'Come up with USD 30 billion or...': JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon reveals how he pulled off 6 months' work in 48 hrs

Jamie Dimon is an American billionaire, who has been leading JPMorgan Chase since 2006. The 68-year-old recently revealed how he had faced an impossible situation during the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, Dimon was given a choice to either come up with USD 30 billion or let the company's Asia wing go bankrupt.

The billionaire opened up on the 'How Leaders Lead' podcast recently and shared how the company averted the crisis. "I knew that if the sh*t had hit the fan early on, we would've had a real problem," Benzinga quoted Dimon as saying.

On March 13, 2008, Dimon was at a Greek restaurant with his parents when he received a call from the CEO of investment banking company Bear Stearns. Alan Schwartz was in full panic mode: "Jamie, I need USD 30 billion tonight, otherwise we're going to go bankrupt in Asia in the morning," he reportedly said.

"Even I said, ‘Alan, I don't even know how to get $30 billion'," Dimon said on the podcast. Dimon added that he immediately called his senior team with a simple directive: "Get dressed and go to the office." His order had hundreds of JPMorgan employees at their desks in hours, analysing Bear Stearns's books line by line. "We did six months of work in two days, and bought Bear Stearns that night," Dimon said. "That kind of thing is the moment where you're breathless."

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When markets collapsed, the team "was meeting five times a day, every day, for a year". "And I mean, every day. I mean going to 10 pm and 5 am because you had Asia—we had to be up for that," Dimon said. A Harvard Business School grad, Dimon began his finance career at American Express in 1982. He has now a net worth of USD 2.6 billion, as per Forbes.