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Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#81

Post by [deleted] »

Jasper_ wrote: post #4
650 wrote: post #3

>Bailhe remembers it the same way: “We had a great meeting with Sam, but the last question, which I remember Alfred asking, was, ‘So, everything you’re building is great, but what is your long-term vision for FTX?’” >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 currenc…

"you can exchange your money for goods and services" "HOLY SHIT WHAT A VISIONARY 10 OUT OF 10" Clearly SBF will truly be the first trillionaire

[deleted]

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#82

Post by JamesianP »

malermeister wrote: post #5
650 wrote: post #3

>Bailhe remembers it the same way: “We had a great meeting with Sam, but the last question, which I remember Alfred asking, was, ‘So, everything you’re building is great, but what is your long-term vision for FTX?’” >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 currenc…

This whole saga, together with the Twitter and Meta shitshows have been exposing the Emperor for wearing no clothes. Turns out the rich and powerful of Silicon Valley aren't super smart and wise folks to be looked up to. They're just regular people, a lot of them ignorant, that got lucky. Enough with the pedestals.

> Turns out the rich and powerful of Silicon Valley aren't super smart and wise folks to be looked up to.

> They're just regular people, a lot of them ignorant, that got lucky.

This becomes immediately clear the first time you meet them. They're just a herd operating in a situation of high risk and uncertainty by following what the rest of the herd is doing. That's why, periodically, they all run off a cliff together like lemmings.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#83

Post by holyharvey »

enraged_camel wrote: post #79
holyharvey wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I’ve been here for the past ten years, and not much has changed, including people who complain that things are just not the same.

No post body was provided.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#84

Post by hackandtrip »

mkhpalm wrote: post #73
davidgerard wrote: post #27

Whenever you hear of a VC's "due diligence", remember this.

I keep telling people you don't drop hundreds of millions on something without glancing at a few numbers first. They had to know something wasn't quite right but infused him with their cash anyways.

Apparently when another VC firm (Social Capital) suggested to create a board before going through with their investment, they received a plain&clear "f*k you".

Corporate governance, accounting, and all the other boring stuff should literally be the first things which you should look at when assessing whether to fuel or not an exchange.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#85

Post by vba616 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #49
schintan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Levine said he 'liked' him, liking someone is very different than being a fan.

Ah, then whoever I'm quoting from HN who said that was mistaken, or I've remembered it incorrectly. I don't think it changes the point - he's good for Levine professionally; he'll never run out of material for his column at this point.

Saying that the mess is good for him to write about now is completely different than insinuating he was promoting FTX this spring, especially while simultaneously taking the position that he exposed it (which is mostly hindsight).

He's always talked about criminal and unethical behavior in an understated and humorous way in his column, and as a private individual, should be exempt from the slimy methods of character assassination used on politicians.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#86

Post by [deleted] »

jterrys wrote: post #69
jasmer wrote: post #42

This article is the absolute crescendo of the overture of all of the rubbish of the last era of Valley shenanigans in a masterfully written dumpster fire of a puff piece. As the show 'Silicon Valley' started the era with harmless satire, they made it real with this FTX big tent clownshow. Every paragraph dripping with absolute glib, lack of self awareness. "Compassionate To The Core" ... my god man I fell off my chai…

>Reality itself is much, much more entertaining than anything Netflix or god forbid even Scorsese himself could ever contrive. Spend enough time on this world and you realize that the absolute crazy shit out there would never be made into a movie because nobody would believe it's real. Make me an action flick of the guy who fought for three sides in WWII: Finnish Winter War, the Nazis, the Americans, only to have him…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#87

Post by JamesianP »

davidgerard wrote: post #25
_bqrf wrote: post #23

Sequoia capital published this. That should be in the title. Without knowing that this was a real article published by real people at Sequoia a couple of months ago, this reads like a try-hard troll. No! It’s real! (Sequoia is like the Stanford of venture capital and is one of ftx’s biggest investors)

And then quietly deleted it, lol.

Which is somehow even more embarrassing.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#88

Post by totalZero »

_bqrf wrote: post #68
clpm4j wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still crickets from the Sequoia partners (Alfred Lin, Michelle Bailhe) who backed and hyped FTX and SBF.

Not silence. Sequoia posted a letter declaring that their FTX investment is $0 and that this is not a notable fraction of their portfolio. FTX may have been a theoretically sound investment for Sequoia because many venture investments are marked to $0, and FTX got to huge-or-zero much faster than any other investment. A company that slowly goes to $0 is equally bad but worse for time-value. What hurts my brain is tha…

> A company that slowly goes to $0

Either way, the forward is 0. I'd rather see a company run itself aground by paying its employees and slowly bleeding money than to see it fail due to mis-valuation of its holdings. The former is unfortunate, but the latter is an embarrassment for all stakeholders.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#89

Post by JamesianP »

layer8 wrote: post #67
duskwuff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason we don't go to the bank to buy bananas, and it isn't because our banks lack "vision".

It’s because it lacks bananas? ;)

and it hasn't spent billions in investor money to subsidize our banana-purchasing experience.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too

#90

Post by JamesianP »

vba616 wrote: post #78
hotpotamus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Levine says he's a fan, and that makes sense to me - Levine was pretty well respected as a journalist before he interviewed Fried, but it probably gave him a huge bump in interest when he did and even more now.

>but it probably gave him a huge bump in interest when he did and even more now Nobody listened to or remembered the interview until a couple of people pointed out how prophetic it was with hindsight . Levine found SBF pleasant to talk to and he's amused by financial chicanery. At the time he said it sounded like a Ponzi, and SBF agreed, but after FTX blew up, it turned out to be so much more. They didn't have an acc…

I saw a couple highly-viewed youtube channels that made a big deal of it at the time. Either skeptics of crypto or contrarian types generally.
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