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Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

nytimes.com

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#471

Post by frob »

infogulch wrote: post #455

> These charges carry a maximum sentence of 110 years. Didn't HN recently conclude that calculating the 'maximum sentence' as the sum of sentences of the individual convictions is journalistic malpractice? Do better, NYT (they won't). Given that there were 7 charges and assuming all charges can be served in parallel that's a minimum sentence of ~15 years (why is left as an exercise to the reader).

Wait, hacker news is a single source that comes to definitive group conclusions? Where can I find these beliefs we all collective hold and adhere to written down?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#472

Post by stuartjohnson12 »

rsaxvc wrote: post #457
randycupertino wrote: post #320

I liked the article detailing how poorly he did on the stand: https://www.thefp.com/p/humiliating-cross-examination-sam-ba... “Did you say in private, ‘Fuck regulators?’ ” “Did you call some customers ‘dumb motherfuckers?’ ” “Did you fly to the Super Bowl in a private plane?” “Most FTX customers did not have a line of credit, correct?” “Do you deny that Alameda had a $65 billion line of credit?” And on, and on, and o…

> Under the circumstances, SBF’s wisest course would have been to just say yes—or yep—to her questions. Why did he take the stand at all?

Worst case: the situation doesn't get much worse than it already is

Best case: the situation gets substantially better

If you like to take risks, the answer is obvious.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#473

Post by fsckboy »

FFP999 wrote: post #393

> You’d think this MIT graduate would wise up, but he never did. The MIT campus has a major public road running through the middle of it, one of the busiest surface streets in the area. You don't have to stand there very long to see a crowd of students almost get hit by a car because they didn't look before they crossed the street. Point is, the old cliche is true, there really is such a thing as a person with a lot…

that "almost hit by car" anecdote is complete nonsense. There is plentiful jay-walking in Boston/Cambridge (just as there is in New York City, and has been recently legalized in California). To an outsider, perhaps it looks like people are dangerously walking into traffic?

But how many MIT students actually get hit by cars? the number would be unusually high if the number of close calls were unusually high, but without looking up any statistics I can assure you it's something nobody ever thinks twice about.

Also Mass Ave which tons of people cross is not the most highly trafficked street by MIT, that would be Memorial Drive, but hardly anybody even has a need to cross Memorial Drive so that part is also hinky.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#475

Post by wmf »

rideontime wrote: post #413
wmf wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's being debated in the bankruptcy court. Some creditors want to sell it off and others want to let it ride. Because this is crypto, some people want to issue a crypto token that represents claims on the estate.

That reminds me, it's been nearly two months now since we heard from either Kyle Davies or Zhu Su...

They ghosted their own creditors but somehow found the time to be interviewed for the new Bloomberg crypto documentary.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#476

Post by StressedDev »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #354

I'm curious about the political donations aspect of the story. Can a court force politicians who got money from FTX/SBF to give back to creditors?

In practice, I don't think it matters. Here is why:

1. The donations to candidates are usually pretty small (think $2,900/candidate). The candidates can return the money but getting all of the money back will not do much for the creditors.

2. Some PACs got a LOT of money (think millions of dollars). The problem is they probably already spent it. You can probably sue them to try to get back the money but the PACs will probably just declare bankruptcy.

Here is a link to the donations: https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=&cycle...

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#477

Post by infogulch »

retsibsi wrote: post #467
infogulch wrote: post #455

> These charges carry a maximum sentence of 110 years. Didn't HN recently conclude that calculating the 'maximum sentence' as the sum of sentences of the individual convictions is journalistic malpractice? Do better, NYT (they won't). Given that there were 7 charges and assuming all charges can be served in parallel that's a minimum sentence of ~15 years (why is left as an exercise to the reader).

> Given that there were 7 charges and assuming all charges can be served in parallel that's a minimum sentence of ~15 years (why is left as an exercise to the reader). Looks like your logic is 110/7 = ~15, therefore there must be at least one charge with a maximum sentence of at least ~15 years. But why does that imply a minimum sentence of ~15 years? He could get less than the maximum sentence for some or all of the…

Yes I assumed he would get the maximum sentence on all charges, which given optimal parallelism would be a minimum of 15 years (less optimal parallelism would mean more). But you're right that it's called a maximum sentence for a reason and that assumption may not be valid; thanks for the correction.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#478

Post by tptacek »

StressedDev wrote: post #462
tptacek wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite thing is going to happen in this case, and I'm sure you'll hear Ken on Serious Trouble saying the same thing next week (you can get Andrew McCarthy, another former AUSA, saying the same thing in the National Review today if you want that with a dash of anti-woke conservative racial politics). In basic economic crimes, sentences scale primarily with dollar losses, and FTX lost billions. He's going to do s…

Elizabth Holmes committed fraud, endangered lives, and harassed whistle blowers (one spent over $400,000 in legal fees fighting with Theranos). She only got 11 years and 3 months. I would not be surprised if Sam Bankman-Fried also got a fairly short sentence.

Madoff got 150 years. It comes down to the dollar amounts.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#480

Post by WXLCKNO »

newobj wrote: post #453
tombert wrote: post #448

This makes me very happy. I was honestly slightly worried that if I ever saw SBF in person, I would be unable to stop myself from kicking him in the nuts. Since I was a victim of the Winklevoss twins' GUSD unregistered security scam (Gemini Earn) [1], there has not been a day since ~November 2022 that I haven't wished something kind of bad happened to SBF. To be clear, I genuinely am not advocating for violence, but…

Totally normal post

What's wrong with wishing something bad happens or feeling like retribution towards someone who was the cause a large injustice towards you? It's a normal human emotion.
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