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Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#261

Post by encryptluks2 »

molsongolden wrote: post #253
encryptluks2 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes and that's a great analogy because it's possible that your person driving the new sports car did not intentionally get drunk and drive into a crowd of people. Most people wouldn't call that driver a sociopath who intentionally murdered a crowd of people, they'd say "wow, that person made a couple of really poor decisions and they really messed up and ended up ruining a lot of lives".

You do realize that states recognize ignoring the risk means that person was intentional and they are convicted of murder? Anything can be seen as a poor choice. By your logic Hitler made really poor decisions and ended up ruining a lot of lives.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#263

Post by Quarrelsome »

expazl wrote: post #222
Imnimo wrote: post #203

The obvious conclusion here is that SBF is just a cynical but skilled manipulator. But then why send these DMs at all - surely a skilled manipulator would know better, or could at least present himself in a positive light? Maybe all those stimulants have taken their toll. Or he's totally given up.

> surely a skilled manipulator would know better, or could at least present himself in a positive light? My bet is that he lost his back country. He was until recently the front-person for a hugely successful enterprise who donated money extremely broadly. Back then he could have yelled "I run a goddamn ponzi scheme" into the loudspeaker of huge credible news outlets and they would have edited to "Master genius is go…

are we agreeing with his point that morality comes second to winning?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#264

Post by _dain_ »

harry8 wrote: post #116

SBF has used at least one cpu attached to a network on the critical path of his actions. Will this be enough to cause people to be stupid enough to let his powerful and connected family and friends get him off light? People in positions of power seem to get awfully stupid when there's a cpu attached to the network on the critical path. Madoff, no cpu on the network on the critical path. All understandable and could h…

what

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#265

Post by ufo »

viscanti wrote: post #258
burkaman wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

He built a special backend endpoint so he could move money from FTX to Alameda without triggering any oversight or audits. They have him on fraud.

Or maybe it's just a hidden, poorly internally labeled fiat@ account, with a negative balance of 8bn dollars? (sic)

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#266

Post by Tao3300 »

chrchang523 wrote: post #24
boeingUH60 wrote: post #11

Jesus Christ…does this guy not know that you should keep quiet when you’re the subject of a criminal investigation from multiple government agencies?

This is further evidence that he was thinking of this in terms of all-or-nothing coin flips. In case you haven't seen it: COWEN: Okay, but let’s say there’s a game: 51 percent, you double the Earth out somewhere else; 49 percent, it all disappears. Would you play that game? And would you keep on playing that, double or nothing? BANKMAN-FRIED: With one caveat. Let me give the caveat first, just to be a party pooper, w…

I feel like the next question is, "the tortoise lies there, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over, but it cannot do so without your help. You are not helping. Why?"

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#267

Post by suresk »

superfrank wrote: post #223
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…

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…

I have worked in plenty of fast-moving and chaotic environments, and while I can see some stuff slipping through the cracks, it is hard to see something so core to your business getting this bad without realizing it.

Like, if you are releasing financial documents and a large entry is "HIDDEN POORLY INTERNALLY LABELED ACCOUNT.", it is hard to explain that without getting into outright malice or negligence so extreme that it is difficult to differentiate from malice. Even rudimentary reviews of their finances would have highlighted stuff like this, and they clearly had money to pay people to help them do it.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#268

Post by chris_wot »

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.

It’s a financial exchange. These guys think they are so smart, they don’t even need an accountant.

I’m still trying to understand why investors would entrust their money with them. Why did the press fawn all over him? He talked a big game, but so have literally hundreds of others!

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#269

Post by expazl »

superfrank wrote: post #223
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…

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…

Yes, I get what you're saying. At our old startup we didn't setup a bank account either, why bother, we just had investors deposit the money into our CEOs trading account, seemed easier that way.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#270

Post by tshaddox »

lazide wrote: post #238
bb88 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying is that a defense for fraud is stupidity? Oh dear god, it can't be that simple can it?

A large class (but not all!) of crime requires ‘mens rea’ or a guilty mind. If you can plausibly convince everyone, for instance, that you legitimately thought that the car you got into and drove away was your car, then you didn’t commit car theft. Good luck with that 99.9% of the time of course. This is in comparison to strict liability crimes, like drug possession or statutory rape that don’t require knowledge or i…

I'm no legal expert, but surely this requirement of mens rea doesn't actually require the defendant to know the specific law that they are violating. Surely it just requires that the defendant knows the basic facts of their actions that cause their actions to qualify as illegal under the law. In other words, if it's illegal to loan user deposits to yourself and gamble the money, and he knew that he was loaning user deposits to himself and gambling the money, then doesn't that count as mens rea even if he didn't know that it was illegal?
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