Live data from Hacker News

Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex—And Maybe You Should Too

web.archive.org

31–34 of 34 posts

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex—And Maybe You Should Too

#31
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I met a drove of Jane Street interns who thought exactly the same way, in terms of "EV" or expected value It's interesting that you say that. When I read the article claiming that a trader should be neutral between $50 and $100 with 50%, I saw that as an oversimplification for dramatic effect. But what you describe seems like they actually thought like that, which strikes me as bizarre. If you lose your entire budg…

While Kelly style analysis makes sense for investors like Buffet or Dalio, who bet a significant portions of their wealth on certain positions, for Jane Street it doesn't make much sense. That is because Jane Street makes most of their money in millions of really small trades either in market making, arbitraging, or front-running other trades every day. For these, every trade, profitable or not, is necessarily a mini…

Haha, well it seems that overlooking the ruin probability is exactly what was missing from both SBF's effective altruism 'life calculus', as well as the risk management in his fund. It appears that he really inhaled the EV thinking that he learnt at Jane Street and took it to the extreme - and the outcome was exactly what basic stochastic process theory would have predicted.

That was really insightful, thanks for sharing that anecdote! The whole story would be worthy of a Greek tragedy - rise and fall of a kid blessed with an almost supernatural gift, with just a tiny yet catastrophic flaw - the proverbial Achilles heel.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex—And Maybe You Should Too

#32
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Kelly style analysis makes sense for investors like Buffet or Dalio, who bet a significant portions of their wealth on certain positions, for Jane Street it doesn't make much sense. That is because Jane Street makes most of their money in millions of really small trades either in market making, arbitraging, or front-running other trades every day. For these, every trade, profitable or not, is necessarily a mini…

Haha, well it seems that overlooking the ruin probability is exactly what was missing from both SBF's effective altruism 'life calculus', as well as the risk management in his fund. It appears that he really inhaled the EV thinking that he learnt at Jane Street and took it to the extreme - and the outcome was exactly what basic stochastic process theory would have predicted. That was really insightful, thanks for sha…

"supernatural gift"? He's probably smart, at least that's what his MIT degree would tend to show.. but supernatural because he took advantage of the price difference in Bitcoin between Japan and the USA? .. that was just taking advantage of what he was trained for on Jane Street, nothing supernatural there .. that worship for someone who makes money speculating is what shows the decay in our society .. for me someone with a supernatural gift is Newton for example ..

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex—And Maybe You Should Too

#33

Can society please stop worshiping idiots who were at the right place at the right time? I’m doubtful.

Precisely, that worship for those types of characters shows how pathetic our society is today, those people are the result of our collective aspirations, we are all guilty..

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex—And Maybe You Should Too

#34

To me, SBF embodied the worst stereotypes about the Effective Altruism movement. The not-so-subtle air of I'm-smarter-than-thou, the hubris to think whatever they have thought of haven't been thought and dismissed by others (probably for good reason), and a bull-headed focus on risk and return that can be exactly quantified, to the point of ignoring other, "softer" sides of the issue. Until I see stronger denouncemen…

It sounds good in theory, but now let's imagine the following scenario, after Meta kicked me out and I also lost all my savings in FTX, I'm totally broke, and I desperately need $50 to pay for the room in the miserable motel I'm staying, otherwise that same day they are going to kick me out into the street. I go to one of the few friends I have left, and the guy, which is a little sadistic, offers to give me that $50 right now, or give me $100 depending on what comes out on the flip of a coin ..
Post reply on HN