The art of the CEO interview

Jon Friedman of Marketwatch.com has a nice interview with financial journalist Duff McDonald about his new book, “Last Man Standing,” about J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

What’s most intriguing is how McDonald got Dimon to open up about his former mentor, Sandy Weill.

Friedman writes, “McDonald recognized that Dimon would be guarded when it came time for him to talk about his saga with Weill. Shrewdly, the author intentionally waited to address this thorny subject until the very end of his research effort.

“‘I saved ‘Sandy and Jamie’ for last, mainly because I wanted to achieve a level of comfort with Dimon,’ McDonald told me over breakfast last week.

“Wall Street is littered with the tales of mentors and protégés whose partnerships collapsed after a run of great success. Still, this saga seems particularly acrimonious to this day.

“‘They don’t have a relationship anymore,’ McDonald said. ‘Jamie was hurt profoundly by what happened. His feelings about it don’t seem to have dissipated.’

“McDonald was struck by the difference in Dimon’s tone when he shifted from discussing the art of doing deals to his apparent sense of betrayal.”

Read more here.