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Well there's a sense of contrition there, so that's good. However there's no reasonable excuse. You can't be like "aw man, I wish we'd been more organized". A
by lordnacho 4y ago
Well there's a sense of contrition there, so that's good.
However there's no reasonable excuse. You can't be like "aw man, I wish we'd been more organized". A big piece of this is on the investors. All those depositors would have been saying "Hey Sequoia and OTPP are in there, they must have checked things are sound". Was that foolish of them, to assume reputable investors had done their due diligence? You're between a rock and a hard place when you answer this. Either they should have all done their own DD, basically not invested because who can do DD as a little guy, or large investors are not responsible for what everyone else thinks they did, which is a rather major indictment of how our financial system works.
But back to SBF's explanation. It's just juvenile, basically the same as "mommy, you didn't make me clean my room and now I slipped and hurt myself". Whatever the laws are, when someone trusts you with their money, you are responsible for certain basic things like knowing where that money is. All the money in the world and they didn't think to hire an accountant and a risk manager. Or perhaps they did and those people quietly left, we'll never know.
About the regulators, it's quite the about-turn. He goes from saying it's a good thing (which was why CZ got pissed at him?) to saying it was just PR, and that regs basically don't work anywhere. I think this is also a juvenile view. You can make the case that it often leads to unintended consequences, and that it often causes problems, but you can't sweep all regulations in all sectors into the bin, there's just too much evidence that it sometimes does work. In fact you could say that the very reinvention of finance as crypto ought to motivate participants to look at what problems were found in the financial world that were addressed by regulation. Glass-Steagal, deposit insurance, central banking, there's a lot to read about.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago> Well there's a sense of contrition there, so that's good. Sigh. So this is how confidence men and politicians and scammers can make good livings. He just said that all the good-sounding things he said in the past about ethics and doing the right thing was "this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us".
- kindatrue 4y agoSBF: "I always lie except right now" People: oh wow so true
- darkteflon 4y agoFascinated to read that you thought he came across as contrite. My reading was the opposite - that he was nihilistic, narcissistic and utterly devoid of contrition. Specifically: there seems almost no recognition of his own agency - it’s all just bad stuff that happened to him.
- lordnacho 4y agoSays he screwed up, wants to make people whole again... When my old boss blew up it was "hmm they knew what they invested in".
- dahdum 4y agoHe also says that perception is all that matters and that his talk of "ethics" was a sham. I believe he'll try to avoid jail at all costs, and that may include making people whole again, but trying to flee seems much more likely.
- zerbinxx 4y agoAgreed, I can't say I was exactly surprised at the lack of contrition, but then again, he made it clear at the end that his entire life revolves around the now-impossible goal of raising $8b in the next 2 weeks. Introspection, I guess, will come after that. I'm guessing that he's still experiencing some denial about the loss of his own status, freedom, and opportunities in life that will come with all of this. As much as everyone hates this guy right now, it's definitely pitiable and interesting to get a snapshot of a huckster mid-downfall, where he hasn't yet realized how much the foundation underneath him has fallen away. Then again, no one knows whatever happened to Do Kwon. Maybe it's not too late for SBF to make a break for it.