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Impressively fast response. Would Travis Kalanick be found guilty for Greyballing and more had Uber had a "run on the bank"? Would Adam Neumann be found guilt

Impressively fast response. Would Travis Kalanick be found guilty for Greyballing and more had Uber had a "run on the bank"? Would Adam Neumann be found guilty for fraud if WeWork's current Chapter 11 was more than just a real estate lease re-negotiation? If the FTX recovery rate gets up to 80-90%, SBF's net fraud might be reduced in scale. In which case, why aren't others like TK going to jail?

deleted 3y ago
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leishman 3y ago
Neither Uber nor Wework were financial institutions with consumer deposits they were funneling away to a slush fund.
rossdavidh 3y ago
While I agree that SBF was, to a certain extent, doing the promise-a-lot-and-stall-for-time method that a lot of overhyped founders do, there were two key differences: 1) he lied about key details of what would be done with the money people gave him, which is a specifically bad kind of lying because there are special laws for it 2) it wasn't just VC funds that lost money
phire 3y ago
No. Both Uber and WeWork were "gambling" investor money, which is totally allowed and it's what those investors were expecting the companies to do with that money. There was never a chance of a "run on the bank" because investors aren't really allowed to demand their money back, short of a shareholder vote to liquidate. (Though, Newmann potentially committed fraud with some of the ways that investor money left WeWork and somehow ended up in his own pocket, but that's unrelated) Sam massively broke the law because FTX customers had given FTX those funds on the condition that FTX not touch them. The agreement was that all those funds would sit in a bank account or crypto wallet until it was time to withdraw. But Sam and friends stole the customer funds and gambled them away. Nobody would have ever known if the gamble succeeded before a "bank run", but it was still highly illegal. And investors get a share of the profits if the gamble pays off. That's why they are investing. If Sam's gamble had paid off, the profits would have gone to Alameda, not the customers.
- choppaface 3y ago
  While I agree there's a gap, TK was indeed sued for fraud: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/technology/travis-kalanick-uber-lawsuit-benchmark-capital.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/technology/travis-kalanic... That to some extent is based upon greyballing and other activities Uber did to defraud or skirt regulation. Moreover, Uber has effectively made employees out of many drivers while they were not treated like employees, and courts have forced payments-- that's not like disappearing deposits but since laborers were wrongly under-compensated it's effectively just as harmful. Had SBF somehow raised say just $1-2b, which seems to be what the gap will be for the recovery, I wonder if today he'd still be a billionaire and out of jail like TK and AN.
  - phire 3y ago
    So... it turns out anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. Doesn't mean it's true. This lawsuit was later dropped, so it seems to have been without merit. And it was part of a power struggle that happened on the Uber board after he resigned, not related to anything that happened while he was CEO, or any of the shitty things that Uber did. > Had SBF somehow raised say just $1-2b, which seems to be what the gap will be for the recovery, I wonder if today he'd still be a billionaire and out of jail like TK and AN. Well, yes. But only because he wasn't caught. Not being caught doesn't make the fraud legal.
    - choppaface 3y ago
      > This lawsuit was later dropped, so it seems to have been without merit. Lol the lawsuit against TK was filed because he refused to resign. If the lawsuit was without substance, then Sunsan Fowler must have been a conspiracy and all the Greyballing evidence also faked like the moon landing. The top “victims” of FTX were VC speculator funds. Perhaps if TK had realized losses for Benchmark and Google like SBF did, then TK would be facing additionally wire fraud.

deleted 3y ago

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leishman 3y ago

Neither Uber nor Wework were financial institutions with consumer deposits they were funneling away to a slush fund.

rossdavidh 3y ago

While I agree that SBF was, to a certain extent, doing the promise-a-lot-and-stall-for-time method that a lot of overhyped founders do, there were two key differences: 1) he lied about key details of what would be done with the money people gave him, which is a specifically bad kind of lying because there are special laws for it 2) it wasn't just VC funds that lost money

phire 3y ago

No. Both Uber and WeWork were "gambling" investor money, which is totally allowed and it's what those investors were expecting the companies to do with that money. There was never a chance of a "run on the bank" because investors aren't really allowed to demand their money back, short of a shareholder vote to liquidate. (Though, Newmann potentially committed fraud with some of the ways that investor money left WeWork and somehow ended up in his own pocket, but that's unrelated) Sam massively broke the law because FTX customers had given FTX those funds on the condition that FTX not touch them. The agreement was that all those funds would sit in a bank account or crypto wallet until it was time to withdraw. But Sam and friends stole the customer funds and gambled them away. Nobody would have ever known if the gamble succeeded before a "bank run", but it was still highly illegal. And investors get a share of the profits if the gamble pays off. That's why they are investing. If Sam's gamble had paid off, the profits would have gone to Alameda, not the customers.

choppaface 3y ago
While I agree there's a gap, TK was indeed sued for fraud: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/technology/travis-kalanick-uber-lawsuit-benchmark-capital.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/technology/travis-kalanic... That to some extent is based upon greyballing and other activities Uber did to defraud or skirt regulation. Moreover, Uber has effectively made employees out of many drivers while they were not treated like employees, and courts have forced payments-- that's not like disappearing deposits but since laborers were wrongly under-compensated it's effectively just as harmful. Had SBF somehow raised say just $1-2b, which seems to be what the gap will be for the recovery, I wonder if today he'd still be a billionaire and out of jail like TK and AN.
- phire 3y ago
  So... it turns out anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. Doesn't mean it's true. This lawsuit was later dropped, so it seems to have been without merit. And it was part of a power struggle that happened on the Uber board after he resigned, not related to anything that happened while he was CEO, or any of the shitty things that Uber did. > Had SBF somehow raised say just $1-2b, which seems to be what the gap will be for the recovery, I wonder if today he'd still be a billionaire and out of jail like TK and AN. Well, yes. But only because he wasn't caught. Not being caught doesn't make the fraud legal.
  - choppaface 3y ago
    > This lawsuit was later dropped, so it seems to have been without merit. Lol the lawsuit against TK was filed because he refused to resign. If the lawsuit was without substance, then Sunsan Fowler must have been a conspiracy and all the Greyballing evidence also faked like the moon landing. The top “victims” of FTX were VC speculator funds. Perhaps if TK had realized losses for Benchmark and Google like SBF did, then TK would be facing additionally wire fraud.