JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and Amazon's Jeff Bezos are launching a joint health care venture together with Warren Buffett. But the two CEOs could have been in business much earlier had Dimon signed on to a job at Amazon.
"He was looking for a president and I flew to Amazon after I left Citi — was fired from Citi — and we had a great lunch," Dimon told CNBC's Wilfred Frost Monday. "I had this vision I'd never wear a suit again, I'd live in a house boat like Tom Hanks." (In the movie "Sleepless in Seattle.")
That was two decades ago, and according to Dimon, it wasn't the right time for a move.
"It was just a bridge too far for me to move my whole family to Seattle, at that age, at that time, to something I didn't fully understand, as opposed to I'd been in financial services my whole life," Dimon said.
Instead Dimon went on to become CEO of Bank One, and Bezos hired a former Black & Decker executive, Joseph Galli, as the company's first president and COO, according to a 1999 New York Times article.
CORRECTION: This story has been revised to correct that Jeff Bezos hired a president of Amazon in 1999.