JPMorgan CEO’s blunt response to university student after working from home question

The boss of a major US bank gave a no-nonsense reply after a university student asked about his controversial return to office stance.

The boss of the US’ biggest bank had doubled down on his brutal remote working stance at a Q&A session at a university, after a question about his recent return to office rant came up.

JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, has claimed it is only “people in the middle” that have an issue with full-time in-person work, adding that working from home simply “doesn’t work in our business”.

Mr Dimon’s comments came during a talk at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business after he was asked about his rant at a town-hall meeting last month, a recording of which was widely circulated online.

In the leaked audio, he dismissed an employee petition challenging the bank’s five-day in-office mandate

“Don’t waste time on it. I don’t care how many people sign that f**king petition,” the CEO told staff.

He also said he had “had it” with empty offices, while also raging about employees not paying attention during Zoom meetings when they are working from home.

During his appearance at the university last week, one student asked Mr Dimon how, given his strong opinion on the subject, he thinks young workers should be approaching WFH when starting out their careers.

A Stanford University student questioned JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon over his strong remote working stance. Picture: Stanford Graduate School of Business/YouTube

He doubled down on his views. Picture: Stanford Graduate School of Business/YouTube

“I’ve admittedly listened to the leaked audio clip that was circulating on Twitter about your strong opinions about working from home or remote work. Would love to just hear some of your thoughts or guidance or advice on how we should think about these topics,” the student said.

In his response, Mr Dimon pointed out that the majority of Americans “worked the whole time” at their jobs that weren’t able to be completed remotely during Covid.

“Where did you get your Amazon packages from, your beef, your meat, your vodka, where did you get the diapers from?” he asked.

“You got UPS and FedEx and manufacturers and agriculture and hospitals and cities and schools and nurses and sanitation and firemen and military. They all worked.

“It’s only there’s people in the middle who complain a lot about it.”

Hitting out at government workers, Mr Dimon said there were some people in Washington DC who are having their salaries paid by taxpayers that go into the office “five days a month”.

The CEO also pointed out that there is about 10 per cent of JPMorgan employees who still work remotely full time, with the company setting up virtual call centres in Baltimore and Detroit.

He said that set up has proven to be “highly effective”, noting he is not against working from home “where it works”.

The university students were also told by Mr Dimon that he agrees they should have the right to be able to say they don’t want to be in the office five days a week, but they don’t get to decide how he runs his business.

Reiterating previous comments he had made about the negative impact working from home has had on young people, Mr Dimon said these workers are being “left behind”, pointing to this as a big reason widespread WFH “doesn’t work in our business”.

Young people working remotely has a cumulative effect on their careers, he said, pointing out that if they aren’t around for “conversations at the water cooler [and] in the cafeteria”, they will soon notice they are getting less opportunities and have less of an understanding of what is going on within the company.

“So it’s leaving them behind. I won’t do that,” Mr Dimon said, while adding that it also isn’t OK to ask young people to come into the office but not their bosses.

Mr Dimon said working from home is having a negative impact on young people. Picture: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

WFH crackdown taking a toll on Aussies

Despite Mr Dimon’s assertion that it is just a few loud “people in the middle” who have an issue with return to office mandates, it is very clear this is a point of contention facing companies globally.

Companies have been taking a hard-line approach to working from home in 2025, and Aussies haven’t been spared from the crackdown, with Woolworths, Coles, and Tabcorp just some of the major organisations that have recently rolled back working from home.

Last week, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton vowed to force 365,000 public servants back to the office if the Coalition wins government in the upcoming federal election.

Australians have been warned that the war on working from home is likely to create a “domino effect” across the country, with more companies following suit with return to office mandates.

A recent survey from recruitment firm Robert Half found 39 per cent of Australian businesses have mandated five days a week in the office in 2025, a 3 per cent jump from the previous year, while the average number of required office days has increased from 3.43 to 3.64.

This is despite new research from leading visual collaboration platform, Lucid, finding 91 per cent of Aussie workers surveyed find that changing hybrid work policies is negatively impacting productivity.

The data comes from a survey of almost 2200 full time workers from Australia, the United States, the UK, Netherlands and Germany.

The research shows that 75 per cent of Australian workplaces that allow or have previously allowed working from home arrangements have changed their hybrid policies between one to five times in the last four years, with less than one third of these changes based on department needs.

The Australian workers surveyed said balancing productivity has been challenging as a result of inconsistent hybrid policies, resulting in one-fifth considering looking for new jobs.

Originally published as JPMorgan CEO’s blunt response to university student after working from home question