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It's not so much that he was cozying up with them as it is that they were one of them. I think the reason SBF ultimately succeeded and disarmed investors' criti
by pen2l 4y ago
It's not so much that he was cozying up with them as it is that they were one of them. I think the reason SBF ultimately succeeded and disarmed investors' critical eyes is two-fold: he had a pedigree of Stanford/MIT and thus isn't a complete idiot so he could spin together a temporarily believable narrative even if they were on shoddy ground; the second and more important reason is that his parents were both Stanford professors and Caroline's dad was an econ professor at MIT, both the parents had a an expanding list of contacts which helped them secure the first critical set of funding rounds and further on had them ably play the dance with political players and regulatory bodies.
Anyway, the lesson I got after seeing SBF's philanthropic forays, which were all a ruse, was to never trust a techbro no matter how inspirational outwardly they may be. Ravening wolves they are the lot of them, in sheeps' clothings.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- colpabar 4y agoDid you also know that his mother founded a democratic superpac that prides itself on being secretive? It seems like this is a really important detail that everyone is overlooking/ignoring. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Bankman-Fried#Early_life_and_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Bankman-Fried#Early_life_a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Fried https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Fried https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/6/21046631/mind-the-gap-silicon-valley-democratic-donors-stanford https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/6/21046631/mind-the-gap-si...
- pjc50 4y agoPACs - all of them - are a bizarre, corrupt route round campaign finance limits, but the US is stuck with them after Citizens United. Quite a lot of companies give to both sides. Tech money has been prominent: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/03/american-billionaires-spent-a-record-880-million-on-the-us-midterm-elections-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/03/american-billionaires-spent-... There's SBF next to Larry Ellison and Peter Thiel.
- colpabar 4y agoOk great! If they're implicated in this, then by all means, let's go after them. I just can't help but notice a pattern of left-leaning media outlets going really easy on this whole thing because a lot of democrats are implicated as well. I know this is cliche and I honestly hate saying it, but can you imagine if SBF some guy with two deeply connected republican parents, one of whom founded an explicitly secretive superpac for republicans? Don't you think the reaction would be a bit different?
- belltaco 4y ago>because a lot of democrats are implicated as well Who are implicated?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- belltaco 4y agoAnd FTX execs gave a lot of money to Republicans as well. People making this a partisan issue are the real problem. >“Among the three executives, $57 million was given to Democratic candidates, while $22 million went to Republican candidates,” opensecrets.org details. “Bankman-Fried was the second biggest Democratic-leaning megadonor and Salame was 10th largest Republican donor this election cycle,” the report adds. https://news.bitcoin.com/ftx-execs-gave-70-million-to-both-democrats-and-republicans-heading-into-the-2022-us-midterms/ https://news.bitcoin.com/ftx-execs-gave-70-million-to-both-d...
- PubliusMI 4y ago
- colpabar 4y agoI am not being partisan, I am just trying to point out that there is a democratic superpac involved in all of this, and I don't see it being talked about much. I'd like to see everyone involved be investigated thoroughly. I will admit this is all pretty upsetting to me though. I'm a very left-leaning person, and to see the party that is supposed to represent my values doing this stuff and then everyone making claims along the lines of "well everyone does it" is very disappointing. I'll make sure to add a "I am not a republican" disclaimer in the future.