Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is called countersignaling. Basically, if everybody else invests into doing X and somebody conspicuously does not, it's taken as a signal that they're so good that they don't need to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersignaling
There is an episode of the Silicon Valley series where the team tries to increase their VC funding by becoming increasingly toxic and abusive with the VCs they meet, and they end up signing with the biggest offer they got, after one of them literally puts his genitals on the table during negotiation. Turns out this was hitting very close to the truth. That show was great to show how much a clown world SV can be.
FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
401–410 of 451 posts
Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
No one cares about their politics one way or the other, they simply have much higher fees than their competitors.
It's easier to attract customers with lower fees when you don't intend to return the principal?
Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Poorly labeled account"? Like, he claims he forgot some liabilities existed? With about the same size as their customers' founds?
Not only that, but these liabilities are likely only a chunk of the customer’s funds (hence “fiat”). A lot more data is missing. Indeed, from John J. Ray III’s declaration[0]: > The Dotcom Silo Debtors may have significant liabilities to customers through the FTX.com platform. However, such liabilities are not reflected in the financial statements prepared by these companies while they were under the control of Mr. B…
Thanks. That Vox piece is super cringey - I'm sure his lawyers are thrilled.
So, this case may be the first high-profile exercise in cryptocurrency-forensic-accounting. Let the paperclips fly.
Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
> He either doesn't have lawyers... His parents are both lawyers! And law professors! Specializing in compliance and ethics!
This blame game again. Look, the universe is a deterministic machine. SBF or his mom and dad are no more to blame than you were when you accidentally squashed a bug walking this morning! Should we start taking everyone to account for their actions? Where will this end?
I don't blame them. It's just a darkly hilarious juxtaposition.
Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
This blame game again. Look, the universe is a deterministic machine. SBF or his mom and dad are no more to blame than you were when you accidentally squashed a bug walking this morning! Should we start taking everyone to account for their actions? Where will this end?
I don't blame them. It's just a darkly hilarious juxtaposition.
(drum drum):
Barbara H. Fried aka mom, Beyond Blame, 2013:
https://nitter.net/ShellenbergerMD/status/159311376898027520...
Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that's how unsophisticated these VC operations are then I think we'll see a lot of them lose their shirts in the coming macroeconomic environment. Which will consequently make future funding rounds all the more difficult.
Unless the Fed blinks.
The closer to an election, the more likely the case
Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There’s a middle ground. He wasn’t a prophet but he wasn’t nobody either. He was a leading non-academic figure/celeb of EA that didn’t get too much pushback. That's the non-controversial opinion, but where does this leave OP's comment? Should we push back more on billionaires in movements? Should we assume that everyone who's in movements is in it for cynical reasons? Or maybe only billionaires? A new yorker article…
> Should we assume that everyone who's in movements is in it for cynical reasons? This is an all-or-nothing fallacy. Perhaps we should view facially "altruistic" movements much more skeptically. Indeed in hindsight it seems like membership is much more advantageous for virtue signaling than for being more "effective" with your altruism (is it really so hard to figure out who will do the most good with your money?)
>This is an all-or-nothing fallacy.
And you refusing to quote the rest of my comment (which contains proposals that aren't "all-or-nothing") is... some sort of fallacy that I'm too lazy to look up.
>Perhaps we should view facially "altruistic" movements much more skeptically.
And how would being more skeptical have helped in this case? The New Yorker article described Bankman-Fried as being involved with EA since his MIT days. He was donating half his salary while working at Jane Street. His charitable activities when he was running FTX is a logical continuation of this. By all reasonable measures at the time, he wasn't doing it for "virtue signaling".
>Indeed in hindsight it seems like membership is much more advantageous for virtue signaling than for being more "effective" with your altruism (is it really so hard to figure out who will do the most good with your money?)
Is there a reason why effective altruists are being singled out here? Everything you said could be applied to all charitable giving.
Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
> FTX’s list of investors spans powerful and well-known investment firms: NEA, IVP, Iconiq Capital, Third Point Ventures, Tiger Global, Altimeter Capital Management, Lux Capital, Mayfield, Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital, SoftBank, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Ribbit Capital, Temasek Holdings, BlackRock and Thoma Bravo. - https://archive.ph/1tjP5 This is an extraordinary number of high-profile companies which eithe…
There's a third option: FOMO. They didn't want to look stupid later for failing to invest in case FTX turned out to be the next big thing, so they took a gamble.
I think that's a very good point. Though also think if I was doing a sort of PhD dissertation exploring the different aspects of malfeasance vs. incompetence that FOMO might ultimately be found as some flavor of incompetence. Though also have a dotted line in the tree diagram leading over to some branch of malfeasance as well.
Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dead simple: Many VC's aren't very smart and/or ethical. How many major Silicon Valley scandals are VCs involved in? 100%. And for the most part they get a pass. This end of the era of easy money is going to reveal that many of the "geniuses of our time" are nothing of the like.
The stuff that Sequoia said about him is almost unreal. They talked like he was going to be the greatest entrepreneur in human history. All because he exploited a momentary arbitrage in Japanese Bitcoin exchanges. Then they gave him shitloads of money and acceded to not getting board seats. I honestly wonder if they were that trusting or they just wanted to maintain deniability.
The pitch deck you give to Sequioa partners is not a description of your current business. It's a proof of concept that shows how much the market you're entering is worth and a long term vision of how you can carve a significant piece out of it.
So you don't go in saying "hey look we can make a trillion dollars doing arbitrage between American, Japanese and Korean exchanges." You go in showing that your work doing the former proved the existence of a massive market for crypto securities and derivatives, and how you're uniquely positioned to capitalize on that market.
And if they believe in the existence of that market and the founders are able to execute they'll invest.
That's what they mean about investing in founders and teams.
Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
These frauds can continue so long as they can continue to grow or at least maintain a steady state. Since they promise higher returns than can be achieved through honest means the liabilities grow faster than assets over time, but so long as nobody tries to realize their gains it's fine. FTX only came down because they pissed off the Binance guy who dumped his position all at once and exposed the fraud. I'm dubious T…
> These frauds can continue so long as they can continue to grow or at least maintain a steady state. Since they promise higher returns than can be achieved through honest means the liabilities grow faster than assets over time, but so long as nobody tries to realize their gains it's fine. Honestly this sort of comment makes me want to stop reading hacker news comments sections altogether. Could you explain what retu…
It didn't matter if those holdings weren't making returns, because they were all connected to a Ponzi scheme that was siphoning off the money from the rest of the company.
https://www.theblock.co/post/186187/alameda-promised-high-re...
15% returns, guaranteed, no risk.