I don't get how the directors, councelors, and compliance people at the company didn't raise their hand. Jail isn't a nice place to go.
Directors you say ? https://twitter.com/bgurley/status/1591216734564155393
FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
71–80 of 196 posts
Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
#72What is striking about the Sam Bankman-Fried case is that for a long time he was considered to be one of the few who really knew what he was doing and also an advocate for more regulation. It appears to have been a smoke screen, given the financial fragility of his multiple companies, he could not have been looking for more scrutiny and regulation, he was playing Poker with politicians and his competitors. Same with…
Unfortunately I think the biggest red flag is one that doesn't become widely publicized, and I don't know if it happened in this case: a well-respected senior hire comes into the firm and leaves quickly, after discovering the mess. Excuses are made if it does become public, but most people brush it off as not clicking with the culture.
Someone I know joined a rather large investment firm and this happened. I only knew about the mess because I'm friends with him, but oh boy it was a mess. Guy moved on, doesn't mention it anymore, but will tell you if you know him.
Similar story with a major international bank. Friend goes in, sees a load of bodies (board members doing shady things), leaves. Nothing to report.
Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
#73There are some golden statements in the original Sequoia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20221027181005/https://www.sequo... For example, Sam's opinion on books: “Oh, yeah?” says SBF. “I would never read a book.” I’m not sure what to say. I’ve read a book a week for my entire adult life and have written three of my own. “I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actual…
Wow... that is a shocking level of philistinism given his parentage.
His own mum wrote a seemingly well-received book, and Will MacAskill, who he claims is his moral hero, has written three books.
Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
#74Why did Sequoia write this in the first place? Haven't seen VCs do that too often!!
Sam already had a boy genius profile, and more positive coverage of him would plausibly have translated to better returns on their investment in FTX.
Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
#75There are some golden statements in the original Sequoia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20221027181005/https://www.sequo... For example, Sam's opinion on books: “Oh, yeah?” says SBF. “I would never read a book.” I’m not sure what to say. I’ve read a book a week for my entire adult life and have written three of my own. “I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actual…
Wow, I'm really surprised. Of all the people who could make anti-intellectual statements, I really thought SBF was one of the last.
I get that many books these days are long winded (looking at you Nassim Taleb) ways to make a point, but someone absolutely needs to document all the thinking somewhere. Whether you read the whole book in detail is also optional.
But to generalize this much about all books is astonishing.
Plus he's a math/physics grad, aren't those books super dense with new lemmas on every page?
Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
#76There are some golden statements in the original Sequoia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20221027181005/https://www.sequo... For example, Sam's opinion on books: “Oh, yeah?” says SBF. “I would never read a book.” I’m not sure what to say. I’ve read a book a week for my entire adult life and have written three of my own. “I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actual…
I guess that explains a lot
No explanation necessary. Anyone paying attention knew this was a scam. SBF used his well connected parents to start a scam company.
He created back doors in his accounting software to hide money flows.
He hired his girlfriend (Harry Potter fan in her 20s) to be CEO of Alameda trading and transferred $10 billion in client funds for her to trade like it was their own money.
Declared bankruptcy and resigned as CEO yesterday.
Late last night someone pushed out new versions of the FTX website and apps with malware in them and stole $600 million worth of cryptocurrency which may be all that’s left of assets.
Tom Brady was a big investor. Sequoia. Ontario Teacher’s Pension. So many more.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/exclusive-least-1...
https://www.reuters.com/technology/ftx-says-it-is-investigat...
https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/2022/11/caroline-elli...
Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
#77There are some golden statements in the original Sequoia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20221027181005/https://www.sequo... For example, Sam's opinion on books: “Oh, yeah?” says SBF. “I would never read a book.” I’m not sure what to say. I’ve read a book a week for my entire adult life and have written three of my own. “I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actual…
I guess that explains a lot No explanation necessary. Anyone paying attention knew this was a scam. SBF used his well connected parents to start a scam company. He created back doors in his accounting software to hide money flows. He hired his girlfriend (Harry Potter fan in her 20s) to be CEO of Alameda trading and transferred $10 billion in client funds for her to trade like it was their own money. Declared bankrup…
Why is being a Harry Potter fan a pertinent detail? Plenty of people still like things they picked up when they were kids.
Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
#78He will get away clean.
IANAL. What's his defense?
I worked for an investment company that lost a lot of money once. The first thing we did was go visit the lawyer, who provided great relief for my boss.
Basically as long as you haven't broken the law or the contracts, you're ok. It's no different from "I bought some stuff that lost money".
That's the defense. I don't know anything about that rather large caveat in this case, but for that old boss it was clear since everything was exchange listed and there were never any movements of money other than to the clearing houses.
Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were all inexperienced is maybe the most plausible explanation. There was reported to be no board of directors and the CEO of the related proprietary trading firm Alameda was only a couple years out of school with one prior year of work experience as an entry level employee at Jane Street.
This is Alameda's CEO. https://youtu.be/aW6SqLXw944 Un fucking believable.
She's not any younger or more awkward than Vitalik Buterin and many people consider that guy to be some sort of boy-genius.
Re: FTX investor Sequoia removed its glowing profile of Sam Bankman-Fried
#80I would have been embarrassed to release it in the first case even if FTX were doing great. The investors were impressed that SBF was playing League of Legends during a fundraising meeting. They thought it was a good thing.
What I find especially amusing is that it is described as if Sam was somehow a genius for playing while talking in a meeting. It takes literally no intellectual effort to play a game once you’ve played it a lot, it’s like driving or eating. Only thing it shows is probably a high level of uncontrolled boredom/stress/anxiety that had to get out somehow. Hard to believe the “experts” at Sequoia and co fell for it.