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Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

nytimes.com

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#781

Post by andsoitis »

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…

You need self-awareness, the ability to read the room, and the discipline to suppress your ego.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#782

Post by Cornbilly »

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

I agree

-Dresses like a slob

-Went to MIT

-Is from the Valley

-Has ties to Stanford

-Upper class background

Their VC brains didn’t stand a chance of sniffing this out.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#783

Post by muldvarp »

acaloiar wrote: post #780
paulgb wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Is front-running something you could/would do manually? The prosecution had access to the source code and git history of FTX.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#786

Post by thr0waw4yz »

biasedestimate wrote: post #737

I am as happy as anyone about arrogant half-smart crypto bros being called out as the frauds they are. It is still sad that a young person's life is taken away today. I don't think any type of nonviolent crime should get anyone a life sentence, especially not in a prison system as inhumane as in the US.

Who would have thought that Ross is followed by SBF.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#787

Post by tiahura »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #720
hintymad wrote: post #243

I was reading the trial report by Inner City Press. The AUSAs were incredibly thorough and strategic. The evidences were air-tight, the cross-examination was masterfully controlled with precision and incisiveness, and of course the closing argument was forceful. It was a great joy to read the report, as if I was watching an extended episode of The Good Fight. On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand…

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the AUSA's performance here was not particularly impressive. Yes, they constructed an airtight case, but to do that, they handed out immunity deals like candy to all of SBF's co-conspirators. Sure, they got their guy, but it almost looks like they wanted to craft a narrative that puts all of the blame on him. Because of that, several other huge fraudsters here (eg Carol…

[flagged]

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#788

Post by coldpie »

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…

> How was this compelling to people who control serious money?

Access to money, and intelligence, are not positively correlated. Jury is out on whether there is no correlation, or if there is negative correlation. Given the braindead antics of the wealthy over the past 10 years, I'm leaning towards the latter.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#789

Post by nvm0n2 »

meaningjoj wrote: post #716
bmitc wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The defense really had no option. Several of Bankman-Fried's previous defense teams quit on him due to his behavior. Even in this trial, during a session with just the judge, the defense made an objection to a question, the judge sustained it, but Bankman-Fried answered anyways. His own defense team asked him where had he been this entire trial because the objection was sustained, you didn't have to answer that. Bank…

This says something of culture of hubris that is so easily elevated to leadership positions in America's tech culture. It's nice to see one of these fail-bros get taken down. But two points remain. 1. Had they been able to sustain this Ponzi scheme to IPO, he would be celebrated as a tech-god, as opposed to facing hard time. 2. The VCs aren't required to disclose their sales of crypto. My guess is they made money of…

> in America's tech culture

To what extent were SBF and Ellison tech though? This trend of labelling more or less any new company that attracts VC funding as tech is bothersome. It's the mental loophole that allowed Adam Neumann to embezzle huge amounts of investor money too (but he did it "right" so gets away with it), by claiming that WeWork wasn't just an office leasing company but a tech platform. None of these people are engineers of any kind, none of them have developed any kind of new tech. They are just ordinary business types who run a business that happens to employ a few coders.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#790

Post by robertlagrant »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #666

The SBF "magic box" interview with Matt Levine where he casually describes yield farming as nothing more than a Ponzi scheme never gets old. https://www.ft.com/content/eac0e56c-f30b-4591-b603-f971e60dc...

This is why it's silly to say that the prosecution had an airtight case. It's like saying the winning fighter boxed perfectly, when actually the other one just kept smashing his own face into the ground.
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