I did it all right I did not some what I'm going to tell you is I learned from making the mistakes I'm going to tell you to try to avoid doing and some are timeless principles I'm sure a lot of the parents here will will will know them quite well career management and this is individual whether you're an individual leader or a leader of a group an individual contributor you're responsible for your own success and Happiness there's six very important things I think you got to focus on learning is a lifelong thing it doesn't end at Harvard Business School it's your responsibility I think if you're in any profession at all you have to do it consistently all the time I think I spend probably fifty or sixty percent of my time learning reading talking to people traveling it's the only way you can keep on top of this global world of ours and it's even tougher now because of the globality of the businesses you're all going to deal in how reading is the most important one but the second one which is often forgotten is talking to other people you can learn more from speaking to people in 15 minutes then if you spent your life doing something they can explain it to you and you can learn from watching people you also are going to learn by I'm going to call it imitation but by watching other very good people and how they operate in difficult circumstances I learned a lot of things what not to do analyze what to do by watching other people number two building your brand that's a Harvard Business School way to put it but let me put a slightly different way there is already a book on you that book is already being written and if I spoke to your teachers your friends your professionals your parents I would know whether your trusted how hard you work with your ethical I would know so much about you you'd be shocked I don't even have to meet you so that book is already growing you should you write the book you want the way to be written you actually have that choice and you can do it as you want now don't let others write it and when you get caught in situations that you're uncomfortable I remember I worked at a company not far from here and I remember I was asked to do something I didn't want to do I might tell you I'll take this advice you can always quit it's your responsibility whether you accept to do something not and it will be in that book written on you three how do you do a failure making mistakes many of you already have dealt with some very difficult times so this is no different than some of you already dealt with when you fail it's okay to get depressed it's okay to cry it's okay to go home it's okay to blame others for a while but eventually you have to get over it and move on the greatest people have ever walked this planet and I'm told I'm not talking business people I'm talking about people like Nelson Mandela and Abe Lincoln constantly had setbacks in life and failures constantly happens all the time in business and some of your success will be how you deal with the failure not how you deal with it accessor do sty always get introduced that 1998 I was the president of Citigroup and in 2000 I took over Bank 1 I was fired in 1998 so I went a little bit of experience like this and and it's a painful thing my boss had worked for 15 years called me in and said we want you to resign which I said ok I went home I told my wife and children I called my wife up and said Judy I'm going to tell you something I'm not kidding because I always make jokes about things like that but I wanted to make sure the kids were fine I went home my three wonderful daughters they were much younger than I said the oldest youngest one said dad do we have to sleep on the streets I said no hon we're okay the middle one who just graduated Barnard said dad can I still go to college I suggest you you can and I knew things were fine when the oldest one is going to Harvard Business School said dad I have that little cell phone you have you won't be needing it I remind people when you fail at something it's your I told you about Citigroup is my net worth not my self-worth and I was able to move on and yes it was difficult I did call my boss a year later he did not call me I called him and said it's time to break bread we went to lunch together I told him that if he did the right thing for Citigroup which was pretty obvious at this point but but I told him the mistakes I made and what was 40 60 or 60 40 wasn't important I wanted to learn from the experience and move on he acknowledged my mistakes you had better be a little tough in this world of ours because you will be criticized when you take jobs of leadership and almost any job and she had to go a little bit of a thick skin at one point when secretary Hank Paulson secretary treasurer United States was get a lot of criticism and Tim Geithner about some of the things that are doing a very difficult environment I called them up and read them a Teddy Roosevelt quote which I hope you should all remember or take all the students here and it was something like the following that the credit does not go to the critic in the stand it goes to the person on the field bloodied and bruised striving to achieve something and I think that that's very true so that when you get the criticism let it go off your back and I think we should remind ourselves when it comes to mistakes a lot of what's going to happen the next 25 years to you it's not just your skill there's luck involved so don't get too exuberant when you do well and don't get too depressed when you don't number four to their own self be true you have to fight self-deception we are human beings or experts at it I do it all the time it's one of my favorite things to do until people bring me back to earth very often who brings you back to us very office your friends your spouse we all do the same kind of thing with friends and spouses we come home we tell them how we were treated and why that person treated so badly and they agree with us so it's very important to try to step out of those situations and try to understand I move you to examples if that this is more personal and may relate to something you hear about myself when I was in fifth grade my teacher made a sign that said self-control and she put it on the desk facing me that went on for many many years and it wasn't I was 45 years old that I realized that anger is a bad thing and that people used to say to as younger that was a well-placed blow of anger well-timed and well delivered it was never deliberate it was just a welling up of anger you usually had to apologize in fact at one point someone gave me a box of cards which all I had to do was fill in the day and the card said hello my name is Jamie Dimon like to apologize in advance from my behavior on the day of X and so anger always backfires it hurts people you have to apologize all the time it's better to skip it um you all know about IQ and EQ your IQs are all high enough to be very successful where people often fall short it's on the EQ and emotional intelligence is critical and it's something you will develop over time to make a lot of management skills are more EQ how do people function and my look at EQ I always think to myself why is it then when some people walk in a room we all brighten up why is it when you really want advice your call certain people why is it that some people you never would question what they say and that some people you never would trust what they say and those are emotional skills and empathy and but you're a human being you have these other things we all have to develop all the time and work at them all the time and they're things like passion work ethic character integrity and you're the sum of all of these things your IQ alone will not get you through the dark days or the tough times you need to develop all these things develop them consistently take care of yourself your family and your friends you're going to get involved in a very high stressful situations if you don't take care yourself physically and emotionally you will fail you have to do it I used to feel guilty when I get in the office late sometimes late being 8:39 cuz I stayed to exercise exercise is a good thing it clears your mind you have to give yourself occasions and family time all the time one example I had I won a vacation many years ago like a lot of you I play tennis my boyfriend's I ran the afternoon we had dinner with friends and my kids were kind of ignoring me that whole vacation and the next one occasion I said no I'm going to go I'm going to spend only with the kids nothing else no friends no tennis and it's amazing how much fun you have and how much time you play with them there is no such thing as quality time without quantity so you have children don't think you can make up for with a short briefs a quantity time they won't they won't get there with you leadership it's quite issue number two first of all it is an honor a privilege and a very deep responsibility to be a leader of a small group or a bigger group you have to remind yourself if you make a mistake and I worry about this all the time I could hurt a lot of people and I'm not talking about your shareholders I'm talk about customers communities employees parents we have to lay off people so that's what I worry about every single day it is personal I hear all the time if people say it's not personal it's just business it is personal I want to do a great job for this company this team I bleed JP Morgan blood I don't like it when people act I see this all the time like it's a third party they're talking about it is not a third party I wear the jersey of this company I want Patriots I want people going to fight for it and do the right thing all the time do it it's not what you say I'm going to say a lot of things here it's actually what you do so everything about to say it's whether you actually demonstrate it in your life not whether you put it down in paper I'm going to go through 11 attributes the attributes intertwined you can come up with different names in different ways the only difference in the crisis by the way is which ones are more important the balance changes but you need all of these to do a very good job as a leader you have to be very disciplined I was not that disciplined I didn't work as far as my wife here and I was a little lazy and but when I started working you have to be disciplined discipline is rigorous detailed meetings you do it consistently you have to have a work ethic it's like exercising or we in the garden you don't get there and stop and the competition is always coming down is continuous improvement you have to always be striving for improvement discipline in a crisis by the way we would go from once a week wrist meeting to three times a day and from you know ten-hour days to 20-hour days that was the only difference but the process on the tour about a little bit is the same you have to have great fortitude I don't know who wrote the book but they talk about fierce resolve you have to have fortitude and the ability to act you can be crippled by politics bureaucracy and people who just don't want change when I first got to Bank one it was quickly clear to me the company had systems problems management problems we didn't treat our customers well or expensive with two Lions to survive and thrive we have to lay up a lot of people the board didn't want to make the changes the management didn't want to make the changes benefit the management said wasn't my fault I don't know who else's fault it was you have to push back against it at one point I cut the size of the board I went to the management team we cut the hundred percent of their bonuses the first year we took away their pension plans their cars their clubs I made a lot of them go with me to every site relay knopf people and say we're sorry that we put you in a position that we have to lay off people this company you have to have the ability to act you've got to make a list of what it is and then get it done yes orchestrate it coordinate it don't do it in haste think it through because that will backfire too but for the most part people simply don't do what needs to be done you have to set standards standards are not set by Harvard Business School they're not set by the federal governments of the world and not set by anybody and not set by industries they're set by you there are two types of stands you have to set first one is performance if you want to really be good you have to say it you have to say we want to be good and we strive to be among the best you have to compare yourself to the best a lot of come as I go to when we compare ourselves always drop the best company now we say why is that they said the best company's different they don't really compete in the same business I said yeah they're different they're good put the best up there in a very detailed level and say we want to do it analyze why you're different that includes in performance give the customer great deal if you're not giving the customer a good deal you're going to lose link someone said things come to those who wait Abe Lincoln added yes but only those things that are left by those who hustle you have to set standards of performance or you will fail the second is standards of integrity I know you talked about it and you'll learn it treat people the way you would treat your parents that's all tell them of the product tell them the service when they come in the door say what can I do for you my parents are here they say you should be treating me a little bit better Jamie but but set the standards of integrity it's not embedded in anything a lot of you worked at companies where people said things I think it's a code word is don't worry about it everyone does it that way no they don't no they do not and you know set that standard and that standard got to be set at a very all across all levels I build a lot of kids who lie on t knees because they took a cab in they shared it from the hotel no to a job interview they split up the friend and they both put in a hundred percent of the cab bill of $40 that's stealing if I caught you doing that I fire you and everyone in the company knows that that is stealing and so the standard across the board from little things to big things do the right thing not the easier expedient thing fourth you got to look at the facts and a cold-blooded on its way all the time at management meetings emphasize the negatives you can always have a party about the positives I always go to Hong Kong party have a great time but imagine meetings what are we not doing well how come the competition's doing better emphasize the negatives internally Piatt profit loss statements are very important okay and so a lot of times I get involved abates about well your focus on little things how we allocate expenses it's not a little thing a lot of come is expense allocate expenses inside and the allocation is political not economic and you debt that does two things inside a company means your numbers aren't honest in fact I've been at a company where people say well let's move the profits to the part of the company has a higher public valuation I call that financial misrepresentation you're teaching your own people to lie and that goes on these companies so pls are very important that way aggressive accounting is the same thing I'm not go through a lot of examples I know I don't feel that GE case and the Westinghouse case compared to catch you still do that one that compares accounting when people do very aggressive accounting your candidates in one spot it's usually a lot of spots it tells you something about the company so keep your eye out for that one externally full disclosure there's only one truth we try to tell the board the same thing we tell the employees the centi would tell the analyst the same thing to tell employees the good the bad and the ugly and then deal with it it's okay we're never going to do everything exactly right number five openness hard one to actually execute because what you really want a company is full sharing of information I've worked a lot of companies where you can't simply can't get it you know they says not your job it is your job we want to have full information and then have a debate about the right thing to do half the debates are and what the information is bad information leads to excessive politics people have often said to me okay Jamie you're the big boss you get paid the big bucks to decide now decide my experience has always been that you get the right people in the the answer isn't often waiting to be found you don't have to guess the job of a leader is not to make the decision is to make sure the best decision is made and therefore you need other people you have to kill bureaucracy I think that Barack WA Caesar is the petri dish of politics it pushes out good people you lose touch with the customers it often emanates from headquarters if you go to headquarters of companies I think headquarters often the disease and you see the reception is treating the employees badly or their customers badly you probably the company has a problem headquarters don't exist accept the fact as a client in front of someone somewhere whether it's a Benihana / that's a JPMorgan Chase and you got a deal Home Depot the best example is they call store Support Center I'm more of that mine move people in and out of corporate to makes they know it's like they have the job on the firing line and then they have a little more respect for the job in the firing line deal with key issues I always make a list on Sunday of all the issues I'm trying to avoid and I write them down and I try to deal with my Monday I avoid them have to talk of the good reasons not to do it but but I try to get them damn there are signs of politics when you see these I'm sure you've all seen them when you have a meeting you share information and after the meeting people line up outside of your office saying I didn't want to say this in front of everybody but that's politics now of course they could tell you something confidential but most of the time it should has been said in the room with their partners I tend to tell people is you can't say in the room you don't deserve the job say it politely say it reasonably but say it because only trying to do the right thing for the company or the clients one point we had a conversation about compensation we actually review the top compensation a lot of people and so on said you're going to make us all go through all the compensation of all the top people I said as I am and the person said well don't they work for me don't I know what they contribute to the company I said no they don't work for you and how do you know they contributed the company unless you ask your partners and we have open conversations about with our people doing a good job for each other we don't do it to hurt anyone we do it for fairness and insight and is get into the field we people say get into the field do it all the time have a little fun take the opt clerk to dinner go have drinks with the tellers you'll learn more about your company all the time you do something like that cut across hierarchy when you're in companies at hierarchies and other disease be polite but hierarchies generally artificial start with most units and companies all serve each other and so cut across the hierarchy just make sure your boss doesn't fire you for it always get the right people in the room if you're designing a system have the people going to use the system they are given the authority to say if it doesn't work for you the tellers or the clerks then we won't do it so they get fully engaged in building everything that the company does all the time and the last thing open is so instead of me once in the truth-tellers someone stood up in a big crowd and said every one of you has to make sure the one at least one of the people around you is a truth teller they always tell you the truth and I got up and said yes you got to make sure that there's at least one truth teller around you but if you were a leader and you have seven or eight people reporting to and you have only one truth teller you have a problem every single one of them should be a truth teller you have to set things up for success maybe a quick example for my past when we did the Citigroup travelers deal we had multiple try heads and multiple Co heads reporting to triads and Co heads that is a formula for disaster so organized things will actually work in the future not things that won't work in the future loyalty number seven loyalty meritocracy and teamwork words you all hear I'm going to give you a slightly different point of view of them when I was a young CEO someone asked me we love the company but you demoted Joe you embarrassed them how can we be loyal to you which we asked for which I believe in when we're not loyal to Joe and I honestly couldn't answer the question and I went home that night and I thought about I called the person up the next I said yes you were right we demoted Joe and Joe is a pillar Society and a wonderful person and yes we did not want to Barisan but Joe was no longer doing a good job if we were quote loyal to Joe by leaving it in that job we would have been hugely disloyal to everybody else and the clients of the company and that by the way is the hardest job you were going to face right there doing the right thing when it may be removed don't embarrass someone I think it's one of the great mistakes when people embarrass people all the time publicly who've worked hard for a company that is a terrible thing to do if you if you are loyal to Joe and not the company you do not have a meritocracy I remind people we talk about diversity Joe is usually a middle-aged white guy so if I tell you're gonna give the best job to the best person ok I'm not telling the truth if you don't see me make changes so a meritocracy is the fundamental part of a meritocracy and teamwork teamwork is often code and it means get along or as often I think the best team players and one who puts up the hair and says I don't agree because I don't think what you're doing isn't the best interest of the client of the company so teamwork sometimes means standing alone and having the courage to say something I double delete deeply believe in loyalty deeply I dealt harder the contradiction about making tough decisions like that so what is loyalty if you deeply believe in it what do we owe employees of a company and each other here's we owe you we owe you and metolius will be later that we're going to build do everything we can to build a healthy and vibrant company because that will give you the most opportunity we want to build a company is respected by people because that means you will be respected we want to give you the training you need we want to treat you a dignity we want to give you opportunities if you fall down we want to pick you up and help you that's what we owe you we do not owe you that job and that is what loyalty means number eight great mistakes an a made in the name of morale very often morale the people means writing down words with treat people dignity and loyalty we do all these wonderful things we're hold hands and sing Kumbaya the road to hell it pays with good intentions one of my first jobs I was at a company I would go in a name that had a terrible morale problem they spent a hundred hundreds of thousand dollars in a survey to ask what you know to check into morale I of course being obnoxious so that my young age said I could save you the money and told you morale was bad number I was bad because people considered place political and bureaucratic stultifying the management team came up with an idea the idea was they convinced themselves with a great idea that it gave every employee three hundred dollars of restricted stock to show that they care and to give them a vested interest in the company they gave out the funeral's of restricted stock months later they int they surveyed morale again it got worse and I'm gonna make a very simple common-sense example of why it got worse and this is business is just common sense sometimes if you walk up to me and say Jamie your company is political and bureaucratic I don't like working here I would never recommend that a friend come here I look back as oh yeah well here's 300 bucks what you want us to do is fix the problem we can't buy your loyalty and we certainly can't buy your morale morale comes from fixing problems earning respect and winning I always remind people show me a very bad come coming to lose all time I saw your bed realm remember nine treat all people properly with respect treat them all the same or their clerks or CEOs I find it very upsetting I some of us mentioned yesterday about true but you treat them all badly sometimes but don't treat them well but treat them equally everyone serves everyone else in the company from that receptionist that tell her to the ops person and we should always acknowledge that we serve people if we don't return our phone calls they're not gonna return there so I always remind myself that anything I'm doing for Sohn is because they have a client in front of them promote people are respected ask yourself a question you promote people would you have your child work for that person because half the time we promote people we would not let our kid work for them and you should really question about why you allow something like that number ten there's one of the hot topics get compensation right so get the incentives right build the pianos right get the incentives ripe I always remind people at our company I don't care what the P&L says or what the incentive system says do the right thing for the client anyway that's never expect a bad excuse for bad behaviors companies even big companies we need entrepreneurs so we have to accommodate thoroughbreds people want to make money innovators and so we have to make sure we cop we have that inside our company all the time to to get compensation right you have to acknowledge that failure is okay we want people to fail I think they're good mistakes you know you argued it you thought it through you you talked to the right people and you were wrong and so you have to allow failure compensation little bit of partnership internal fairness is often far more important than anything else that takes place performance is hard to judge all this thing about somehow we should have an easy job Johnny performs we judge pealed performance we don't just look at that P&L that financial statement is a snapshot of a point in time as based upon decisions and actions taken by a lot of people over 10 years we look at did you work hard did you hire people did you train people did you do the right thing for a client do you help other people did you build systems when we asked you to do something like recruit did you help us or do not show up at somebody's recruiting sessions so we we judge the full spectrum of how people perform and then the greatest misconception is all is when a unit doesn't perform don't blame the boss I mean don't pay the boss well sometimes you want to give your best person the worst job I've asked a lot of people to go do a job that I know is going to be the hardest turn around the meanest job 24/7 that they're not going to look good doing it and you know I say to them I'm going to pay you the same there's less your partners and I've got your back I'm not gonna have the politics inside hurt you if something goes wrong we're all going to get an airplane and come help you very often in companies where there's a problem people go running as far and fast as they can in the opposite direction whereas when we have problems we want the good people to run us to say I couldn't and we often protect them on Comm when they do something like that performance also deeply always ask this question has to look at the rising tide and the cycles don't let that fool you allow in a false sense of security and that someone would happen is crisis of ours which I'm not going to go through here the CEO is the captain of the ship when CEOs are hired sometimes they have a guarantee or a buyout or something like that I think it's very short that's okay I got to bank one I had a one-year guarantee I'd hire a bunch of people one point a year they came to see me and said Jamie we can't do the jet one-year guarantees - I've almost never hired someone for more money a multi-year guarantee or bigger job I don't bribe people to join the company five to bribe you I don't want you you want to come build a great company love to have you here they came to see me and said we're not going to take our guaranteed pay because we can't do we have to do and travel around and make these tough decisions as they're walking out they look back at me and said by the way we don't think you should take yours either and I think they were exactly right at one point you're the captain of the ship and it doesn't matter anything other than you've got to say I'm part of the ship and I will be paid with it or not used to be the first to pay a price number 11 have real humility humility by the way is not a people that say Jamie you don't sound a lot very humble very often humility is a deep acknowledgement that we got here by the dint of sometimes where we were born who our parents were it wasn't all our genius and brains maybe we could have been in a different place with a disease that we couldn't handle have you you will have awesome power that affects people's lives use it wisely and be just on it if you do all this in leadership you can end up with a mature company and one of the great lessons I learned is a book about everything you want to imagine you learn in Shakespeare I don't know if you guys teach that here but it's true I look at some of these companies and they're more like Shakespearean tragedies that you don't teach at Harvard Business School where neuroses and politics dominates internally ring read King Lear that's what it looks like to me half the time and what you want is a mature company and the mature companies and I can name some Walgreens Toyota tada Nokia I go around the Hulk on every business they're constantly getting better they're constantly getting good people they always do the right thing they always focus on the customer it's not constant Sturm and Drang when they change CEOs the company doesn't blow up five years later you want a mature company not a Shakespearean tragedy third your obligations our obligations to our companies and our societies some of these are my values so you may very well disagree that's fine first of all you are very lucky just we should all acknowledge that Warren Buffett always gives an example of a barrel that they're almost 7 billion people in this planet and that you know most of people is planted if they can take where they are or stick the hand and be somebody else would stick the hand and be somebody else you can have the in the United States we open the doors we might have 3 billion people who want to come here we are very lucky a lot of what we're good at we were born with and that gives us deep obligations leaders understand that they didn't build this country I speak to a lot of my friends I remind them they didn't charge the beach at Normandy or do the HMMWV in a desert in Iran or a mound in Iraq so everything they earned they did not earn it on their own somebody earned it before they got here and that should be a humbling thing for all leaders if you want to be a leader it can't be about money and it can't be about you it's about eventually what you do when you what you leave behind and what you did and you walk the planet teachers politicians Sciences generals left this planet better than us and someone said I'll tell you what I think about it said what would you want on your tombstone think about that when you become a leader what do you want your tombstone so here are three of the important things to me I was asked once in China by reporter what's really important to you and I started talking by the company said no no what important to you as a person and I said in this order my family humanity my country somewhere down here JPMorgan and I do mean that in that order and I'm explained why the family you brought into this world that the people love you the most you love the most I've always spoken about giving them time the only advice I'm gonna give you a family at all or friends and this is more to the men then to the women here turn off the TV you don't have to dinner with your buddies all the time your vacations belong to your family your weekends belong to your family you got to do that or you will lose them and the reason I devote all my time to my family is because as you all know your kids eventually don't want to see you anymore either and they all go have their own purpose in life so I tell people the best that I could do the best that I could do I think is build this company I run as best as I can as the best I can do for the country and for Humanity the road to hell is paved with good intentions I am devoted to making JP Morgan a healthy vibrant company and people ask me what's the most important youth in you making this company healthy and vibrant I will make enormous sacrifice to do that because if I don't do that I'm hurting our employees our customers our families our communities we are a very charitable company we give away a hundred million dollar we pay for our vets when they go over it when they're called back to duty overseas we pay their full salary we invented ATMs for the blind we teach inner-city school kids when the hurricane - tsunami the earthquake kit we immediately sent money an aid and I speak for a lot of companies we are a very good company but it is all predicated on being healthy and vibrant and sometimes people forget that and they let the company become sick and then you're hurting all these things so I spent a lot of my time making sure where we can do all these wonderful things by making sure the company is healthy and vibrant finally humanity and country we're going to get through this crisis so I'm not going to talk at all about the crisis and I think America is a great plan wildly optimistic about the future of America it is still one of the shining lights on this planet it has been and it will continue to be but I am deeply troubled by the notion that success is a given it is not a given and this country has a lot of things that has to do and policy policy something you all have to start to work on to make sure we do things right all the time to serve humanity and I'm talking about America but I think it applies to all countries we all need to do things that make the planet better in the United States for example we have had our third energy crisis which is an environmental crisis the reason we have is we do not have the fortitude to make decisions that other countries made a long time ago to tax energy we come up with a lot of things aren't going to work and the one thing that will work we won't do because we don't have the fortitude we in the United States of America that I know is true for countries around the world half of the kids who graduate inner city schools I have the kids in inner state schools don't graduate high school that is a disgrace and embarrassment we're going to have to work hard to fix so I remind people that it's okay to share the wealth I don't mind paying taxes I would mind paying more taxes but I also very careful as we get involved these things that we don't destroy the wealth by to having bad policy bad policy you can do that I think Harvard Business School graduates can spend a lot of time making sure we have very good policy the world needs your help and you did mention it was a defining moment I think it's a defining moment in terms of politics the Middle East America and you present United States it is a defining moment but a house divided doesn't stand so I think we all need to do as much as we can many years ago I'll leave you with two last thoughts one last thought I might I want my tombstone to say many years ago I read an article in the paper that was written by Medal of Honor winner person run a Medal of Honor on Normandy Beach June 6 1944 and the person said something like the following I wish I could have gotten it but I only remember this morning person said I will never forget that day or the people who died by my side I am so proud of them but I don't consider my metal earned by just me he said but now I'm 70 years old I'm looking back at my life and I realized the people who deserve a medal are the people for 70 years day in and day out we're good parents good friends help the sick help make it a better world through thick or thin all the time in little ways and in big ways and that's how you are all going to add to this planet - so my tombstone actually my tombstone I'm not going to show them up on my tombstone bye hope people say we're going to miss the sob and the world is a better place from having been here so thank you congratulations god bless you all Godspeed and help make it a better world - thank on behalf of the class of 2009 mr. diamond would like to thank you for choosing to be with us here today and for being part of the celebration so please accept this as a token of our appreciation

Channel: Harvard Business School

Views: 354,882

Rating: 4.763257 out of 5

Keywords: Jamie Dimon, Class Day, HBS, Harvard Business School, Harvard

Id: 9T9Kp4NE5l4

Length: 41min 20sec (2480 seconds)

Published: Tue May 11 2010