Morning Brew Daily - JPMorgan’s $3B Temple of Work & The Louvre Looted in Broad Daylight

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Episode 695: Neal and Toby discuss JPMorgan’s latest $3B crown jewel that towers over Manhattan, hoping to coax its workforce back in the office 5x/week. Speaking crown jewels…the Louvre museum became a target of a coordinated and brazen heist that happened in broad daylight. Also, Walmart is becoming the subject of a Harvard Business case study as a success story of what happens when you increase pay for workers. Meanwhile, AI professional headshots are becoming more prevalent among job seekers who want to stand out in a tough job market. Finally, what you need to know in the week ahead.  00:00 - Amazon Web Services outage 3:00 - JPMorgan’s temple of work 7:50 - The Louvre burglarized 12:45 - Walmart’s winning wage strategy 19:00 - AI Headshots raises eyebrows 23:30 - Week Ahead Learn more at disneycampaignmanager.com  Get your MBD live show tickets here! https://www.tinyurl.com/MBD-HOLIDAY  Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many employees can't afford a hefty medical bill that pops up out of the blue, but it happens. And employees who are financially stressed are, understandably, more likely to be distracted at work, costing their employers greatly in lost productivity. Luckily, AFLAQ plans help with out-of-pocket expenses not covered by health insurance and can be offered at no direct cost to businesses. Learn more at aflac.com slash morningbrewerdaily. That's aflack.com slash morning brew daily. Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman.

And I'm Toby Howell. Today, is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Then J.P. Morgan wanted workers back in the office, so it spent $3 billion building a new one. It's Monday, October 20th. Let's ride. Happy Monday. The internet's broken. Well, a big chunk of it.

And Amazon Web Services outage overnight took down dozens of major websites, including Amazon, Lyft, Reddit, the McDonald's app, Robin Hood, Snapchat, Venmo, Delta, and games like Roblox and Fortnite. Shortly after 5 a.m. Eastern Time, AWS said it was seeing, quote, significant signs of recovery. But just a heads up that if a particular app isn't working for you this morning, it's probably not you. Toby, sorry, I can't complete your Venmo request. I don't know what to say.

Maybe we'll just call it even. It's brutal, Neil. I woke up today for my morning session of Pokemon Go while listening to Amazon music and browsing Delta Airlines. Couldn't do it, so they were all down. I tried to play Class Real on my Peloton while texting on Signal. no luck there either. But seriously, this does affect people's real lives. One Verge author noted that when a smart assistant like Alexa is down, routines like preset alarms don't function either.

So if you're late for work, you have a built-in excuse. It kind of makes me feel like Neal in the Matrix right now, though, because somehow every service we need to bring you Morning Brew Daily is still up in working. So fingers crossed, hopefully this internet shutdown doesn't affect you all too much either. And now a word from our sponsor, Disney, campaign manager. Modern marketers are navigating fragmented platforms and rising expectations. Not exactly the comfiest growth environment. That's why Disney campaign manager unleashes a whole new world of possibilities. And if you heard a whole new world to the tune of Aladdin, and that makes two of us. Disney campaign manager opens access to some of the world's most

iconic entertainment brands and delivers advanced reach in one intuitive platform. With modern tools and experts who understand the stakes, Disney campaign manager gives marketers control, clarity and creative edge to grow smarter, not just faster. Transform ad buys into brand defining moments where culture happens and fandoms thrive. Learn more at Disneycampaignmanager.com. That's Disneycampaignmanager.com. Jamie Diamond wants his workers back in the office so badly, he built them the nicest one in the world. Six years and $3 billion later, J.P. Morgan's towering new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan is finally open to workers.

10,000 finance professionals will call 270 Park Ave home, which the Wall Street Journal described as a temple to the workplace and a love letter to Wall Street culture. What does $3 billion buy you these days? For one, you won't have to door dash any meals because there are 19 restaurants inside. That's to go along with the coffee shops, company store, and gym. There's even a full-on English pub called Morgans. The architect behind the project, Norman Foster, called it one of the crown jewels of his

portfolio, which also includes Hearst Tower and Apple Park. In terms of leisure entertainment lifestyle, he told the journal, I would say that every level of this tower pushes those boundaries further than anything we've done before. But make no mistake, this was Jamie Diamond's brainchild through and through, who's been searching for a new HQ almost as long as he's been CEO of the bank. Diamond is perhaps the most outspoken advocate of in-person work in the business world, having been caught in the past making multiple expletive filled rants against remote work culture. So we turn to field of dreams to make his outlook on work a reality. If you build it, you can force them to come.

Neil, it feels like this is Jamie Diamond searching for legacy. It wasn't enough to build J.P. Morgan into the biggest bank in the world. He also wanted a 60-story tower that embodies his worldview on work, leadership, and permanence. This is like an alpha male marking its territory in the animal world because J.P. Morgan just hasn't built this new headquarters, but they've been buying up a bunch of office buildings or leasing it all around this particular neighborhood. And now a 6 million square feet of office space in just the span of a few blocks.

That's almost as much as Goldman Sachs has in all of North and South America. And it's really a sign of how J.P. Morgan has leapfrogged its rivals to become the biggest bank in the United States by far. Go back 10 years. It was basically the same size as rivals Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup. Now it is worth more than all of those three banks combined last. year had more profit than any bank in the history of the United States. And since Jamie Diamond became CEO at the start of 2006, he is nearly quadrupled J.P. Morgan's balance sheet to around $4.6 trillion. So this is him marking his legacy and saying, yeah, it came in like the rest of

you folks. And I absolutely just demolished all the rest of you. Speaking of demolish, that's a great segue. It was a wild concept to tear down the original building in the first place. They had a 52-story HQ in the same spot. That was fine. wasn't anything wrong with the building, but Jamie Diamond wanting something bigger. So they literally started going floor by floor. That's the way you tear down a big building surrounded by other big buildings. You have to take it apart piece by piece. That started in 2019.

What came next was the pandemic. You're building this massive office space. You just had all your work shut down. What do you do? Do you keep going? They kind of ran a cost-benefit analysis and said, yes, it does make sense to keep going. It is just crazy how much of a fortress this place actually is. they had to do, it's 400 million pounds of steel.

I can't even wrap my head around that. So they had to drill 100 feet into, you know, the bedrock of Manhattan. There are, you know, subway lines and rail stations down there. They had to demolish a rail station and promise to rebuild it in order to make way for the foundation. So just as a piece of architecture, this thing is a behemoth. It is staggering in size and scale. It is a physical behemoth, but it's also symbolic in many ways of J.P. Morgan's obsession or J. Diamond's, you know, obsession with finance and wanting to put his mark on New York City,

because we're at a time where maybe the new mayor elections, Zoramamadani, who is the frontrunner, has decried billionaires. And maybe this is Jamie Diamond's way of saying, yeah, look, finance still runs this town. In actuality, J.P. Morgan has more employees in Texas than it does in New York city, but it doesn't have this massive skyscraper. And that's what Jamie Diamond wants to leave as his legacy. He kind of did hint at this. He says, what we do is we move paper around Diamond's head. This is a permanent thing. So you can see why he wants to pursue this line of building like, you know, the biggest office space in the finance world because it's just all fair he does. You know, I think back to the Wolf of Wall Street scene where he's saying it's, it's all numbers.

None of it is real. A building is real. So that's why maybe he put $3 billion into it. Yeah. So next time you visit New York or Manhattan, you see a massive new building, you can't miss it. It's kind of scary looking too. It's a little scary. It's on these fans. it doesn't look like it should be able to be propped up by those flimsy little supports, but apparently they've done the math, and hopefully it's all good. All right, so if you're a J.P. Morgan employee in New York City, let us know how the new office is, because you're definitely going in. In a heist as daring as Nicholas Cage stealing the Declaration of Independence, mass thieves

broke into the Louvre in Paris on Sunday morning, stealing jewels of, quote, inestable value from the world's most popular museum in broad daylight while people were in the museum. The Louvre closed down yesterday as investigators took inventory of the objects that were stolen and checked in with the Mona Lisa to make sure she was holding up okay. It still shut down as of this morning. One of the most high-profile museum thefts in recent memory took all of seven minutes. Officials said that intruders used a truck-mounted furniture elevator on the send side of the museum where construction is underway to access a gallery that held the French crown jewels and other treasures.

They forced open a window using an angle grinder and smashed open two display cases then four individuals jetted off into the Paris morning with their loot on motorbikes. Interior Minister Loren Nunez called it a major robbery conducted by a very experienced team that clearly knew the site well. It may be impossible to put a price tag on what they grabbed. According to officials, the thieves nab priceless items from the Napoleonic jewelry collection, but at least one stolen jewel, Empress Eugenie's crown, was found broken outside the museum, which is not ideal considering it's covered in nearly 400 diamonds and 56 emeralds. Beyond their market value, the items have in nestable heritage and historical value, Nunez said.

Now a massive manhunt is on to find the perpetrators and recover these jewels, while officials try to figure out how one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the French capital was breached so easily. For the French, this is a national embarrassment. Yeah, the police were piecing together how it was done. In addition to those angle grinders, they found a blowtorch, gasoline gloves, walkie-talkies, and a blanket. So it was this very professional-grade operation. It wasn't just someone who walked by one day and said, I'm going to rob the Louvre. They also found a yellow vest to disguise themselves as workmen a bit further away.

And that is, I don't know if you've heard about the yellow vest theory, but basically if you are wearing a workman's vest, you get access to places that you never should get access to. You can walk right into the movies. You can walk right into amusement parks if you are wearing this. So I would like to say that if I saw some people, you know, banging on the window of a Louvre in broad daylight, I would say, hey, something's a mis here. But if they're wearing workman's vest, then it does go a long way to disguising their actual intentions. Now, what do you do with these jewels? If you are the thieves, you have these priceless jewels, but obviously you want a price from them. That's the whole, that's the entire point of stealing them. Well, are we going to see them again? Are you going to see them pop up on eBay or the internet?

Well, a bunch of art experts say, we're never going to see these jewels again. What they're going to do typically is they take them apart, essentially, from the crown. They're going to take all these diamonds and all these emerales from everything that they took, and then reconstitute them somehow and then try to sell them in different ways. But art experts say it's really not that difficult to do this. So you will see the thieves tried to sell them unless the French authorities get them before this happens, but it's looking a little unlikely. We were talking before the show, it seems like much smarter to steal diamonds than to steal a painting

because you can't recut a Picasso, for instance. It always is going to be a Picasso. Its value is tied into exactly how it looks. With this, though, you can go and recut them and sell them on the black market. I also can't help but think back when I hear this story to January, which is when Macron kind of stood by the Mona Lisa and said, we're going to do this big Louvre renovation. Right now, there's too many visitors. We're going to have a new entrance.

Some of the basic things like air conditioning is something that has been falling to the wayside. So we're going to plow all this money into redoing the Louvre, basically. And then nine months later, it has been broken into in very embarrassing fashion. So it does feel like this is striking at the heart of, you know, Parisians. culture in a way when you have just such a brazen robbery happen in broad daylight after you announce this big makeover of the museum. It's not the first robbery that happened at the Louvre. Maybe it won't be the last after this particular renovation, but go back to 1911. This was probably the most famous robbery in art history. Someone who was working within the Louvre stole the Mona Lisa

in 1911. And back then, which is very interesting, the Mona Lisa wasn't that famous of a painting. And it was this particular robbery that led to Mona Lisa becoming the most famous artwork in the entire world. It was recovered two years later in Florence when the guy tried to sell it. Yeah, so there you go. But it does tie it into this broader concern that French authorities have about their museums. In fact, it goes across Europe of museums not being particularly well protected. Just in September, $700,000 worth of gold was stolen from the Natural History Museum. There was another robbery also that month in another museum.

2019, there was a massive robbery back in Dresden, Germany, where people stole over $120 million worth of goods. So this is kind of an epidemic that is going around, especially as precious metals prices rise. There's going to be a lot more demand for these kind of things. Moving on, welcome to winners of the weekend, the segment where Toby and I picked two things that went Apple picking and were secure enough not to post about it.

I won the pre-show pumpkin carving competition, so I get to go first. And my winner is Walmart because it's about to receive one of the most prized accolades in all of corporate America, a Harvard Business School case study. This fall, Walmart's story will be taught to our future bosses with a specific focus on one decision that changed the company's trajectory forever, investing in its employees. According to the Wall Street Journal, the case study will dissect a momentous change Walmart made 10 years ago. It raised its starting wage to $9 an hour.

As the largest private employer in the country, Walmart's move amounted to the biggest pay raise in U.S. history, but also cost it dearly. Shares plunged 10% on the announcement, causing more than $21 billion in market value to vanish in a matter of hours. But those investors turned out to be very wrong in the long run, as the case study will explain, the pay bump in subsequent actions to invest in frontline employees proved fundamental to Walmart's return to growth after years of stagnation. Since the pay decision in 2015, U.S. sales have grown each consecutive year, while shares have more than doubled in the past five. With revenue of $681 billion last year, Walmart has held onto his spot as the U.S.'s largest retailer buys sales. Other executives are taking notes. Earlier this month, hundreds of leaders from firms like Blackstone and Bank of America traveled to Walmart HQ in Arkansas to learn how Walmart approaches worker management in the hopes of replicating its success. Herbert Jolly, a senior lecturer at

HBS and co-author of the case study, told the journal his goal is to inspire more business leaders to have the courage and also the tools to be able to make the decision at Walmart did. Yeah, this wasn't benevolence, though. It wasn't necessarily just courage. It was, they looked at what was happening in their business. They saw a ton of

turnover. They saw that customer service was deteriorating. Labor activists were also circling as well. And Amazon was, you know, breathing down its neck both culturally and operationally. So it said, we need to something here and that something was raising, you know, the starting wage of Walmart employees. It also was at a point where they didn't even know if they could grow anymore. Walmart got to

such a size, even back in 2015 that they're like, how many more Walmarts can we even build? So they kind of had this culture of emphasizing profitability over growth. And so they were trying to always eke out more from less. But then they said, we can still grow. This is our way to growth is by investing in people. So a fascinating, you know, turning point where it could have gone either direction, they said that people is the most important thing here, and it clearly worked in the long run. If you go back to this announcement, it was a massive deal. This is like the Michael Scott shareholders meeting where they announced it in front of all of their investors, and everyone started asking questions because this is going to cost them over $3 billion over the

course of multiple years. It was going to hurt their margins by a lot to pay over their 1 million employees more money. So they actually had to, like, as executives announced this, they received so many questions, they actually had to leave the stage. And then as they were heading back to the airport, Jim Kramer from CNBC called and said, guys, we did an interview earlier in the day. You did not mention this. You have to come back to the studio and talk about this because shareholders right now are in revolt. So this was a major drama and they really did have to stick their guns. And it seemed like it absolutely paid off in the long run as students at HBS will learn. Fascinating to see how they're going to navigate this next decade, though, where, you know,

automation starts coming into play, where AI starts coming into play. Do you still double down on human workers even more. Who knows, maybe there's going to be another 10 a year, a decade later case study about what Walmart did. At this moment in time, that sets them up for the future. And it really sets the tone because they are the largest employer in the United States. So when they raised their minimum wage to $9 an hour, pretty much every other retailer had to follow in order to retain and acquire workers. So Target, T.JX, the owner of T.J. Max, also responded right, pretty much right after Walmart made the decision. So what Walmart does in this next 10 years when it comes to automation robotics in their warehouses, we'll set the

industry standard. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with my winner of the weekend. My winner of the weekend is first impressions because they matter so much, people are increasingly turning to AI headshots to give them a leg up when applying for jobs. 88% of job seekers say that a Paulus digital presence influences hiring decisions, a 45% jump year over year, according to Canva. But for a long time, professional photos have been something financially out of reach for a lot of people. Enter an explosion of AI headshot tools, Insta headshots, photo packs, AI, Headshots Pro. They are all options that promise professional quality images in minutes with no studio or photographer required all for

under 50 bucks. On the flip side, as AI generated portraits become nigh indistinguishable to the average viewer, that can hurt the business of photographers who have long relied on corporate sessions as a steady business model. Still, recruiters caution not to get too carried away. way. Sometimes using an AI headshot tool leads to an overly smooth feel, inconsistent details, and lighting mismatches, which can feel inauthentic. A bad AI headshot is worse than no headshot, said a career expert from ZipRecruiter. Neil, this is another example of AI inserting itself into the hiring process, one that is affecting all sides of the equation from applicants to recruiters to the photographers themselves. Yeah, I guess the one benefit or one advantage that you could say,

I could, you know, I could use an AI headshot. No one will notice is these people have never seen you before. The applicant, so they're just doing a quick cursory glance on LinkedIn. And that first impression is so important. And with the rise of AI headshots, I mean, it's understandable because headshots are very expensive. We were getting headshots. They're hundreds of dollars. And you can only have one particular background or the customization is somewhat limited with AI

headshots. Think about it. You upload a selfie. You say, I want this particular background. you answer a few questions that they have. And then the customization is absolutely infinite. Put me in this background. Make me give it a glamour shot.

Make it look more professional. Put me in a suit. Put me in a t-shirt. And that's what these AI company, AI headshot companies promise for a fraction of the price. I mean, some of the articles that we read, these people were doing AI headshots for $25. And you get, you know, hundreds and hundreds of photos that you can use for this very critical part of the hiring process. But it does seem like a lot of career. experts say, consider which industry you're applying in. For instance, actors or actresses,

very important to have a real headshot. You don't want to use AI there because your face is your moneymaker in that regard. But if you work for, you know, something like a call center where it doesn't necessarily matter what you look like, then maybe AI headshots can help you. Some people reported having great success when they updated their LinkedIn profile using a more professional looking headshot, which honestly just take AI out of the equation. That's just a smart thing to do. They saw three to four times more inbound requests from recruiter. So it is smart to have a polished digital presence. Going about it using AI, that is kind of up to you.

It's almost a risk because if it comes off as inauthentic, then you're probably going to get skipped over more than if you just had a worse headshot. Now, as interesting is what are LinkedIn rules around this? Does it allow an AI headshot for you to use? And yes, it does the photo. The LinkedIn says it's okay, but the photo must reflect your likeness photos that don't comply with our user agreement may be removed. So LinkedIn says, yeah, if it looks like you, then that's okay.

And I assume you would don't want to use one that looks like you. But overall, zooming out, this is another threat to the photography business. You know, the headshots is a big part of their business. I wonder what's coming next. Like, are we going to get AI wedding photography? Like, have me doing this cool dance move that I didn't do or have me doing the limbo from like two feet below. I mean, just get a little flexible.

You know, you can do things yourself, Neil. Listen, I think you can break it down on the dance story with the best of them. But I feel for the photography industry because name an industry that's been more influx by, you know, different inventions. They went from film to digital, then Photoshop got introduced and now, and then smartphones got introduced where everyone was a photographer. Now you throw AI into the mix. So it is one of those things where is it going to be a replacement or is it just going to be come another tool in the toolkit? Some of the best photographers say it's just a tool. we've been under assault for, you know, decades in this industry. It's just going to, you still need the

artistry, you still need the ability to capture someone's soul and essence rather than just outsourcing it to AI completely. So fascinating to once again be in the shoes of saying, how is this going to disrupt our daily workflows again? All right, moving on. It is Monday, so here's what you need to know to stay ahead in the week ahead. On Wall Street, corporate earnings and an inflation report will test a market that's gotten a little more wobbly lately. Netflix and Tesla are the earnings headliners, joined by Procter & Gamble, GM, Coca-Cola, IBM, and Intel. Remember, what these companies say about the economy has gotten even more important these days, given the lack of data coming from the government because of the shutdown, which is still going on. Speaking of that, Friday will bring an inflation report

for September. It was delayed from last week after the Bureau of Labor Statistics called back furloughed workers to put it together. They need to do it to calculate the next Social Security cost of living increase. Everyone's coming. back to the office. Our first real taste of data, though, hungry data dogs everywhere are about to eat. I am very excited. It feels like Christmas morning this Friday report.

Moving on to sports, who's ready for some basketball? The new NBA season tips off tomorrow night with plenty of soap opera level storylines. Is it going to be LeBron's final season? Can the Knicks put it all together to snag the title? And is Victor Webbenyama still growing? The Spurs Phenom is now

listed at 7 foot 5 compared to last year's 7 foot 3. But Many speculate he's even taller than that. Plus, the way you watch the NBA is going to change this year as a new TV rights deal kicks in. NBC will be airing games for the first time in 23 years, and Amazon Prime Video will also stream a slice of the action. Man, I saw one of those graphics of how to catch every, you know, opening day, what streaming service you need to sign up for. It's so many at this point. It feels like we're just getting ragged all the round with sports, but seeing it, you know, laid out on a graphical fashion was brutal.

we were also talking because, you know, NBC's back in the fold about roundball rock. They're very iconic jingle. And you were saying, like, they have to use it sparingly. Like, you can't use it coming out of time out of time outbreak. So very interesting to see when's the first time they bust that out to bring back some of that nostalgia. And then today is the start of Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights. And celebrations are being shaken up due to surging precious metal prices. Typically ahead of DeWali, hundreds of thousands of Indians head to markets to scoop up gold and silver coins and jewelry,

believing it brings wealth and luck. But with gold and silver prices, each up at least 60% this year, sellers thought they might be scared away. Not so, business is even better this year as Julia Buyers hoard precious metals expecting their prices to rise only more. Yeah, I think a lot of us when we're talking on this show about gold, you think of it as an investment, but gold jewelry accounts for the largest share of India's overall gold demand by far. So it's mostly people just buying and gifting gold jewelry to each other. And so that's putting pressure on prices as well. Indian households hold $3.8 trillion worth of gold.

That's nearly 90% of the country's GDP. So this is a country obsessed with gold right now, which is tough when prices are just absolutely through the roof. As for TV and movie releases, nobody wants this. A Sleeper Romcom hit on Netflix starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody is returning for its second season this week. And on Friday, the Bruce Springsteen biopic starring Jeremy Allen White,

as the boss arrives in theaters on Friday. Jeremy Allen White only plays parts in two-word B shows. The Bear, the Boss. That's all I got, actually. It's not even called The Boss, but he is playing The Boss, and that should be a good movie. Finally, if you're a classical music lover, just want a new soundtrack for work,

check out the International Chopin piano competition, which is wrapping up today and will feature concerts to the winners throughout the week, held once every five years in Warsaw, hundreds of competitors from all over the world, play pieces by the legendary Polish composer Frederick Chopin, judged by 17 experts on a scale of 1 to 25, with 25 being perfect,

Sim 1 being god-awful, tens of millions of viewers turned tuned into the last competition, and you can too by going to the Chopin Institute YouTube account. I partook in the YouTube account while prepping, and I will tell you what, I do not have the ear to determine the difference between a 1 and a 25. They all sound amazing to me, but on the bright side,

a new compliment just dropped on a scale of 1 to 10, you're at 25 at the International Chopin competition. Well, thank you, Debbie. Well, thank you. That is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful start to the week. If you have any feedback on today's episode,

send a note to Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Loo is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair and makeup is anti-AI headshots. Devin Emery is our president. and our shows are production of Boring Brew.

Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.