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Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

nytimes.com

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#771

Post by FFP999 »

shever73 wrote: post #589
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…

> there really is such a thing as a person with a lot of book-learning but less common sense than a sea slug I don't even think SBF had the book-learning, just intellectual arrogance. "I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you f---ed up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post."

As I mention in a thread below I'm using "book-smart" as a concise idiomatic way of saying "educated and talented in a traditional academic field", such as mathematics in this case. Kind of unfortunate that I had forgotten that SBF is not actually a big reader. But he did graduate from MIT: perhaps they'll let him hang his diploma on the wall of his cell.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#772

Post by ActionHank »

the_snooze wrote: post #764
zztop44 wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole Sequoia thing is so interesting. Here is an excerpt from their (now taken down) profile of SBF, highlighting the moment he convinced them to invest: > That’s when SBF told Sequoia about the so-called super-app: “I want FTX to be a place where you can do anything you want with your next dollar. You can buy bitcoin. You can send money in whatever currency to any friend anywhere in the world. You can buy a ban…

I think the practical business/technical goals are almost irrelevant. It's not that SBF had a brilliant business model in mind. It's that he fit the "look" of a founder that those VCs expected. He was one of them, with the right pedigree and right connections. It's affinity fraud [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud

Crazy thing is that the people who bring about massive change or revolutionary new ideas don't often fit the mould.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#773

Post by strikelaserclaw »

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…

No one said smart people need to have wisdom

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#775

Post by ActionHank »

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…

I genuinely think none of them thought he would be convicted, because you know, the judicial system punishes the poors, not the wealthy.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#776

Post by mschuster91 »

zztop44 wrote: post #750
lubesGordi wrote: post #739

Sequoia invested $200M in this guy. Has anyone looked at whether SBF could've done as much damage without that investment? Has anyone looked at if Sequoia did their due diligence? Seems like Sequoia could've seen red flags just from knowing Alameda existed. The potential abuse there was completely obvious.

The whole Sequoia thing is so interesting. Here is an excerpt from their (now taken down) profile of SBF, highlighting the moment he convinced them to invest: > That’s when SBF told Sequoia about the so-called super-app: “I want FTX to be a place where you can do anything you want with your next dollar. You can buy bitcoin. You can send money in whatever currency to any friend anywhere in the world. You can buy a ban…

> Like, he’s rambling about how you should buy bananas with Bitcoin. How was this compelling to people who control serious money?

Everyone and their dog was looking for an actually credible, mass-market compatible usage scenario for Bitcoin beyond buying drugs on Silk Road.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#777

Post by dvt »

the_snooze wrote: post #764
zztop44 wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole Sequoia thing is so interesting. Here is an excerpt from their (now taken down) profile of SBF, highlighting the moment he convinced them to invest: > That’s when SBF told Sequoia about the so-called super-app: “I want FTX to be a place where you can do anything you want with your next dollar. You can buy bitcoin. You can send money in whatever currency to any friend anywhere in the world. You can buy a ban…

I think the practical business/technical goals are almost irrelevant. It's not that SBF had a brilliant business model in mind. It's that he fit the "look" of a founder that those VCs expected. He was one of them, with the right pedigree and right connections. It's affinity fraud [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud

To be fair, FTX had decent traction and Alameda had been successful in the past. I think it's easy to say "pass" on SBF now that we know he's a crook, but there are genuine legitimate exchanges out there that are worth plenty. Coinbase, in the middle of a bear, has a market cap of $20B (it was valued at more than $80B in early 2021).

SBF was just a thief and a gambler, and an incompetent one, at that. I still think Sequoia does have some responsibility here, but I suppose my point is only that hindsight is always 20/20.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#778

Post by cedws »

skriticos2 wrote: post #675
berniedurfee wrote: post #670

So what’s the final outcome? A long prison sentence or a few years hanging out on appeal followed by a few years in a low security federal penitentiary and a long career doing speaking engagements and appearances? Holmes got 9 years, but her actions had severe real world effects on people. Is that the ceiling for SBF?

This is just the conviction. Sentencing is sometime end of March next year. But considering that he was found guilty on all accounts and after the mess he was making during the trial, his sentence will most likely be no good news for him. He is also kind of being made an example of to encourage more due diligence in the industry. Being bad at business is one thing, but handling billions without basic risk management…

For someone unfamiliar with law, why is sentencing at a later date and not immediate? Does SBF just get to roam free for 5 months in the meantime?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#779

Post by tim333 »

Ographer wrote: post #742

A reddit post called out SBF as a fraud 2 years ago and no one on the Bitcoin subreddit believed them! https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/p1oqqu/the_ceo_of_...

The poster accused SBF of front running his customers but comments underneath seem skeptical:

>Clearly OP has no fucking clue what he’s talking about because the videos in question don’t prove he’s front running.

>The Youtube video you linked to (I watched some from the point you linked), appears to be about trading an arb opportunity that existed because of a large sell wall on Binance. Where does it show he's using 'private FTX analytics' to 'front run his customers'?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#780

Post by acaloiar »

paulgb wrote: post #751
Ographer wrote: post #742

A reddit post called out SBF as a fraud 2 years ago and no one on the Bitcoin subreddit believed them! https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/p1oqqu/the_ceo_of_...

Good find, but worth noting that this is accusing him of front-running when what he actually did was dumber and more criminal: using FTX customer deposits to cover losses on the Alameda side.

I imagine SBF's charges are more serious than a front-running charge. The prosecution also may not have had sufficient evidence of front-running to get the charges to stick.

But any exchange in such close company with a hedge fund should always be suspected of front-running. There's an inherent conflict of interest between those two entity types. And I would be surprised if Alameda wasn't front-running FTX customers, given both firm's obvious ethical shortcomings.

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