A Background

In class we discussed which path to take in life: either going with the flow or making your own future. In this blog I will compare two people of similar age who run fairly large corporations. Their ‘success’ can be measured in many ways; the one I choose to define it under is wealth.

Criteria

First and foremost it’s important to define what is considered success. For the comparison of Jamie Dimon and Steve Jobs, I will base success on of two major factors: overall wealth and the time took to gain wealth. These two factors will be used to compare the successes of the two businessmen.

“Do you want to improve the world?
I don’t think it can be done.

The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.”
(Laozi 29)

Going With the Flow

The quote above accurately describes the ideals of going with the flow. But, I also consider following your own set path in life as going with the flow. In this comparison, the businessman, who studied economics in college and then in graduate school at Harvard, represents go with the flow. He followed what I believe is the generic elite American education path.

Introducing Jamie Dimon, current CEO of JP Morgan Chase. Jamie, who attended Tufts University went on to graduate school at none other than Harvard. After College he received offers from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Lehman Brothers, but turned them down. He worked at American Express and created Citigroup before becoming CEO of Bank One, the fifth largest bank in the world. Chase then bought out Bank One, making Dimon president of the newly merged company. In 2008, he became CEO of JP Morgan Chase.

Making your own Destiny

Now, lets look at a CEO that is considered a maverick and an innovator in the computer industry, Steve Jobs. After dropping out of Reed College after his first semester, Jobs, like Siddhartha went to India for “a journey of spiritual Enlightenment.” He then started Apple in the garage of his parent’s house. Around 10 years later he was kicked out of the company he had started. But ended up re-joining the company soon after and creating one the most successful companies in the world.

The Comparison

Here we have two massively extremely wealthy men that have very different pathways to success. Looking at some statistics Jobs net worth in 2011 was 2.1 billion, most of which is from the past 15 years, while Dimon’s net worth was 400 million over about 20 years.

Conclusion

From the numbers Steve Jobs has a clear lead over Jamie Dimon. However I believe this comparison flawed in several ways I perceive the concept of going with the flow as going through the generic path of education to business. In this ideal, students strive for good grades, go to top colleges, and then begin working at for businesses. This is even too much of a generalization of our mainstream education for the CEO of Chase, who although took the generic path of education, still worked at several large and profitable corperations before becoming CEO of Chase. But who am I to judge whether one person is going by the flow or making one’s own destiny? People make decisions everyday that may or may not be part of an overall preset plan of their destiny. While it may seem that Steve Jobs is making his own destiny more than Jamie Dimon is, there is just no way of telling if someone has decided to go with the flow or make their own decisions.