Dimon more crucial than ever to JPMorgan, the bank he's run for 17 years

Once Dimon is done being CEO, the board has said, the company may keep him on as chairman

The cocktails flowed as guests arrived that evening at what was once the lavish library of J. Pierpont Morgan, the greatest banker of his time.
 

It was there, beyond the elegant façade worthy of the Medici, that Jamie Dimon — Morgan’s figurative heir and, arguably, the greatest banker of his time — began dropping a few f-bombs.

The occasion that June night was a get-together of former executives of JPMorgan Chase & Co., a normally light affair of how-are-yous and drinks in the library’s glass-walled atrium. But Dimon was being Dimon, the CEO-philosopher, bluntly dispensing opinions.

He lit into former