Peter Staley had simply been recognized 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 demise sentence. This was 1985. Peter was 24. He had lately adopted 28-year-old Jes, whom Peter thought of 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 12 months’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 Road to return out as homosexual and HIV-positive. As a frontrunner of ACT UP, he turned one in all America’s most well-known—or, to some, notorious—LGBT and AIDS activists.
In the course of the top of the ’90s AIDS disaster, Peter was arrested 10 instances—together with as soon as for protesting Large Pharma’s HIV/AIDS drug costs by chaining himself to the balcony of the New York Inventory Trade and tossing faux $100 payments that stated fuck your profiteering. Says Peter at the moment: “If Jes ever had any qualms at J.P. Morgan—I did become one of the most hated people on Wall Street after I shut down the New York Stock Exchange—I never heard it.”
As for Jes, he says his brother enabled him to see “firsthand the greatest human courage that I’ve personally ever witnessed” and to grasp the significance of variety within the office. In truth, 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 large Barclays (BCS) tapped Jes to be its new CEO. 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: Nicely, 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 nasty chilly, and the actor dying of AIDS on this film, Aidan Quinn, had PCP pneumonia and was coughing loads. My boyfriend ribbed me and stated, “You sound just like him,” with my cough. I stated, “Okay, okay, I’ll go to the doctor.” I found I used to be HIV-positive.
You weren’t solely HIV-positive. You had been recognized with AIDS-related complicated.
Peter: Proper.
Which is completely different from AIDS or the identical?
Peter: It’s completely different. It’s a class that isn’t used any extra, however it 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 prognosis. I used to be at 107 in 1987, 1988. And once you had been beneath 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 imagine on the time that you could possibly battle laborious 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 battle actually laborious 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 prognosis. I knew I needed to construct a help system round me, that I couldn’t do that alone. I went residence 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 one after the other. I began with who I assumed can be best to inform—who might 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 obtained the final spot. However Jes obtained 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 Seventies.Courtesy of the Staley Household
Jes, this got here as a shock to you?
Jes Staley: Nicely, the HIV prognosis for certain got here as a complete shock. Again then, it was a demise 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 quick 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 feel partially it was as a result of we had been each on Wall Road, and Wall Road at the moment, you recognize—the one minority group that was free recreation for everyone was the gay neighborhood. So you could possibly use a derogatory time period and that wasn’t an issue. He was dwelling on a bond desk, so …
Peter: I heard the F-word about 20 instances a day.
Jes: I keep in mind, you could possibly use the phrase “faggot” and whatnot all the best way 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 an amazing alternative for me to attempt to make up for the homophobia that he noticed in me, to attempt to embrace what Peter was up in opposition to. After which it was years of watching somebody present beautiful ranges of braveness in opposition to insurmountable odds. Simply to look at Peter undergo that complete course of and what his mates had been going via, it was the start of an extended march that modified my life, and I feel modified the world in some methods.
So, Peter, after you informed your loved ones you had been HIV-positive in 1985, what had been you excited 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 dwelling my life. I don’t need to stop work. He stated, “I think I know somebody that we can talk 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 might have been explosive. And I might need misplaced my job. So I did a loopy 12 months the place I used to be a closeted bond dealer by day and an AIDS activist by evening. After I went to demonstrations, I’d 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 approach to assist with out getting within the information. Finally that twin life value 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 going on disability right now. This is my last day here, and I’m a full-time AIDS activist starting tomorrow.”
THE STALEYS
Diverging Paths
- 1979: Jes graduates from Bowdoin; joins J.P. Morgan.
- 1983: Peter graduates from Oberlin; joins JPM.
- 1985: Peter is recognized as HIV-positive.
- 1989: Peter chains himself to NYSE balcony to protest the worth of AIDS drug AZT.
- 1991: Jes heads JPM’s international fairness enterprise. Peter fashioned TAG (Remedy Motion Group) to work with drug corporations and pace AIDS analysis.
- 2000: Jes turns into co-head of JPM’s personal financial institution. Peter builds AIDSmeds to assist the sick 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 How one can Survive a Plague.
- 2015: Jes named CEO of Barclays.
Jes, Peter turned often known as an individual with AIDS who wished to vary the system and carried out his activism as theater through stunts not so dissimilar from the activism we’re seeing at the moment. On the time, you had been rising at J.P. Morgan. What had been you considering 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 working J.P. Morgan’s equities desk. Peter known as me up, and he stated, “Are you working tomorrow?” I stated, “Yes.” He stated, “I can’t tell you what, but just be around the desk tomorrow morning.” That’s when Peter obtained himself and three mates onto the ground of the New York Inventory Trade, 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 keep in mind I used to be on the desk, they usually 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 will take them some time to get us out of there. All of us had marine foghorns to drown out the opening bell. We had a giant banner …
… that stated SELL WELLCOME…
Peter: … and we had faux $100 payments that stated FUCK YOUR PROFITEERING on the again [laughs]. That obtained the merchants a bit of 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 Trade.
Wellcome dropped the worth of AZT.
Peter: We had been on the quilt of the New York Occasions and the Wall Road Journal, they usually dropped the worth of the drug 20% three days later.
Jes: You bought dragged off to jail—one of many many instances that occurred. On one degree, to interrupt the New York Inventory Trade isn’t one thing you need to encourage. On one other degree, Peter was combating for his life and combating for the lives of individuals with HIV. I really like my brother, so I noticed it first via the prism of a brother and second as a social difficulty. As I obtained into it, I spotted the braveness—to stand up each single day to battle what was a demise sentence—is sort of one thing. He was shifting the nation.
Peter: He’s underselling his personal position 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 instances 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 plenty of different stuff. You stormed the workplaces of Burroughs Wellcome.
Jes: The higher one was the condom over [Sen.] Jesse Helms’s home. That was artistic.
Peter, was that your thought?
Peter: Sure. Jesse Helms was one in all our best enemies. He had been for years proposing amendments to payments in Congress that particularly focused individuals dwelling with HIV. He was the writer of the immigration ban. The U.S. was the primary nation to impose a ban on individuals 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 in opposition to homosexuals and our sinning, and that we deserved to die.
I got here up with an thought of an motion that wouldn’t offend his Senate colleagues that a lot—one thing they might giggle at as effectively. I name it form of a Jon Stewart fashion of activism, the place you make your opponent the butt of everyone’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 a giant supporter. I began to get extra concerned in ACT UP. I met Larry Kramer various instances. 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 individuals changing into extra comfy with their sexual orientation. Peter and the individuals 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 into one of many leaders on LGBT rights within the office. And I used to be listening to from homosexual individuals engaged on Wall Road that Jes had loads to do with that.
Jes, when did your management on LGBT points start in earnest?
Jes: The true inflection level was, I feel, 2001, when J.P. Morgan and Chase merged. I used to be working Morgan’s personal financial institution and had some capacity to write down a examine [and commit] a bit of little bit of civil disobedience. With out the financial institution totally realizing, 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 faculties to recruit children to decide on the choice of homosexuality. In order that was a flash level. And up till Morgan’s personal financial institution, they might not get any company to write down them a examine.
SEEKING SOLUTIONS
Q: Are we prone to see a treatment in your lifetime?
PETER: Nicely, it depends upon what you imply by treatment. There are literally two classes. Most of us suppose within the phrases of what’s known as a sterilizing treatment, 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 of past science proper now, though gene remedy may get us there.
Then there’s what’s known as a practical treatment, which might be one thing that might train the immune system to maintain HIV at bay by itself—so I wouldn’t must take every day antiretrovirals the remainder of my life. A vaccine that stops HIV could try this very same factor for individuals with the virus. It might be a therapeutic vaccine and thus a practical treatment. I’d get vaccinated after which by no means must 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 bunch 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 treatment and a vaccine in my lifetime.
Whenever you look at the moment at fashionable American populist actions, from Black Lives Matter to Occupy Wall Road, and the plenty of disenfranchised individuals rising as we resolve who our subsequent President shall be, what do you consider the model of activism that you simply’re seeing now?
Peter: Black Lives Matter blows me away. I feel it’s one of many best actions of our age. Their observe document is extraordinary. They’re not letting us off the hook.
Jes, there’s a populist motion proper now in opposition to the massive banks. Is there something you’ve realized from Peter that permits you to suppose extra strategically about coping with that?
Jes: What I realized from Peter is extra vital considering and making an attempt to be balanced in making an evaluation of what’s happening. I don’t suppose anybody at the moment doesn’t acknowledge that we’ve obtained a really vital earnings inequality problem on this nation. I additionally imagine the banks have loads to atone for and have misplaced their strategy to a sure extent. The flip facet, clearly, is I work with 1000’s of bankers who I feel are extremely gracious individuals with nice character and values. If I can have a legacy that helped Wall Road in small increments regain among the belief that was misplaced within the final decade, that might be an amazing legacy to be a part of.
Peter, 20 years in the past, when an efficient “cocktail” of anti-retroviral medicine turned out there, you realized, “Maybe I’ll have a long life,” proper?
Peter: I had that onerous transition that everyone who survived that lengthy needed to undergo: “Oh, my God, we’ve been living year to year, never looking beyond a year or two. And now we have to return to the real 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 scared 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, plenty of us who went via that transition after 1996, plenty of homosexual males with HIV, we hit actually laborious instances, 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 tougher than surviving the plague years. Jes was one of many first ones I informed once I obtained 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 obtained me clear. However it took a very long time. Not simple.
What’s the lesson from that?
Peter: The lesson? Habit is a illness, and if I had been black, I’d be in jail. And we as a rustic want to actually take a look at this difficulty and deal with it from a purely public well being perspective. I had the monetary assets for that outpatient program. Everyone wants that entry. Or I’d 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 can be about the place they had been within the Nineteen Nineties. The disaster isn’t over—37 million nonetheless contaminated worldwide, 2 million turn into contaminated yearly, and 1.2 million die yearly. However in contrast to the ’80s and ’90s, we’ve the instruments to maneuver these numbers in the precise—they’re shifting in the precise path.
The instruments are antiretroviral remedy, and we even have a drug now that stops HIV infections in the event you take it day-after-day. We’ve realized that if we get extra individuals on remedy, we really decrease the quantity of people that get contaminated. All we’ve to do is use these instruments, put a bit of 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 superb document in supporting HIV/AIDS applications and LGBT causes. Do you suppose, “I need to do more”?
Jes: I don’t suppose any social difficulty is static. We are able to at all times 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 consistently. I actually love that he’s spoken up about earnings 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 cover out in his home [laughter].
Peter: He’ll get a telephone name from me saying, “Get the family 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 difficulty of Fortune.
