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Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

vox.com

121–130 of 401 posts

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#121
post #5

SBF is monumentally stupid for sending these messages. Straight up admitting that any "ethics" was for reputation only. And not only that, but saying that the mistake was not doubling down again.

I wonder if it's an attempt to disassociate himself with EA. The general consensus on EA forums is anger and shame at how generally good ideas like treating charitable donations as an investment based on impact have been essentially hijacked and longtermism pushed front and center too.

what is 'EA forums' ?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a silly idea that being the second largest donor to a political party in the US buys you special favors? Why else would anyone give that kind of money to politicians without expecting something in return?

Sure but FTX was throwing money to both parties https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/04/11/ftx-co-ceo-donate...

It’s unclear to me how that affects anything? If anything it lends credence to the idea that he was making these donations solely for special favors and not for altruistic reasons.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#123

SBF, his foundation and his family are well connected politically. NYT already did a bizarro puff piece on him, now Vox does this (which apparently directly received FTX foundation money). It’s absurd as he is essentially a well connected criminal. edit I do want to correct one thing - this is not a puff piece like the NYT one, actually it implicates him.

This and the NYT interview are not puff pieces. They are handing SBF the rope to hang himself with, putting his confession on the record.

Not sure what what the people pushing this narrative aren’t understanding.

If they wanted to protect him they would refuse to interview him and try to convince him not to speak to anyone but counsel about this.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#124
It this real? Is he really THAT stupid? His defense against "you took user deposits and gambled the money" is "No, I took user deposits, loaned them to myself and then gambled the money".

I mean this is like nested layers of stupidity. You'd be stupid to do this, you'd be stupid to think it's not a major crime, you'd be stupid to think that this was in any way acts as a defense of your crime and you'd be stupid to actually tell people that this is what you did thinking that it's a defense for the crime you committed.

Guy literally though that Ponzi schemes would be legal if only the perpetrators on the way to court wrote on a document "I hereby lend myself all the money I misappropriated"?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#125
post #76

SBF, his foundation and his family are well connected politically. NYT already did a bizarro puff piece on him, now Vox does this (which apparently directly received FTX foundation money). It’s absurd as he is essentially a well connected criminal. edit I do want to correct one thing - this is not a puff piece like the NYT one, actually it implicates him.

Having two professors as parents isn't exactly 'well connected politically'[1]. Two senators, or two billionaires would be. [1] I can't say I've ever felt that I was well-connected politically...

[deleted]

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#126
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You kind of went off the rails there in the final sentence. Are you saying that any of this adds credence to the silly idea that Democrats are beholden to SBF campaign money?

It’s a silly idea that being the second largest donor to a political party in the US buys you special favors? Why else would anyone give that kind of money to politicians without expecting something in return?

> Why else would anyone give that kind of money to politicians without expecting something in return?

Because they think the candidates they support will make the world better either personally for you or in a more general sense? Oil companies give money to manchin because they know he agrees with them and if he wins will fight for their legislation, whether they funded him or not.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#128
post #76

SBF, his foundation and his family are well connected politically. NYT already did a bizarro puff piece on him, now Vox does this (which apparently directly received FTX foundation money). It’s absurd as he is essentially a well connected criminal. edit I do want to correct one thing - this is not a puff piece like the NYT one, actually it implicates him.

Having two professors as parents isn't exactly 'well connected politically'[1]. Two senators, or two billionaires would be. [1] I can't say I've ever felt that I was well-connected politically...

Did your father work with legislators to try to pass laws?

“When I went to California to try to fight into it, I thought, ‘Well, there’s only 120 legislators. I’ll talk to them all one on one,'” Bankman said. “I found that in order to do it, I had to hire a lobbyist because I just couldn’t handle the details or get the meetings. In Congress, when I went there, now there’s 500 plus, and what I found everywhere I went is that Intuit had already preceded me. They’d already met every representative I was going to meet.”

Did your mother create a political fundraising organization?

“In 2018, the secretive Stanford-connected Democratic fundraising group Mind the Gap (MTG) funneled over $20 million toward competitive U.S. House of Representative elections and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) organizations. In 2020, MTG wants to increase that number to $140 million.

“MTG is led by Barbara Fried, the William W. and Gertrude H. Saunders Professor of Law; Paul Brest, an emeritus professor of law and director of the Law and Policy Lab; and Graham Gottlieb, a Stanford research affiliate. Of the three, Gottlieb has the most direct policy experience, having formerly served in junior roles in former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and in Obama’s White House.”

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#129
post #91

Not seeing much remorse here, but what can you expect from a guy that gambled with billions of dollars worth of people's savings. Don't buy that he didn't realize what they were doing until it was too late. He admits in this interview to lying about previous public positions, so wouldn't trust anything he says here either. I just hope crypto learns from this and normalizes Proof of Reserves

Proof of reserves only proves (for the sake of the argument let's assume it's an actual proof) the exchange has some amount of reserves, which is mostly meaningless. The quantity of interest is the share of deposits that are backed with reserves, not the absolute amount of reserves.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#130

> I was trying to make sense of what, behind the PR and the charitable donations and the lobbying, Bankman-Fried actually believes about what’s right and what’s wrong — and especially the ethics of what he did and the industry he worked in. This seems like a weird thing to worry about right now, I imagine my question would be "hey, where'd all the deposits go?" Like, I'm sure it's all interesting in a psychological a…

> I imagine my question would be "hey, where'd all the deposits go?"

But we know where they went. To Alameda Research. Then Alameda Research sent them somewhere else. The money isn't coming back, and Alameda Research's collateral of FTT tokens is worthless. So that's that, its done.

Its actually quite a simple story here. FTX lent the money to someone else (even if Alameda Research is also owned by SBF), and that other group lost the money.

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