3 ms·

This is 404ing. Do you have a copy? Edit: Here's a Google Cached Copy https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pizI33lYOGAJ:https://www.sequoiacap

This is 404ing. Do you have a copy? Edit: Here's a Google Cached Copy https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pizI33lYOGAJ:https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlight/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=in https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pizI33... In case that is past its TTL, try this:https://web.archive.org/web/20221027180943/https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlight/ https://web.archive.org/web/20221027180943/https://www.sequo...

quantumwannabe 4y ago
Another archive: https://archive.ph/Yg64e https://archive.ph/Yg64e
alpb 4y ago
Haha they replaced the page entirely with a paragraph saying: > Update: November 9, 2022 A liquidity crunch has created solvency risk for FTX and its future is uncertain. Many have been affected by this unexpected turn of events. For Sequoia, our fiduciary responsibility is to our LPs. To that end, we shared this letter with them today regarding our investment in FTX. For FTX, we believe its fiduciary responsibility is first to its customers, and second to its shareholders. As such, FTX is exploring all opportunities to ensure its customers are able to recover their funds as quickly as possible.
- anshumankmr 4y ago
  So are they walking back this statement? Not sure what they really achieved by deleting this puff piece. Everytime a puff piece is written and blows up spectacularly, it’s pretty much immortalized through the internet. The articles on Elizabeth Holmes come to mind or when someone declared M Night Shyamalan as the next Spielberg.
adolph 4y ago
A key awesome bit noted elsewhere: “Embarrassingly, we had never tried to reach out to Sam, because we figured he didn’t need us,” Bailhe admits. “I thought they were just minting money and had absolutely no need for investors.” Learning otherwise, they quickly contacted SBF and organized a last-minute Zoom call between him and the partners at Sequoia—at four California time on a hot July Friday afternoon. [...] The Zoom went well for all concerned. SBF looked relaxed as he answered questions, talking, as he usually does, in complete paragraphs about topics of extreme complexity. Ramnik Arora, FTX’s head of product and another ex-Facebook engineer, remembers the meeting clearly: “We’re getting all these questions from Sequoia toward the end. He’s absolutely fantastic.” [...] 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 banana. You can do anything you want with your money from inside FTX.” Suddenly, the chat window on Sequoia’s side of the Zoom lights up with partners freaking out. “I LOVE THIS FOUNDER,” typed one partner. “I am a 10 out of 10,” pinged another. “YES!!!” exclaimed a third. [...] “I sit ten feet from him, and I walked over, thinking, Oh, shit, that was really good,” remembers Arora. “And it turns out that that f....r was playing League of Legends through the entire meeting.”
- NickC25 4y ago
  That's terrifying. Guy is just casually spouting bullshit while playing LoL, and one of the top VCs are just tripping over themselves to throw money at him. i can only hope the actual due diligence at top VCs is much, much more robust and deep than this. If this isn't an extreme outlier and is more the norm than I realized, well, I had way too high hopes for the so-called gatekeepers of the top echelons of society.
  - TechBro8615 4y ago
    he speaks in complete paragraphs!
markisus 4y ago
> But, at Jane, SBF osmosed another trading principle. He learned to be “risk-neutral”: In simple terms, a trader, given a choice between $50 and a 50 percent chance at $100, must be agnostic if they want to maximize the expected value of earnings over a lifetime. Huh? Over a lifetime, both bets have the same expected value. Is there a mathematical explanation why the more risky one is better?
- xiphias2 4y ago
  Actually Sam hopefully understands Kelly criterion in which people optimize for log(EV), in which case here not wagering is the Kelly optimum.
ravenhappy 4y ago
From the article: "Just do the math: At $2,000 per life, a million dollars could save 500 people, a billion could save half a million, and, by extension, a trillion could theoretically save half a billion humans from a miserable death." The math...
robocat 4y ago
And a pastebin of the text: https://controlc.com/3af6a40f https://controlc.com/3af6a40f

quantumwannabe 4y ago

Another archive: https://archive.ph/Yg64e https://archive.ph/Yg64e

alpb 4y ago

Haha they replaced the page entirely with a paragraph saying: > Update: November 9, 2022 A liquidity crunch has created solvency risk for FTX and its future is uncertain. Many have been affected by this unexpected turn of events. For Sequoia, our fiduciary responsibility is to our LPs. To that end, we shared this letter with them today regarding our investment in FTX. For FTX, we believe its fiduciary responsibility is first to its customers, and second to its shareholders. As such, FTX is exploring all opportunities to ensure its customers are able to recover their funds as quickly as possible.

anshumankmr 4y ago
So are they walking back this statement? Not sure what they really achieved by deleting this puff piece. Everytime a puff piece is written and blows up spectacularly, it’s pretty much immortalized through the internet. The articles on Elizabeth Holmes come to mind or when someone declared M Night Shyamalan as the next Spielberg.

adolph 4y ago

A key awesome bit noted elsewhere: “Embarrassingly, we had never tried to reach out to Sam, because we figured he didn’t need us,” Bailhe admits. “I thought they were just minting money and had absolutely no need for investors.” Learning otherwise, they quickly contacted SBF and organized a last-minute Zoom call between him and the partners at Sequoia—at four California time on a hot July Friday afternoon. [...] The Zoom went well for all concerned. SBF looked relaxed as he answered questions, talking, as he usually does, in complete paragraphs about topics of extreme complexity. Ramnik Arora, FTX’s head of product and another ex-Facebook engineer, remembers the meeting clearly: “We’re getting all these questions from Sequoia toward the end. He’s absolutely fantastic.” [...] 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 banana. You can do anything you want with your money from inside FTX.” Suddenly, the chat window on Sequoia’s side of the Zoom lights up with partners freaking out. “I LOVE THIS FOUNDER,” typed one partner. “I am a 10 out of 10,” pinged another. “YES!!!” exclaimed a third. [...] “I sit ten feet from him, and I walked over, thinking, Oh, shit, that was really good,” remembers Arora. “And it turns out that that f....r was playing League of Legends through the entire meeting.”

NickC25 4y ago
That's terrifying. Guy is just casually spouting bullshit while playing LoL, and one of the top VCs are just tripping over themselves to throw money at him. i can only hope the actual due diligence at top VCs is much, much more robust and deep than this. If this isn't an extreme outlier and is more the norm than I realized, well, I had way too high hopes for the so-called gatekeepers of the top echelons of society.
- TechBro8615 4y ago
  he speaks in complete paragraphs!

markisus 4y ago

> But, at Jane, SBF osmosed another trading principle. He learned to be “risk-neutral”: In simple terms, a trader, given a choice between $50 and a 50 percent chance at $100, must be agnostic if they want to maximize the expected value of earnings over a lifetime. Huh? Over a lifetime, both bets have the same expected value. Is there a mathematical explanation why the more risky one is better?

xiphias2 4y ago
Actually Sam hopefully understands Kelly criterion in which people optimize for log(EV), in which case here not wagering is the Kelly optimum.

ravenhappy 4y ago

From the article: "Just do the math: At $2,000 per life, a million dollars could save 500 people, a billion could save half a million, and, by extension, a trillion could theoretically save half a billion humans from a miserable death." The math...

robocat 4y ago

And a pastebin of the text: https://controlc.com/3af6a40f https://controlc.com/3af6a40f