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SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

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181–190 of 251 posts

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#181
post #82

The most interest aspect in the FTX saga, for me, is that SBF was treated very gently by major news outlets (and maybe by government regulators too)... until regular individuals in social media started asking: Why is SBF being treated so kindly? Why would journalists (and regulators) assume that SBF meant well? A possible answer that no one ever mentions is that SBF possesses many qualities that are valued and admire…

The establishment protects its own.

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#182
post #95
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he wasn't the type to go on tour and shout, then he wouldn't have attracted enough investors in the first place to be rich. It takes a specific personality to market things so others will buy, and that personality doesn't like to shut up and so won't. Some things sell themselves, but most great ideas sit around unknown by people who need them just because they don't know about it. I'd love to buy a better mousetra…

It worked to get him to a net worth of 100bn why wouldnt it work again.

Right, everything in his life up to this point has taught him that if he keeps talking he'll be able to convince anybody of anything. He convinced his series B investors to hand over $420 million in "investment" funds to FTX while he pocketed $300 million of that personally.

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#183
post #107
post #82

The most interest aspect in the FTX saga, for me, is that SBF was treated very gently by major news outlets (and maybe by government regulators too)... until regular individuals in social media started asking: Why is SBF being treated so kindly? Why would journalists (and regulators) assume that SBF meant well? A possible answer that no one ever mentions is that SBF possesses many qualities that are valued and admire…

> The most interest aspect in the FTX saga, for me, is that SBF was treated very gently by major news outlets (and maybe by government regulators too)... until regular individuals in social media started asking: Why is SBF being treated so kindly? Why would journalists (and regulators) assume that SBF meant well? I went through a few examples people brought up of journalists supposedly treating Bankman-Fried kindly t…

Your definition of "quite negative" and mine are very different. When it comes to situations like this (regarding a young man, his criminal misbehavior, and insitutional response to that behavior e.g., mass shooters), I generally go back to the New York Times' infamous characterization of Michael Brown - a black teenager shot dead in the street and in broad daylight, over a box of cigarillos, by a police officer with a checkered professional history - as "no angel" (among other declarations). If you can't muster something perhaps at least as critical for an older young man who has nuked a measure of wealth equivalent to about half the GDP of the country where his company was based (or, the total wealth of ~50,000 Americans at the median net worth; or, a few hundred million boxes of cigarillos), well... Maybe you're going easy on him.

It's naive to think that affinity is not influencing, if not driving, the way that journalists regard and write about their subjects.

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#184
post #82

The most interest aspect in the FTX saga, for me, is that SBF was treated very gently by major news outlets (and maybe by government regulators too)... until regular individuals in social media started asking: Why is SBF being treated so kindly? Why would journalists (and regulators) assume that SBF meant well? A possible answer that no one ever mentions is that SBF possesses many qualities that are valued and admire…

Or it just took some time to put the indictment together... I wonder which one is a simpler explanation...

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#185
post #8

I'll just quote part of what I said a month ago :) > And given what's leaked from their balance sheet, I don't see how people avoid jail time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33608691 I'll also add that SBF going on tour was the stupidest thing he could have done. Every time he spoke, he was giving the government more evidence. Hubris has often been the downfall of the rich and powerful throughout history. What'…

>like Musk and SBF I‘m sorry, but what ? Just to give some perspective that I don’t think HN really gets: most of my friends have increased their twitter usage. If you aren’t aware, whatever the team did there a few days ago really has appeared to cut bots down to almost 0. SBF is an [alleged] criminal who has [allegedly] defrauded people of billions of dollars, and will likely be spending a substantial amount of tim…

If we assume (big assumption) Musk has done everything right since the closing, he may still just be rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. His hubris got him stuck in a deal way over paying for Twitter. I think he thought he could run his mouth and get out of any real consequence like he's done every other time. Except this time he found out.

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#186
post #162
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arthur Hayes has written extensively [0] on these points. [0]: https://blog.bitmex.com/white-boy/

I hate the title. What if this was the other way round?

You have about 300+ years of history to rewrite before it could ever even approach being the other way around.

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#187
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for reference what Musk did is just blocked half the mobile carriers in emerging markets, kneecapping their ability to grow Twitter in those countries whilst only temporarily tamping down on bots. The bots will be back, the users won't.

Do you have a source on this?

https://www.platformer.news/p/how-elon-botched-his-war-on-bo...

> The project was part of Elon Musk’s attempt to rid Twitter of spam. But rather than work to remove individual offenders, the company identified mobile networks associated with large spam networks in specific countries, and blocked users who relied on those networks from receiving SMS messages from Twitter, impacting people with two-factor authentication. Then it blocked traffic from those carriers completely.

> From 5:35 AM to 6:45 AM PT on Sunday, Twitter shut down access to the primary telecom providers in India and Russia, as well as the second biggest telecom company in Indonesia, Platformer has learned.

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will his political donors have to give back the donations?

He is the donor. And, no, recipients of legal donations don’t have to give them back because they came from a bad person. (The illegal donations he seems to have admitted to might have to be given up, but that’s a separate legal issue.)

"The illegal donations he seems to have admitted to..."

Source?

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#189
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just to give some perspective that I don’t think HN really gets: most of my friends have increased their twitter usage. So your friends are using twitter more and you just assume everyone else does too? Have you considered that people who have other opinions exist and theirs is as valid as yours?

> Have you considered that people who have other opinions exist and theirs is as valid as yours? I think parent is saying the opposite. "Just to give some perspective that I don’t think HN really gets" Parent has seen several comments assuming everyone's leaving Twitter and Musk is destroying the platform and himself and will never recover. I, likewise, reading Reddit get the same feeling that some pockets think ever…

Everyone assumed my comment about hubris referred to how he's running Twitter now. I think what he's doing is dumb, but that's not my point. His biggest problem is he way overpaid, and saddled the company with a ton of debt. My hubris comment was referring to him talking big and signing a deal he never intended to follow through on. He could run Twitter perfectly and still be forced into bankruptcy by the end of '23. IMO, that's a very likely scenario.

Re: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]

#190
post #82

The most interest aspect in the FTX saga, for me, is that SBF was treated very gently by major news outlets (and maybe by government regulators too)... until regular individuals in social media started asking: Why is SBF being treated so kindly? Why would journalists (and regulators) assume that SBF meant well? A possible answer that no one ever mentions is that SBF possesses many qualities that are valued and admire…

Madoff was treated very gently for decades.

Incidentally, here's the list of real estate in the Bahamas purchased with FTX funds.[1] Here's the "Albany resort", where most of those properties are.[2]

There was discussion earlier about prosecutors having to prove criminal intent. Did this happen by accident, or were those guys stealing the money for their own benefit? It doesn't matter much what Bankman-Fried has been saying. When the prosecutors have to convince a jury of criminal intent, expect those pictures of the Albany resort to be shown. They didn't buy all those luxury condos with FTX funds by accident.

[1] https://restructuring.ra.kroll.com/FTX/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=...

[2] https://www.albanybahamas.com/

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