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What was the exact moment the fraud began? What should he have done instead?
This fraud became worse the more negative the balance became since it became more and more misleading to users to continue to present themselves as a financially healthy business.
What they should have done instead is to not allow alameda to have an account with special rules and negative balances, and to actually operate their business as they claimed. They likely would have grown less quickly or even gone out of business, but sometimes the way you avoid fraud is indeed by going bankrupt instead of lying.
They also could have not lied to users, both about the status of alameda's account, and about the status of FTX's liquidity. Each time they made a statement about their exchange that excluded that materially relevant information was also fraud.
I do say all of this with full awareness that a large fraction of YC startups also "fake it until they make it", i.e. lie about what their product can do, lie about their financials, etc. Most YC startups are also committing fraud on a much smaller scale, and just manage to keep the scale small enough that no one goes to prison.
Interestingly, FTX made a $500 million USD investment in Anthropic; supposedly, this was made while Anthropic was valued at $4.6 billion (unconfirmed). Now, Anthropic is nearing $30 billion. Anyone know the latest on this? Is FTX going to sell that stake off to pay back the debts? [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-bankman-frieds-anthropic...
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> 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…
Perhaps the fact that his wealthy Stanford lawyer parents have always provided ample bubble wrap around him his whole life that has internalized making excuses for things and being used to getting wrapped in more bubble wrap rather than face negative consequence.
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…
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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…
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Out of curiosity, were you given the option of giving a deposition instead of taking the witness stand?
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Random boredom-browsing took me to this article: https://www.gu.se/en/gnc/defendants-with-autism-spectrum-dis...
> A defendant with ASD may shift the topic of the court discussions to a topic which is of interest to them and it can be difficult for anyone to interrupt them. The interest may be one of the individual’s preoccupations. Jurors may perceive this behaviour as an indication that the defendant is deliberately being evasive and trying to avoid answering the question that has been asked of them. As mentioned earlier, they may also go into excessive and unnecessary detail (and often at great length) when asked a question. Their responses may, in addition to being detailed and lengthy, it can also be repetitive
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Like some (most?) of us here, I've got ASD too; I've been in court too, though only as a small-claims plaintiff (got a default judgement against no-show defendent with a negative net-worth, fun...); and yeah, I remember putting a lot of details into what I said in court and the judge seeming annoyed with me - but I thought it was all relevant (still, the judge said I would have won anyway even if it wasn't a default judgement...).
But yeah - if I was was ever a criminal defendent, the prosecution would probably let me talk myself into a trap - or something. Stuff like that makes me think I should intentionally play-up the autism instead of trying to act normal, to clearly demonstrate to the jury that I'm far more of a social-idiot than a cold sociopath.
Curious: why does the legal system work for some and not for others. Eg: how come this guy is convicted but trump walk free especially after Jan 6th? Does the legal system also fall prey to money ? ie the better your representatives the Better they can argue for you. And the better ones cost a lot of Money so essentially the people with money have higher odds of succeeding in such a legal system?