Well, besides all being / having been CEOs of major US banks, all four have overcome adversity in their careers and gone on to better things.

Lloyd Blankfein

Blankfein was once famously turned down for a job at Goldman in 1981 (when he was working at a law firm). Ironically, Goldman's current CEO apparently didn't make it through the firm's 'famously exhaustive recruitment process'. Blankfein subsequently joined commodities trading firm J. Aron, a firm which Goldman had then recently acquired. He rose in the ranks to eventually head up that unit, going to the very top at Goldman via that route.

Jamie Dimon

Our Jamie was fired from Citigroup by founder Sandy Weill in 1998, allegedly for becoming a little too big for his boots, and because his denied Weill's daughter a promotion.

Despite this setback, Dimon returned to the finance industry in 2000 as CEO of Bank One, which he merged with JPMorgan Chase two years later. Dimon became CEO of JPMorgan Chase at the end of 2005, and Chairman 12 months later.

John Mack

Started his career at Morgan Stanley in 1972, Mack rose through the ranks to become President. He eventually lost out in a power struggle with CEO Philip Purcell (who came to the firm after the 1997 Dean Witter merger), and left in 2001. A stint at Credit Suisse ended rather unsatisfactorily, and Mack went on to briefly become Chairman of hedge fund Pequot Capital, before returning to Morgan Stanley as CEO in 2005, after the fall of Purcell.

Mack stepped down as CEO at the end of last year, but remains Chairman.

Brian Moynihan

Originally joining Fleet Boston in 1993, Moynihan became part of the Bank of America family in 2004 when BofA acquired Fleet.

Moynihan undertook a number of senior roles at Bank of America, but turned down an opportunity to run the bank's credit card division in Delaware in late 2008. BofA CEO Ken Lewis is said to have then told Moynihan that he'd have to leave, and a press release was prepared to cover off on this.

At the last minute, however, Lewis made Moynihan the bank's General Counsel, and he went on to win the internal fight to succeed Lewis as CEO just over a year later.

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