In response to yesterday’s post on Jamie Dimon, one reader asked why Dimon would have done what he did. Risk his own reputation and that of the bank by keeping for as long as they did a customer as potentially damaging and even dangerous as Jeffrey Epstein.
While the answer would appear at first glance to be obvious, it is not money. At least not directly. Jamie Dimon has never been especially greedy. His appetite has never been primarily for money -and then more money. Instead, his appetite has been for success – and then more success.
Todd Pittinsky and I describe the syndrome in our book, Leaders Who Lust: Power, Money, Sex, Success, Legitimacy, Legacy.*
- Our definition of lust is simple, even prosaic. We define lust as a “psychological drive that produces intense wanting, even desperately needing to obtain an object, or to secure a circumstance. When the object has been obtained, or the circumstance secured, there is relief, but only briefly, temporarily.” And so, the wanting and needing continue, indefinitely.
- Leaders who have a lust for success have an unstoppable need to achieve. Which perfectly describes Jamie Dimon. This is a man who ten years ago survived a bout with throat cancer. And who five years ago survived sudden surgery for a near fatal heart event, a tear in his aorta. Did either life-threatening condition stop him? Not at all. Both times he got back on his horse and to his desk as soon as he could. Again, his passion is not for money. He is not, for example, like Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, who thrives on accumulating all sorts of trinkets including numerous, enormous swaths of real estate. In contrast, all Dimon seems to care about is his achievement. He has reached the pinnacle of success and is hellbent on staying there. Unless of course he can scale still higher.
*Cambridge University Press, 2020.