Peter Staley had simply been identified as HIV-positive when he acknowledged he had one other problem to confront: He wanted to inform his older brother James—higher often known as Jes (for his initials)—that he was homosexual and break the information of what was, on the time, successfully a loss of life sentence. This was 1985. Peter was 24. He had just lately adopted 28-year-old Jes, whom Peter thought-about critically homophobic, right into a promising profession at J.P. Morgan (JPM).
So started two brothers’ parallel and extraordinary journeys to management. Jes, now 59, rose quickly via the ranks of J.P. Morgan and post-merger JPMorgan Chase (No. 55 on this yr’s World 500), heading asset administration and, later, its funding financial institution. Peter, now 55, was the primary U.S.-government-bond dealer on Wall Avenue to come back out as homosexual and HIV-positive. As a pacesetter of ACT UP, he turned one in all America’s most well-known—or, to some, notorious—LGBT and AIDS activists.
Throughout the top of the ’90s AIDS disaster, Peter was arrested 10 occasions—together with as soon as for protesting Massive Pharma’s HIV/AIDS drug costs by chaining himself to the balcony of the New York Inventory Change and tossing pretend $100 payments that stated fuck your profiteering. Says Peter at this time: “If Jes ever had any qualms at J.P. Morgan—I did turn out to be probably the most hated folks on Wall Avenue after I shut down the New York Inventory Change—I by no means heard it.”
As for Jes, he says his brother enabled him to see “firsthand the best human braveness that I’ve personally ever witnessed” and to grasp the significance of range within the office. The truth is, as J.P. Morgan emerged as a pioneer on LGBT rights, Jes was behind the scenes serving to lead that cost. He was on the firm—and considered by many as a candidate to succeed CEO Jamie Dimon—till he left in 2013 after shedding favor with Dimon. Final December, British-based banking big Barclays (BCS) tapped Jes to be its new CEO. Just lately, each brothers sat down collectively for a dialog with Fortune. That is their first media interview about their relationship and the teachings they realized on their paths to management.
Fortune: Peter, let’s return to the autumn of 1985. You had been buying and selling bonds at J.P. Morgan. You begin feeling awful, and your colds lingered. What occurred then?
Peter Staley: Properly, two years into the job I watched, with a secret boyfriend by my facet, the very first TV film on HIV/AIDS, known as An Early Frost. I had a foul chilly, and the actor dying of AIDS on this film, Aidan Quinn, had PCP pneumonia and was coughing so much. My boyfriend ribbed me and stated, “You sound similar to him,” with my cough. I stated, “Okay, okay, I’ll go to the physician.” I found I used to be HIV-positive.
You weren’t solely HIV-positive. You had been identified with AIDS-related advanced.
Peter: Proper.
Which is totally different from AIDS or the identical?
Peter: It’s totally different. It’s a class that isn’t used any extra, but it surely was meant for individuals who had been form of pre-AIDS, who had been immunosuppressed. The CDC later modified the definition to say anyone who falls beneath 200 CD4 cells has an AIDS analysis. I used to be at 107 in 1987, 1988. And if you had been below 200 CD4 cells like I used to be, it typically means you had about two years. I simply fought to attempt to prolong that.
Did you consider on the time that you possibly can struggle exhausting sufficient to increase that, or did you suppose you had two years?
Peter: I didn’t know. I simply knew I used to be going to struggle actually exhausting and never take into consideration the 2 years an excessive amount of. I compartmentalized fairly successfully.
How did you come to inform your brother about your sickness?
Peter: It was inside 10 days of the analysis. I knew I needed to construct a help system round me, that I couldn’t do that alone. I went dwelling that Thanksgiving and laid out a plan for popping out to my household.
That is Thanksgiving of 1985.
Peter: That’s proper. I made a decision to talk to them separately. I began with who I assumed can be best to inform—who may get used to it—after which labored as much as who I assumed was going to be the toughest. I assumed my mom can be the toughest, so she received the final spot. However Jes received the second-to-last.
THE STALEYS ON DECK: Jes, sitting, with Peter in entrance of him, together with older brother Chris and sister Janet within the British Virgin Islands within the early Nineteen Seventies.Courtesy of the Staley Household
Jes, this got here as a shock to you?
Jes Staley: Properly, the HIV analysis for positive got here as a complete shock. Again then, it was a loss of life discover. And in order that was stunning as a result of I’d by no means had somebody that near our household or a part of our instant household ever come near one thing as harmful and terrifying as this. After which, when Peter and I talked, he did say he thought I used to be probably the most homophobic particular person within the household. I believe partly it was as a result of we had been each on Wall Avenue, and Wall Avenue at the moment, you already know—the one minority group that was free recreation for everyone was the gay neighborhood. So you possibly can use a derogatory time period and that wasn’t an issue. He was residing on a bond desk, so …
Peter: I heard the F-word about 20 occasions a day.
Jes: I bear in mind, you possibly can use the phrase “faggot” and whatnot all the way in which as much as, actually, 2000, 2001. However when he got here out of the closet, it wasn’t a quiet, hushed exit from the closet. It was an explosion of vitality and being forthright and in your face. It was a fantastic alternative for me to attempt to make up for the homophobia that he noticed in me, to attempt to embrace what Peter was up towards. After which it was years of watching somebody present gorgeous ranges of braveness towards insurmountable odds. Simply to look at Peter undergo that entire course of and what his pals had been going via, it was the start of a protracted march that modified my life, and I believe modified the world in some methods.
So, Peter, after you advised your loved ones you had been HIV-positive in 1985, what had been you desirous about work?
Peter: Everyone within the household stated, “What can we do?” Jes’s first task [laughs] was what do I do about J.P. Morgan? Ought to I inform somebody? How can we deal with this? As a result of I need to preserve residing my life. I don’t need to give up work. He stated, “I believe I do know someone that we are able to discuss to in confidence.” He’d had a boss in Brazil, William Oullin, who was homosexual and was pretty excessive up within the financial institution. And Jes put me in contact. William’s recommendation was for me to remain quiet about it.
As a result of …?
Peter: The financial institution wasn’t prepared. It will have been explosive. And I might need misplaced my job. So I did a loopy yr the place I used to be a closeted bond dealer by day and an AIDS activist by evening. After I went to demonstrations, I might maintain the placard as much as my face so I wouldn’t be on the nationwide information. I turned the pinnacle of fundraising, as a method to assist with out getting within the information. Ultimately that twin life price me, and my CD4 rely crashed. I spotted the clock was ticking. So I walked into my boss’s workplace one morning and spilled the beans and stated, “I’m occurring incapacity proper now. That is my final day right here, and I’m a full-time AIDS activist beginning tomorrow.”
THE STALEYS
Diverging Paths
- 1979: Jes graduates from Bowdoin; joins J.P. Morgan.
- 1983: Peter graduates from Oberlin; joins JPM.
- 1985: Peter is identified as HIV-positive.
- 1989: Peter chains himself to NYSE balcony to protest the worth of AIDS drug AZT.
- 1991: Jes heads JPM’s world fairness enterprise. Peter fashioned TAG (Remedy Motion Group) to work with drug firms and velocity AIDS analysis.
- 2000: Jes turns into co-head of JPM’s non-public financial institution. Peter builds AIDSmeds to assist the ailing discover remedy.
- 2001: Jes provides asset administration to his portfolio; pushes JPM to fund LGBT rights.
- 2013: Jes joins BlueMountain Capital. Peter featured in Oscar-nominated documentary Methods to Survive a Plague.
- 2015: Jes named CEO of Barclays.
Jes, Peter turned often known as an individual with AIDS who wished to alter the system and carried out his activism as theater by way of stunts not so dissimilar from the activism we’re seeing at this time. On the time, you had been rising at J.P. Morgan. What had been you pondering as you watched Peter, and the way a lot had been you speaking with him about it?
Jes: Quite a bit. I’d come again from Brazil, and I used to be one of many guys operating J.P. Morgan’s equities desk. Peter known as me up, and he stated, “Are you working tomorrow?” I stated, “Sure.” He stated, “I can’t let you know what, however simply be across the desk tomorrow morning.” That’s when Peter received himself and three pals onto the ground of the New York Inventory Change, and for the primary time within the historical past of the NYSE shut it down as a protest to Burroughs Wellcome and the worth of [AIDS drug] AZT. I bear in mind I used to be on the desk, and so they suspended buying and selling. I stated, “That’s my brother doing that!” In order that was enjoyable.
You had been on the balcony of the change.
Peter: Yeah. We had a sequence to handcuff ourselves to the banister so it could take them some time to get us out of there. All of us had marine foghorns to drown out the opening bell. We had an enormous banner …
… that stated SELL WELLCOME…
Peter: … and we had pretend $100 payments that stated FUCK YOUR PROFITEERING on the again [laughs]. That received the merchants a bit riled up. And we threw these out. This was in homage to Abbie Hoffman, who [in 1967] was the one different activist to do an motion on the ground of the New York Inventory Change.
Wellcome dropped the worth of AZT.
Peter: We had been on the quilt of the New York Occasions and the Wall Avenue Journal, and so they dropped the worth of the drug 20% three days later.
Jes: You bought dragged off to jail—one of many many occasions that occurred. On one stage, to interrupt the New York Inventory Change is just not one thing you need to encourage. On one other stage, Peter was combating for his life and combating for the lives of individuals with HIV. I like my brother, so I noticed it first via the prism of a brother and second as a social challenge. As I received into it, I spotted the braveness—to rise up each single day to struggle what was a loss of life sentence—is kind of one thing. He was transferring the nation.
Peter: He’s underselling his personal function a bit. I used to be bouncing ACT UP technique off Jes, off my father, off my sister, Janet—off the entire household. They usually had been giving me suggestions on ACT UP technique.
RESTRAINED—BUT NOT SILENT: Peter, detained at what was then Astra Prescribed drugs in 1989, one in all 10 occasions he has been arrested.Courtesy of the Staley Household
They by no means stated, “You’re going too far”?
Peter: No, by no means.
You probably did a number of different stuff. You stormed the places of work of Burroughs Wellcome.
Jes: The higher one was the condom over [Sen.] Jesse Helms’s home. That was artistic.
Peter, was that your concept?
Peter: Sure. Jesse Helms was one in all our biggest enemies. He had been for years proposing amendments to payments in Congress that particularly focused folks residing with HIV. He was the writer of the immigration ban. The U.S. was the primary nation to impose a ban on folks getting into the U.S. who had been HIV-positive. And each nation on the globe adopted swimsuit. So he brought on wonderful hurt. And he would rail on the ground of the Senate towards homosexuals and our sinning, and that we deserved to die.
I got here up with an concept of an motion that wouldn’t offend his Senate colleagues that a lot—one thing they may snigger at as effectively. I name it form of a Jon Stewart model of activism, the place you make your opponent the butt of all people’s joke. And that
diminishes their energy. I’m very happy with the very fact that there have been no Helms AIDS amendments from that time ahead.
That was 1991. Jes, did Peter go too far?
Jes: No, I used to be an enormous supporter. I began to get extra concerned in ACT UP. I met Larry Kramer quite a few occasions. That was additionally the very starting the place even at J.P. Morgan, we started to have a thaw, and I’d get to know this homosexual man or that homosexual man. You began to see folks turning into extra snug with their sexual orientation. Peter and the folks of ACT UP had been altering the world in deeply profound methods.
Peter: I began listening to within the late ’90s that J.P. Morgan had turn out to be one of many leaders on LGBT rights within the office. And I used to be listening to from homosexual folks engaged on Wall Avenue that Jes had so much to do with that.
Jes, when did your management on LGBT points start in earnest?
Jes: The true inflection level was, I believe, 2001, when J.P. Morgan and Chase merged. I used to be operating Morgan’s non-public financial institution and had some capacity to jot down a verify [and commit] a bit little bit of civil disobedience. With out the financial institution totally figuring out, we turned the primary company entity within the nation to donate cash to GLSEN [Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network]. GLSEN is the LGBT group that helps highschool children come out of the closet. A part of the inhabitants thought that GLSEN was going into excessive colleges to recruit children to decide on the choice of homosexuality. In order that was a flash level. And up till Morgan’s non-public financial institution, they may not get any company to jot down them a verify.
SEEKING SOLUTIONS
Q: Are we prone to see a remedy in your lifetime?
PETER: Properly, it is determined by what you imply by remedy. There are literally two classes. Most of us suppose within the phrases of what’s known as a sterilizing remedy, one thing that might get HIV fully faraway from an individual. However HIV is a retrovirus, which genetically integrates itself into your cells, and never only one sort of cell. It genetically integrates into a number of forms of cells within the human physique: into mind cells, into cells that line the intestine, into primarily CD4 cells however different immune cells as effectively. Extracting it from all these cells is one thing that’s a bit past science proper now, though gene remedy may get us there.
Then there’s what’s known as a practical remedy, which might be one thing that might educate the immune system to maintain HIV at bay by itself—so I wouldn’t need to take every day antiretrovirals the remainder of my life. A vaccine that stops HIV might try this very same factor for folks with the virus. It could be a therapeutic vaccine and thus a practical remedy. I might get vaccinated after which by no means need to take one other drug the remainder of my life. The federal government is engaged on that. That, I count on to see in my lifetime. I’m in a gaggle now that’s pushing Francis Collins, head of the NIH, and nonetheless working with [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief] Tony Fauci. We’re pushing them to do one of the best analysis attainable, so I count on to see a practical remedy and a vaccine in my lifetime.
Whenever you look at this time at trendy American populist actions, from Black Lives Matter to Occupy Wall Avenue, and the plenty of disenfranchised folks rising as we determine who our subsequent President will probably be, what do you consider the model of activism that you just’re seeing now?
Peter: Black Lives Matter blows me away. I believe it’s one of many biggest actions of our age. Their monitor file is extraordinary. They’re not letting us off the hook.
Jes, there’s a populist motion proper now towards the large banks. Is there something you’ve realized from Peter that means that you can suppose extra strategically about coping with that?
Jes: What I realized from Peter is extra essential pondering and making an attempt to be balanced in making an evaluation of what’s occurring. I don’t suppose anybody at this time doesn’t acknowledge that we’ve received a really vital revenue inequality problem on this nation. I additionally consider the banks have so much to atone for and have misplaced their technique to a sure extent. The flip facet, clearly, is I work with hundreds of bankers who I believe are extremely gracious folks with nice character and values. If I can have a legacy that helped Wall Avenue in small increments regain a number of the belief that was misplaced within the final decade, that might be a fantastic legacy to be a part of.
Peter, 20 years in the past, when an efficient “cocktail” of anti-retroviral medicine turned obtainable, you realized, “Possibly I’ll have a protracted life,” proper?
Peter: I had that arduous transition that everyone who survived that lengthy needed to undergo: “Oh, my God, we’ve been residing yr to yr, by no means trying past a yr or two. And now we have now to return to the actual world.” I didn’t know what to do subsequent. I used to be burnt out from over 10 years of AIDS activism. And I used to be afraid of returning to the actual world and a profession.
In 2004, when crystal meth hit the homosexual neighborhood, Peter, you really had been addicted for a time.
Peter: Yeah. Sadly, a number of us who went via that transition after 1996, a number of homosexual males with HIV, we hit actually exhausting occasions, and a few of us fell into habit. I used to be one in all them.
How lengthy was that interval?
Peter: It was about 2½ years. In some ways, it was the toughest factor I did in my life, even more durable than surviving the plague years. Jes was one of many first ones I advised once I received on the opposite facet.
You didn’t inform Jes till afterward?
Peter: I didn’t inform anyone till I began getting some clear time.
And the way did you get clear?
Peter: I began with a 12-step program, after which an incredible outpatient program in New York Metropolis lastly received me clear. But it surely took a very long time. Not simple.
What’s the lesson from that?
Peter: The lesson? Dependancy is a illness, and if I had been black, I’d be in jail. And we as a rustic want to actually have a look at this challenge and give attention to it from a purely public well being perspective. I had the monetary assets for that outpatient program. Everyone wants that entry. Or I might have ended up useless.
You’re nonetheless very concerned within the AIDS trigger. Is it nonetheless a disaster?
Peter: It’s. I’m working to get the U.S. to complete what we began within the ’80s. The epidemic nonetheless rages on. We nonetheless have annual infections within the U.S. which are about the place they had been within the Nineties. The disaster is just not over—37 million nonetheless contaminated worldwide, 2 million turn out to be contaminated yearly, and 1.2 million die yearly. However not like the ’80s and ’90s, we have now the instruments to maneuver these numbers in the precise—they’re transferring in the precise route.
The instruments are antiretroviral remedy, and we even have a drug now that stops HIV infections should you take it daily. We’ve realized that if we get extra folks on remedy, we really decrease the quantity of people that get contaminated. All we have now to do is use these instruments, put a bit cash upfront, and also you slowly wind down the epidemic. Proper now I’m making an attempt to interject HIV/AIDS into the presidential marketing campaign.
Jes, final December, you took cost of 129,000 staff at a financial institution that has a very good file in supporting HIV/AIDS packages and LGBT causes. Do you suppose, “I have to do extra”?
Jes: I don’t suppose any social challenge is static. We are able to all the time do higher, whether or not it’s gender points or LGBT points or sexual orientation points or race points.
Peter: I preserve pushing him to push that envelope continuously. I actually love that he’s spoken up about revenue inequality, and that he’s a Democrat and that we regularly help the identical candidates. I joke with him. I stated, “When the revolution comes …”
Jes: We’ll disguise out in his home [laughter].
Peter: He’ll get a telephone name from me saying, “Get the household out!” And I’ll be calling from the headquarters of the revolution.
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A model of this text seems within the August 1, 2016 challenge of Fortune.
