J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that tech giants should gird themselves for the type of regulatory onslaught that the big banks experienced after the financial crisis.
“They haven’t had the benefit of the full monty yet,” Dimon said in an interview with Kayla Tausche on CNBC’s “The Exchange.” He added that “if I were them, I’d be getting prepared for it.”
Dimon’s experience, he said, with the type of attention that companies including Facebook and Google are undergoing, is that “it’s a lot of work,” he said. “When you get attacked by someone, you get one group, it could be every country, every AG, every regulator, all at the same time.”
Like J.P. Morgan years ago, tech giants are now the target of criticism from a broad array of constituents, including Democratic candidates for president who have called for the breakup of companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon.
During his tenure atop what is now the biggest U.S. bank by assets, Dimon has defended J.P. Morgan for its role in the mortgage meltdown, as well as later scandals including a $6.2 billion loss from bets gone awry.
“They should really gear up and look at it as a very broad-based, extensive type of thing they have to deal with,” Dimon said. “And listen carefully to the complaints from the other side, there are sometimes legitimate complaints you should be very reactive to.”
Dimon’s candor is relatively rare for a banker. The tech giants are good customers for investment banks, including J.P. Morgan, who turn to them for advice on acquisitions and raising capital in debt and equities markets.
The J.P. Morgan CEO also said that it was a mistake that New York groups drove away Amazon from building a campus in Long Island City.
Earlier Wednesday, Dimon, 63, spoke at an event with the Business Roundtable, a Washington D.C.-based group of corporate CEOs, and the Greater Washington Partnership, a business group for the D.C. region. Earlier this week, Dimon unveiled a $350 million program to boost job prospects for under-served communities, including minorities and people who have completed prison sentences.
Pushing for corporations and local organizations to boost job training, Dimon said Monday that its “absolutely obvious that a big chunk of [people] have been left behind” in the American economy.
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