Dimon Hands 💎🙌

Hi 👋 — Businesses need to meet customers where they are. Increasingly, that’s online. As Jamie Dimon notes in JP Morgan’s 2020 annual letter, adopting cloud computing and leveraging machine learning are fast becoming table stakes on Wall Street. This note looks at the firm’s annual letter with an eye towards competition from Silicon Valley and fintech. Thanks for reading.

Jamie Dimon is like a Caesar salad. Because they’re delicious, Caesar salads are on my always-order list. Similarly, because he’s a strong operator and has a ringside view of the US economy, Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, is on my always-read list alongside Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, Shopify’s Tobias Lütke and a few others .

In 2020, JP Morgan raised and extended $2.3 trillion of capital for consumers and clients. The firm is central to the US financial system and ergo the US economy. Competition from big tech and fintech, the need for banks to adopt new technologies and regulation were recurring themes of its 2020 annual letter, published on April 7th.

Allbirds versus Gucci Loafers

JP Morgan, which traces its roots back to 1799, has a strong brand, mammoth balance sheet and deep relationships with consumers and corporates. None of this shields it from competition. Finance’s competitive landscape is quickly and rapidly changing. Big tech, fintech and shadow banks are gunning for JP Morgan’s market share:

Banks already compete against a large and powerful shadow banking system. And…