Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 1001 posts

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#291

Post by whimsicalism »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #244
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually generally how finance works though. The whole industry is built on the illusion of superior competence. "Prestige" is a determining factor in someones ability get a job running a hedge fund/financial asset management. Generally they need to have gone to the right school, worked at the right bank, then at the right hedge fund. Each should show a good amount of tenure ( > 3-5 years ). A major asset man…

To see this all you have to do is interview at a few "prestigious" financial companies. A while back I interviewed with one of the top trading firms. It was for a lower level position that I normally wouldn't take but I was excited about the prospect of working with some truly brilliant quants. Wow was I disappointed. The discussion with the quants quickly relieved that they had absolutely zero interest in their fiel…

I think it really depends to be honest. I don't think what you are saying is generally true of people at prop trading firms, the ones that I know were generally very into math/physics and got lured by the high pay.

With prop firms, there is little need to schmooze the rich with fancy degrees

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#292

Post by meetingthrower »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #204
mayankkaizen wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am 100% sure he must have siphoned off some sizable part of his net worth in cash or other non-crypto assets.

Several million dollars is a lot of money - but not sizable compared to $16B. If he siphoned off even 1% ($160M+)- you can bet he's going to lose it in bankruptcy proceedings.

10% is $1.6B. Only needs 1% for $160M. .1% for $16M. Which is still generationally rich. Yeah, I think he would have taken that out right?

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#293

Post by bitcharmer »

triceratops wrote: post #260
prh8 wrote: post #28

Was this another CEO "taking all responsibility" without any actual responsiblity/penalties? Not counting resigning.

Other than resigning, what more responsibility can someone take for a professional failure?

I hope you're trolling because this is a very large scale theft. Most of us would agree resignation is not appropriate consequence for such conduct.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#294

Post by LeifCarrotson »

rippercushions wrote: post #91
chinathrow wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

130 companies? What did they for a living? Collect companies each time a new month began?

Gaze on the beauty of this chart and despair: https://i.redd.it/078p4g7m6cz91.jpg

I'm impressed that there actually is a chart.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#296

Post by dylan604 »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #160
rippercushions wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaze on the beauty of this chart and despair: https://i.redd.it/078p4g7m6cz91.jpg

No wonder their accounting is so messed up.

It's almost like they asked GPT3 or Dall-e to create "a corporate structure that is so confusing it will be a liability shield to keep my ass out of jail", and then used whatever came out

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#297

Post by whimsicalism »

ljlolel wrote: post #84
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually generally how finance works though. The whole industry is built on the illusion of superior competence. "Prestige" is a determining factor in someones ability get a job running a hedge fund/financial asset management. Generally they need to have gone to the right school, worked at the right bank, then at the right hedge fund. Each should show a good amount of tenure ( > 3-5 years ). A major asset man…

I saw this at Bridgewater. Hired only ivy league, smart people actually. But their total discretionary control was a tiny % of fund. Hedge funds are mostly marketing. When 2008 financial crisis happened, Dalio was making the big trades in the control room himself on gut feel.

Bridgewater is an even worse example of this than normal. Very cult-ish

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#298

Post by shockeychap »

gonehome wrote: post #279
shockeychap wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, jail. He openly talked about how the whole thing was a Ponzi scheme. https://youtu.be/KZYqL79GDXU?t=1277

That’s not what he’s saying in that clip. From Levine’s column yesterday: > “People on Twitter now are like “he admitted that FTX is a Ponzi!” but of course that’s not true. He conceded a certain validity to my claim that some crypto businesses — not his — are Ponzis. He is just in the business of trading their tokens. “In fact, I came away from that conversation bullish on FTX and Bankman-Fried. My view was, and is,…

I'm not arguing on the basis of what Levine thought of the conversation.

At the very least, it's apparent that SBF sees crypto as being heavily based on speculation that's disconnected from any actual value proposition, but he's choosing to exploit and profit from those systems. And it's now apparent that he also was engaging in speculation with user funds himself via Alameda.

A wild-eyed crypto believer might lose anywhere from a few thousand to a few million of their own money in poorly placed speculation.

A sophisticated market-maker will facilitate the loss of billions (about $10 billion in this case) from numerous people.

Which is more dangerous? A HODL who loses their savings on some speculative crypto purchase, or the next Bernie Madoff?

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#299

Post by gonehome »

throwaway0asd wrote: post #121

Where were the adults in any of this and why would people throw billions of dollars at unqualified children?

He worked at Jane Street prior to starting his own company which was built on a successful arbitrage. Whatever his issues - qualification isn’t one of them.

I’m not defending this catastrophe (which seems like it was partly an execution by a rival), but this kind of comment is just bizarre on hacker news in the world of tech companies and startups. Age is not a good proxy for competence.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#300

Post by swarnie »

whyenot wrote: post #253
swarnie wrote: post #65

Heading over to r/CryptoCurrency/ to see if they sticky the suicide prevention hotline again. That's when you know shits getting real.

r/bitcoin did that in one of the early downturns, and with good reason: at least one person on r/bitcoinmarkets did take their own life, and several more in the cryoto subreddits talked about it.

just looking for data points in a storm.
Post reply on HN