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FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

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Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#241

Post by jandrese »

memish wrote: post #171
foobarian wrote: post #16

This whole mess makes me wonder, what if they did everything right, with proper accounting and compliance practices etc.? Would we have ended up with a successful crypto business that would advance the whole field forward? Perhaps Coinbase is an example of that, though maybe not as well known due to less drama?

Coinbase did all the right things with compliance and ethics, but went through hell because of their no politics at work stance. The media did hit pieces on their CEO because of it. He and Coinbase were villainized on social media. FTX and SBF avoided this and really any scrutiny by repeating the correct words and opinions, but were actually fraudulent under the surface. It goes to show how shallow it all is.

One thing that stands out is that SBF knows how to buy influence and was not shy in doing it. That paid off in spades. There are indications that government regulators knew he was a total fraud but were willing to look the other way because he was too influential.

His big mistake was making an enemy that was sitting on enough fake token to crash the exchange. Had SBF stayed on good terms with Changpeng Zhao FTX would still be around today and could probably have survived for many years.

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#242

Post by AlanYx »

three_seagrass wrote: post #130
ryandrake wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if those other reasons simply were the guy's background and pedigree. Silicon Valley is no different than Wall Street in its obsession with having the "right" educational background, having the "right" parents, having the "right" connections and so on. So many doors in corporate hiring can be bypassed with "Went to MIT" and "Stanford parents" and I wonder if they can also be bypassed by founders looking for…

That's at least one strong reason - VCs look at the person as much as the business. Crypto was filled with sleazy car-salesman "investor" types at the time Alameda Research was looking for funding. So when in came someone with a Jane Street background and not a single flashy Ferrari in their driveway, the dam broke on VCs finally being able to pour money into the crypto space on a decent looking founder.

Plus both his parents are professors at Stanford Law school. I can see VCs having a natural bias towards "it would be unlikely for someone with this pedigree to operate so completely outside the law".

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#243

Post by UncleOxidant »

digianarchist wrote: post #177
GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #113

To be honest: I'm just happy I get to experience another Enron, but this time I can watch it in real time on Twitter!

The Enron scandal would have been much more interesting if their CEO had tweeted through it.

He was probably too smart to incriminate himself like that.

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#244

Post by ceejayoz »

realist20222 wrote: post #228
SoftTalker wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious prison time for the executives involved would probably be more effective.

>> Serious prison time for the executives involved would probably be more effective. Top executives, especially well-connected ones never get prison time. Instead, you usually have Indian/Chinese scapegoats or someone equally disliked. The entire flash crash was blamed on a lone indian man living with his parents: https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-51265169 Nevermind Citadel, 2Sigma, Jane Street, Goldman Sachs The 2…

Never say never.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#245

Post by kevinventullo »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #144
itsoktocry wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but a16z's $350M investment in Adam Neumann's newest Thing makes me think that we are still flush with money ready to be thrown at anyone that has the connections to get a coffee chat in Sand Hill Road. They have loose morals. Kevin O'Leary, of Dragon's Den fame, who is now a creditor in the FTX bankruptcy (ie wiped out) recently said in an interview that he would invest with SBF again. The guy literally had money…

Tim Draper still supports Elizabeth Holmes: https://fortune.com/2022/01/05/venture-capital-tim-draper-el... I don't know how. Maybe he's just fucking stupid, or too prideful to admit he was wrong.

It may be less about pride and and more about reputation management. It’s the same reason Trump never admits he’s wrong; it’s simply not strategically beneficial to do so.

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#246

Post by jandrese »

mchaver wrote: post #227
_fat_santa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is Coinbase is the thing that FTX was claiming to be, a well run exchange. Looking back, them purchasing the naming rights to Miami's stadium and all the A list celebrities prompting it just added this fake layer of trust. It's very easy to see the celebrity endorsements, puff pieces and the companies name plastered over a stadium as endorsements of how solid the business is, after all, a bunch of kids…

> a bunch of kids I don't think we should refer to them as kids. It seems to absolve them of responsibility. Kids are given leniency when they do wrong. The FTX/Alameda people are adults that graduated from one of the highest ranked universities in the world. They are foolish, but not kids. Part of me wonders if there is media narrative that wants them to be referred to as kids because powerful people don't want them…

I think a lot of the "kids" narrative comes from the CEO that looks like jailbait. Most people weren't paying much attention to FTX before they exploded, and the first impression you get from looking at the "about us" pages is that they look like a bunch of teenagers, and this family of companies was worth billions out of nowhere. It is mind blowing that supposedly serious investors were tripping over themselves to dump money into this company.

I'm not saying that young people can't create great companies. Many big companies are started by young founders, but when there are no adults in the room at all it starts looking suspect.

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#247

Post by tedunangst »

jaywalk wrote: post #89
abluecloud wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And that those reasons are probably not good. what would those be?

Money laundering.

That's always the "next level" explanation for fraud, but how and why? What did Sequoia get out of this? Who's giving them dirty money?

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#248

Post by mstipetic »

bhouston wrote: post #213
tootie wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy who says regulations are dumb has no idea what he spent his money on or even how many employees he has. This guy is almost worse than Elizabeth Holmes.

I have a feeling he will come out worse that Elizabeth Holmes because it feels like a complete fraud and pilfering of their client's money for their own spoils. While Elizabeth ran a known fraud she didn't quite pilfer the money to completely enrich themselves like the FTX crew did.

And what will change because of this? Not much, the (VC) grift continues. People don’t want to accept that the VC model works while there’s a qualitative change in technology, which worked in the 2010’s and there hasn’t been any in a while. Maybe the new AI generative models bring something new

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#250

Post by SkyMarshal »

bhouston wrote: post #213
tootie wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy who says regulations are dumb has no idea what he spent his money on or even how many employees he has. This guy is almost worse than Elizabeth Holmes.

I have a feeling he will come out worse that Elizabeth Holmes because it feels like a complete fraud and pilfering of their client's money for their own spoils. While Elizabeth ran a known fraud she didn't quite pilfer the money to completely enrich themselves like the FTX crew did.

Also at least Elizabeth wasn't stupid enough to give an interview to Vox where she admitted everything was a fraud and then told the regulators to fuck themselves.

SBF's parents are both Stanford law professors, they or someone really needs to tell the kid to just stop talking.

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