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I think the practical business/technical goals are almost irrelevant. It's not that SBF had a brilliant business model in mind. It's that he fit the "look" of a
by the_snooze 3y ago
I think the practical business/technical goals are almost irrelevant. It's not that SBF had a brilliant business model in mind. It's that he fit the "look" of a founder that those VCs expected. He was one of them, with the right pedigree and right connections. It's affinity fraud [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud
- ActionHank 3y agoCrazy thing is that the people who bring about massive change or revolutionary new ideas don't often fit the mould.
- BowBun 3y agoAt this point, your 'quirky technologist' definitely IS the mold.
- ActionHank 3y agoHe was a quirky cryptobro league player. There are millions of them.
- jjtheblunt 3y agoIf you look at recent Nobel Prize winners in sciences, many are not weirdos, just smart and without relying on nonsensical gimmicks. Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier, others, all examples of just smart and persistent and focused.
- isk517 3y agoFeels very cargo culty. SBF superficially matched peoples idea of a revolutionary genius without any of the actual substance.
- survirtual 3y agoUnfortunately the people in power do not care for revolutionary change. They want change that makes them money, not change that fundamentally restructures society. Change that fundamentally restructures society does not need permission from anyone. When the tech is here it will speak for itself, in spite of any of the major resource allocators being blind to those who bring it -- because a part of that change is those resource allocators being made irrelevant. They have held back the human race with their ego, blindness, and total lack of vision. They will spend $200m+ on a clown like this but ignore countless people with real innovations.
- rchaud 3y agoFraud scales better it seems.
- dvt 3y agoTo be fair, FTX had decent traction and Alameda had been successful in the past. I think it's easy to say "pass" on SBF now that we know he's a crook, but there are genuine legitimate exchanges out there that are worth plenty. Coinbase, in the middle of a bear, has a market cap of $20B (it was valued at more than $80B in early 2021). SBF was just a thief and a gambler, and an incompetent one, at that. I still think Sequoia does have some responsibility here, but I suppose my point is only that hindsight is always 20/20.
- itsoktocry 3y ago>To be fair, FTX had decent traction and Alameda had been successful in the past. No, they weren't successful. When you leverage up and make (paper) money and later those same investments are wiped out and destroy the comany, you don't get to say you were "successful".
- dvt 3y agoEarly Alameda strategy was BTC arbitrage in Asian markets (which is very above-board). They were definitely successful. Once that well dried up (arbitrage is usually an "early bird gets the worm" game), they started gambling on shitcoins, which is where the troubles began.
- CSMastermind 3y agoI've heard their success was a lie and they couldn't have possibly made the money they claimed to have made.
- HappySweeney 3y agoThey were definitely not successful. Anyone looking at BTC prices between NA and Korea saw the arbitrage opportunity. The fact that it sat there so obviously for so long was a testament to how impossible it was to profit from it. In fact, the whole reason for the pivot to an exchange from a pure arbitrage play was due to their lack of success.
- kelthan 3y ago
- Cornbilly 3y agoI agree -Dresses like a slob -Went to MIT -Is from the Valley -Has ties to Stanford -Upper class background Their VC brains didn’t stand a chance of sniffing this out.
- norir 3y agoThe real victims here are all the heroic MIT geniuses with unkempt hair who won't get their shot now.
- hobofan 3y agoWhy won't they get their shot now? I doubt VCs will change their MO over this.
- moufestaphio 3y agoIf Adam Neumann can get another shot, the unkempt MIT geniuses will be fine.
- owenpalmer 3y agoTruly devastating. Those poor geniuses will need to buy a comb xD
- phone8675309 3y agoSo long as they have rich parents, a dick, and white skin they'll have plenty of opportunities
- creer 3y agoAnd probably an insane network from the parents' side.
- rchaud 3y ago> Dresses like a slob The anti-Adam Neumann. Brilliant strategy.
- TuringNYC 3y ago
- starcraft2wol 3y ago> It's not that SBF had a brilliant business model in mind They had the largest crypto exchange right? That's a competitive market. Seems like something was going right.
- daveguy 3y agoI expect growth of a crypto exchange is a lot easier when you can steal client deposits to fuel additional growth.
- starcraft2wol 3y agoYou have it backwards. The deposits were used to fuel a separate trading business. All exchanges use customer deposits to grow their business.
- daveguy 3y agoNo. That is incorrect. A brokerage / exchange may not use customer assets for their own benefit. They are not a bank -- they are custodians. If they are doing that, they are committing a crime. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/240.15c3-3 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/240.15c3-3
- StressedDev 3y agoI believe Binance was bigger than FTX. That being said, it’s hard to tell how big any of these organizations really are because they do not release audited financial statements.