SBF scheduled to testify tomorrow at US House hearing on FTX collapse

Is there really that much of a difference between these two in this financial context?

The same is true of Subversion or CVS or Perforce, which are all very centralized source control systems. Relying on Github.com itself is another level of centralization over and above the near-universal industry pattern of having a centralized repo.

> I agree though, in theory, git would allow some fully p2p working mode, where each developer just adds the machines of the other developers as remotes and there is no "authoritative" remote at all. If that was ever seriously proposed as a real working mode, it definitely didn't catch on, due to it quickly becoming extremely confusing.

That is more or less how Linux kernel development works, with Linus' own repo just being more respected than others, but with many entities maintaining their own central repos (e.g. many distros and larger organizations only manually take patches or merges from Linus' repo, they don't otherwise rely on it in their automation). Changes are often collaboratively worked on for months or even years outside in sine of these repos before being sent to one of the official maintainers for inclusion in Linus' repo.

Now, this practice makes no sense at all for a centralized entity like a company, which is why virtually all companies used centralized repos where all code and collaboration happens by mandate - whether using Hg, Git, or SVN.

Yes and I think that was an image he actively sought to cultivate. This is the whole "cult of the genius" trope that the VC's want us to believe in. This is where you hear people regurgitating things like "he's playing 3D chess", whatever that is means.

Perhaps a telling bit of this chicanery is this incident:

>"In this context, the most telling detail in the FTX saga doesn’t have to do with dubious tokens or suspicious accounting. Rather, it involves League of Legends, the massive multiplayer online game that is a favorite of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. In September, the tech venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital published a profile of “SBF” on its website, explaining how the crypto prodigy convinced the firm to invest some $200 million during a Zoom meeting—while playing League of Legends the whole time."[1]

Further from this same source:

>"What’s significant isn’t just that the now 30-year-old entrepreneur didn’t think it necessary to give the deal his full attention. It’s that Sequoia published this detail in an article meant to advertise its FTX investment. (The article was taken down after the firm began to collapse in early November.) Far from seeing Mr. Bankman-Fried’s gaming as a worrisome example of distraction and disrespect, Sequoia was impressed by it and expected readers to have the same reaction."[1]

[1] https://archive.vn/AiEEO#selection-243.48-247.34

Because he wasn't expected their balance sheet to get leaked.

He had enough liquidity from FTX customer deposits to cover any Alameda margin calls from losses and Alameda wouldn't get margin called from FTX for any losses (due to their god mode).

So, he could keep just keep holding levered losses and wait for the tide to turn.

However, the FTX balance sheet got leaked and that caused CZ to want to liquidate his FTT stake.

This caused a huge wave of customers wanted to withdraw their money from FTX just in case (a very smart decision in retrospect) and he didn't expect that many customer withdrawals to come at once.

Or, maybe he thought he'd be fine if 10-20% of customers withdrew (in a worst case scenario) because he could sell the FTT "collateral".

But, the price of FTT also collapsed simultaneously and that caused the ponzi to fall apart.

Edit:

Or sorry, do you mean he should've cashed out and disappeared last month (after it was revealed that FTX lost all the customer deposits)?

Yeah, I don't think that's possible.

He would've been on the FBI most-wanted list and multiple intelligence agencies would be looking for him.

Having a billion dollars is pretty pointless if you're a top 10 most wanted criminal. Unless you have a country that's explicitly willing to shelter you, then you can't really spend the money otherwise you'll give yourself away.

Also, I don't think he's a complete psychopath. Him just disappearing would force his parents/siblings to also have to become fugitives and I don't think he wanted that. (if he disappeared, he would not be able to talk to his family again as aiding a fugitive from justice is illegal. Also, it would be completely impossible for his parents to live normal-ish lives if their son was on the FBI top 10 most wanted list. It's slightly more possible if their son is in prison.)

Near as I can tell, it’s the rationalizing part of the mind trying to protect them by trying to convince themselves and everyone else they are actually not bad.

It’s why it is so important to ignore what people say, and look at what they are doing and the results of their actions over time.