J.P. Morgan Chase - Last man standing: the ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase

Jamie Dimon spent his earliest days in this modest house in East Williston, New York.

Jamie and his brothers with their grandparents, Panos and Theonia Dimon.

Themis Dimon loved dressing up her boys in the same outfits, as seen here in 1962. From left to right, Jamie, Teddy, and Peter.

Jamie and the familys beloved sheltie, Chippy, in 1969.

Ted and Themis Dimon in 1962.

A star athlete in high school, Dimon played soccer, basketball, and baseball.

Jamie Dimon and his future wife, Judy Kent, at Harvard Business School.

Dimon and his groomsmen on May 21, 1983.

Jamie and Judy in 2008.

Dimon is extremely close to his daughters, Laura (l.), Julia (m.), and Kara (r.), seen here at the Bat Mitzvah of a family friend in Washington, D.C., in 1995.

The Dimon family at President Obamas inauguration in January 2009.

Jamie Dimon worked with Sandy Weill for more than fifteen years. In 1986, the two men parachuted into Baltimores Commercial Credit and turned it into the platform on which they would eventually build Citigroup.

Bill Winters, co-CEO of JPMorgan Chases investment bank.

Steve Black, Winterss counterpart, in Anguilla just before the dinner during which Dimon called to alert him to the impending sale of Bear Stearns.

JPMorgan Chase obtained Bear Stearnss headquarters at 383 Madison Avenue as part of the purchase of the investment bank in March 2008. Some JPMorgan Chase executives urged Dimon to buy the company if only to acquire the buildingthus preventing a much longer commute to a proposed new site for the JPMorgan headquarters at the southern tip of Manhattan.

By the late 1980s, Dimon had already earned a reputation as one of Wall Streets sharpest minds, even though he was barely in his thirties.

Jamie Dimon is a banker by blood. His paternal grandfather, Panos Papademetriou, was a Greek from Smyrna who worked in banking before leaving Greece during its war with Turkey. He arrived in New York in 1921, by way of France and Canada, settling in Manhattan and promptly shortening his last name to Dimon. The mischievous immigrant later offered his son two stories about the changing of his name. In the first, he sought work as a busboy but found that no one would hire Greeks. Dimon sounded Frenchand Papademetriou was fluent in Frenchso he changed it to get a job. In the second version, he fell in love with a French girl and chose the name for amorous purposes. Either way, he clearly felt he would do better with an American-sounding French name than with a Greek one.

Panos didnt last long as a busboyfamily lore has it that he was fired, and he subsequently found work at the recently opened branch of the Bank of Athens, a subsidiary of the National Bank of Greece. After working his way up to vice president in charge of loans, he left the bank in 1949 to become a stockbroker at Shearson Hammill.

Panoss son Theodore became a stockbroker, too, joining his father at Shearson Hammill in 1953, a year after his marriage to Themis Annastasia Kalos, also the child of Greek immigrants. The brokerage, founded at the turn of the twentieth century, had a national presence as well as a reputable investment banking operation. Shortly thereafter, Theodore and his wife moved to East Williston, Long Island. Just 25 miles from New York City, the village was enjoying a burst in population growth as Americans embraced the postwar suburban ideal.

Their first son, Peter, was born in 1954. Fraternal twins soon followedJamie and Ted Jr.on March 13, 1956. Ted Sr., who commuted to Shearson Hammills offices on 44th Street and Fifth Avenue in his gray Convertible Dodge, soon grew tired of the commute, and persuaded his wife to move back to New York. The family of five settled in a rental apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens, where young Jamie attended PS 69 from kindergarten through the fifth grade.

Jamie was a precocious child. His mother remembers him looking at her as if he was an adult as early as the age of two. He also felt a need to keep up appearances. Even as a youngster, he refused to come out of his bedroom in his pajamas if his parents had guests. He was also extremely active, prone to leaping across the room rather than walking. Fluent with numbers from a young agehe remembered phone numbers as a small childDimon launched his first business at the age of six, attempting to sell greeting cards. The effort failed, but there was no doubt about his enterprising nature.

In this, he took after his grandfather, Panos. An elegant and intellectual man, Panos spoke several languages, and he dabbled in psychoanalysis while dissecting balance sheets. Young Jamies father was also an early influence, particularly in his choice of profession. Dimon later said that he learned a great deal about the brokerage industry across the kitchen table.

For a child from a comfortable background, Jamie exhibited an unusually early desire to be financially successful. At the age of nine, he announced to his father that he was going to make a fortune when he grew up. Whether his parents took him seriously or not, Dimon never wavered from that goal. The family photo collection includes a picture of him at the age of 21 studying J. Paul Gettys