A large bank should be allowed to fail but the right mechanisms to handle that failure need to be in place, Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, said in a speech Tuesday.

“A company should be allowed to fail, failure is good,” Dimon said in his luncheon presentation before the annual Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) conference, a one-on-one interview with talk show host Charlie Rose.

The idea of being too big to fail should not carry the implication that investors in the company, or management, is safer than any other company, Dimon said. “If you fail, the equity should not be protected. It should be wiped out. Just like the management and the board,” he said.

At the same time, Dimon said he didn’t think banks or other companies should be prevented from getting big in the first place. In fact, he said a company becomes huge because it’s competitive and delivers services that customers are willing to pay for. “They’re large for a reason. You can’t do an $800 million loan to a big corporate customer if you’re a small bank.” But if a big bank fails, the process should be managed in such a way that does not threaten the entire economy.

Rose then asked the hypothetical question: “What if JPMorgan was at risk?” Even then, Dimon still maintained that with the right rules in place for such an event, it could be dismantled without posing a larger problem. JPMorgan Chase recently posted third quarter profits of $3.6 billion, driven by the strong performance from its investment banking division.

While Dimon believes that excess leverage and too little regulation were the big culprits behind the problems of the economy over the past year, he said he didn’t think the markets need a new regulatory agency. The existing agencies could be given the proper authority to handle those types of problems. “We already have multiple regulators,” he said.

Dimon added that JPMorgan wants to add advisors to its retail brokerage unit, but only at the top. “If you’re really really good, you should call JPMorgan and have them hire you,” he said to laughter in the room. JP Morgan acquired about 350 advisers last year when it bought failed investment bank and brokerage Bear Stearns.

As far as the recovery is concerned, Dimon said that large corporations are in a good place. Banks are lending to them again and they hold close to a $1 trillion in cash. And mid-sized companies are also participating in the turnaround and are able to get financing. It’s the small business sector that is still hurting, he said. They are having difficulties getting the financing they need.

Whatever new rules get passed, he cautioned that they will be with us for a long time. “We’ll have to live with these decisions for a long time,” Dimon said.