This American investigative reporter details the life of Sam Altman-Fried the much maligned proprietor of the now defunct FTC cryptocurrency exchange in this controversial report. His was an awkward nerdy childhood with aspects of autism and ADHD, but seemingly altruistic, with a genius’s talent at all kinds of math quizzes and gambling. He joined Jane Street Capital, in 2014 at the age of 22 as a full time trader in the opaque world of ultrafast market gamblers, after only one year at MIT in physics.
His altruism, along with that of most other traders espoused the utilitarian philosophy of one of my favourite philosophers, retired Princeton philosopher Peter Singer. They claim to want to make untold millions only to give it away to the charities that will save the greatest number of people.
The 26 page chapter outlining the complexity of Alameda Research and FTX trading with venture capitalists investing billions, while Alameda remained in the shadows of Hong Kong and the Bahamas confused me, but I don’t feel so bad as the author admits that no one has been able to define what cryptocurrency really is.There are far too many transactions worth billions and far too many shadowy characters to keep track of.
Spending thirty million on a mini city on five acres in the Bahamas designed by someone with no experience in design and without any guidance was only one of the problems. There was no org chart, with an imported psychiatrist acting in the role of councillor to a third of the staff of 300. Few knew who they were supposed to report to. The psychiatrist developed a makeshift one but didn’t even have a Bahamas medical licence. There was virtually physical security and no working Board of Directors. Sam’s longstanding affair with one of the staff was a well-known secret. Chaos theory seemed to be in play everywhere.
The effective altruism espoused by almost all of the 300+ employees was shifted to trying to prevent a future existential threat to humankind and there is little evidence that much of it was ever spent on any kind of altruism. Even in November 2022, when it was leaked that seven billion dollars went missing in the FTX account, precipitating what was essentially a run on the bank, it remained unclear who was to blame. Sam was extradited to the United States and is now according to Wikipedia, awaiting sentencing, having been convicted on all accounts of fraud.
Even as the crash-landing of FTX has given all cryptocurrencies a bad name with the general public, nerdy venture capitalists are spending billions on it, particularly in the less regulated regions of African countries, with little to show for it to date.
Next week, something lighter, and definitely not economic theory.
6/10.
Thanks, The New Yorker.
The Passionate Reader 