Photo-illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: Getty
Images, Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Those who theorize that our culture is in a “last days of Rome” phase will surely find more ammunition in today’s Fortune story about JPMorgan. The magazine not only walks us through how CEO Jamie Dimon curbed his firm’s exposure to subprime, it reveals that behind the marble façade, his empire is one of sin and vice. Apparently, Jamie Dimon (rhymes with diamond, baby!) not only has a penchant for “worn red-velour couches,” he and his lieutenants take part in boisterous open meetings at which indulging in anything and everything is encouraged:
These players take their cue from the outspoken — frequently outrageous — coach. The group is generally loud and unsubtle. At the monthly all-day operating-committee meeting of the top 15 executives, the atmosphere is variously described by the participants as “Italian family dinners” or “the Roman forum — all that’s missing is the togas.”
Does that mean they have vomitoria? Oh, those bad, bad boys! To think, they look so straitlaced. And it gets worse! “Jamie and I like to get the bad news out to where everybody can see it,” chief investment officer Todd Maclin told Fortune, “to get the dead cat on the table.”
Whoa, they eat cats? This is even more debauched than Rome.
Jamie Dimon’s swat team [Fortune]
