Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

Post by starcraft2wol » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:36 PM UTC

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

Post by FFP999 » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

mnky9800n wrote: post #643

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…

I typically think that what makes MIT the greatest is their marketing department. They do a lot of great things, but what they do best is telling everyone that they are the best.

Post by ToucanLoucan » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:41 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #788

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…

> 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.

Post by FFP999 » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

jwmoz wrote: post #659

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…

I think a lot of the time he couldn't control his autism.

Post by cj » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

Brushfire wrote: post #754

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…

There is this weird thing in venture investing: the line between "crazy, brilliant founders who will build world changing companies" and "crazy, lunatic founders who will lie and cheat and be awful" is very hard to distinguish, especially at the series seed/series A level. It can lead to false positives and false negatives all the time.