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

Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 401 posts

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#241

Post by Dopameaner »

notch656a wrote: post #182
moralestapia wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judges won't side with him, like, at all. >The point is to argue that he was sloppy or inattentive, not a fraudster. If that's going to be his strategy there's still a lot of laughs to have at his expense. If only it were that easy, "oh I didn't knew I was crossing the border with a hundred pounds of cocaine in my car", like, how come they never thought of THAT? LOL

Is that not a valid defense? It's my understanding it's not uncommon for criminals to plant stuff on a marks car and then secretly grab it after it crosses the border. Possession of something should require your intent to control/keep it or at least knowledge it exists.

Maybe could get away with light sentencing If it was few billionaire investors. I don't see how he doesn't get life for screwing so many investors.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#242

Post by s1k3 »

roywiggins wrote: post #193
SilverBirch wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is... journalism. You can't text a fraudster in the bahamas and say "Hey, why are you so shit". You have to text "Hey, you're a precious flower with a special story" and then they tell you why they're shit. There's very clearly a level where SBF feels safe to talk honestly, in a self-incriminating way to a friend, where that friend is actually a reporter working for Vox.

Oh absolutely, it's just weird when that tone leaks into the text of the article. A sort of winking style that expects the reader to read between the lines, which is fine as far as it goes! But imagine beginning an article about Bernie Madoff in the weeks after his Ponzi's collapse pretending that you just wanted to learn more about his ethical principles.

It’s an earnest attempt at staying as unbiased as possible. If you go into an interview believing one thing and structuring all of you questions with that supposition you are far more likely to get the answer you want as oppose to whatever the reality is.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#243

Post by encryptluks2 »

molsongolden wrote: post #218
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #148

Author: "so the ethics stuff - mostly a front?" SBF: "yeah" Absolutely gobsmacked. I saw these screenshots on Twitter and I thought they were fake until I read the article. The rest of the messages from him are pretty terrible as well. I thought he just fucked up, but no. He was wilfully unethical and maintains he did nothing wrong: "Sometimes life creeps up on you". And the thing he regrets most is filing for Chapte…

He doesn't say he thinks it is okay to act unethically, he says that in general acting unethically doesn't matter the way he previously said it did because public perception is shaped more by winning than it is by whether the winner was ethical or unethical. Elsewhere in the DMs he says "I didn't want to do sketchy stuff [...] and I didn't mean to" and "it as never the intention". None of this reads like bombshell le…

Wow...

> He comes across as maybe terrible or maybe someone who played a little too fast and loose with an explosively growing business of which he lost control.

Same type of statement would be like... They came across as maybe terrible or maybe someone who just had a few too many drinks and then lost control of a new sports car that they were not familiar with and accidentally drove into a crowd of people.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#244

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

molsongolden wrote: post #218
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #148

Author: "so the ethics stuff - mostly a front?" SBF: "yeah" Absolutely gobsmacked. I saw these screenshots on Twitter and I thought they were fake until I read the article. The rest of the messages from him are pretty terrible as well. I thought he just fucked up, but no. He was wilfully unethical and maintains he did nothing wrong: "Sometimes life creeps up on you". And the thing he regrets most is filing for Chapte…

He doesn't say he thinks it is okay to act unethically, he says that in general acting unethically doesn't matter the way he previously said it did because public perception is shaped more by winning than it is by whether the winner was ethical or unethical. Elsewhere in the DMs he says "I didn't want to do sketchy stuff [...] and I didn't mean to" and "it as never the intention". None of this reads like bombshell le…

Most non-sociopaths would experience a huge amount of shame/stress from stealing billions of dollars from trusting people and losing it. SBF shows none of that.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#245

Post by azylman »

burkaman wrote: post #152
expazl wrote: post #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 ac…

For FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, incompetence could be a legal strategy - https://www.axios.com/2022/11/16/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-incom... > Lawyers tell Axios the main criminal risk Bankman-Fried faces is an indictment on charges of fraud — one of the more common charges in white-collar prosecutions. But to convict, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone had knowledge or intent to commit fraud, whi…

There's an important nuance there which is that they don't have to prove that the person knew the actions they were taking were illegal, just that they intended to take those actions. As an example:

Knowingly driving a car someone else stole is illegal, even if you don't actually know it's a crime to drive a car someone else stole (after all you didn't steal it, maybe you bought it from the person). Driving a car that was stolen that you didn't know was stolen is not illegal.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#246

Post by molsongolden »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #244
molsongolden wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't say he thinks it is okay to act unethically, he says that in general acting unethically doesn't matter the way he previously said it did because public perception is shaped more by winning than it is by whether the winner was ethical or unethical. Elsewhere in the DMs he says "I didn't want to do sketchy stuff [...] and I didn't mean to" and "it as never the intention". None of this reads like bombshell le…

Most non-sociopaths would experience a huge amount of shame/stress from stealing billions of dollars from trusting people and losing it. SBF shows none of that.

He says in the DMs that the most important thing in his life now is making customers whole and returning their funds.

"that's basically all that matters for the rest of my life"

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#247

Post by BrainVirus »

expazl wrote: post #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 ac…

>It this real? Is he really THAT stupid?

No, it's media damage control. Gets you to think about unverifiable stuff like personal motivation instead of what his company actually did.

It revelatory that VOX interviews him instead of investigating him.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#248

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

molsongolden wrote: post #246
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most non-sociopaths would experience a huge amount of shame/stress from stealing billions of dollars from trusting people and losing it. SBF shows none of that.

He says in the DMs that the most important thing in his life now is making customers whole and returning their funds. "that's basically all that matters for the rest of my life"

Are you f'ing kidding me, taking this at face value?

Note in other tweets he said he was trying to "raise capital". The man is likely going to prison for years, he is either delusional or trying to promote his delusions to pretend the he didn't know what he was doing was wrong.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#249

Post by mongol »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #148

Author: "so the ethics stuff - mostly a front?" SBF: "yeah" Absolutely gobsmacked. I saw these screenshots on Twitter and I thought they were fake until I read the article. The rest of the messages from him are pretty terrible as well. I thought he just fucked up, but no. He was wilfully unethical and maintains he did nothing wrong: "Sometimes life creeps up on you". And the thing he regrets most is filing for Chapte…

I think there is a word for it. Sociopath.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#250

Post by superfrank »

ceejayoz wrote: post #240
superfrank wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This text resonates with me a bit: > like, "oh FTX doesn't have a bank account, I guess people can wire to Alameda's to get money on FTX" > ..3 years later.. > 'oh fuck it looks like people wired $8b to Alameda and oh god we basically forgot about the stub account that corresponded to that and so it was never delivered to FTX' I'm not trying to defend his actions him and I think he should be prosecuted to the fullest…

If they could afford to hire an on-staff performance coach, they probably could and should have hired an on-staff accountant to manage literally billions of dollars rather than having the CEO put things in a spreadsheet.

Agreed. He absolutely could have caught this if he had cared to, but my guess is he was too caught up in the "move fast and break things" mindset to really give a shit and that's why I fully support him going to jail for this.

I don't think he intentionally lost peoples' money, but I think he was intentionally reckless and for that reason he should be prosecuted.

Post reply on HN