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An uncle once commented about a cousin of ours that he demonstrated how it's possible to screw things up so badly that you can't possibly recover. I think that'
by setgree 3y ago
An uncle once commented about a cousin of ours that he demonstrated how it's possible to screw things up so badly that you can't possibly recover. I think that's true for Sam. I hope it's not true for the people in his orbit; I hope they can get out from under this and try to find meaning, ideally from repairing the harm they've done.
As Rick Heicklen writes, "We are not ever going to be Sam. But we could be Caroline, or Nishad, or Natalie. Or even Michael Lewis. We could easily make the same mistakes they do." [0]
[0] https://asteriskmag.com/issues/05/michael-lewis-s-blind-side https://asteriskmag.com/issues/05/michael-lewis-s-blind-side, posted previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39118124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39118124
- WhatIsDukkha 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- FabHK 3y agoFWIW, I didn't find Lewis's book as bad (or amoral) as it's often made out to be. Yes, he didn't put his judgement in every paragraph, but his description of SBF was: a) absolutely damning! SBF's lack of empathy, his notion that (given that everyone else is stupid) he knew best and should basically ignore the advice of everyone else (particularly his elders), his naive utilitarianism without any deontological/virtue temperance, his reckless "many-worlds" risk-neutrality in gambling - that was all described in detail in the book, even if it was not explicitly condemned. Lewis didn't bother to show why these traits are bad. (I don't know what Lewis himself thought about them, but who cares? Show, don't tell.) b) empathetic, eliciting compassion. Sure, the kid was screwed up, but here's why. And, btw, you might well have turned out the same way under similar circumstances, but for the grace of god. My conclusion: 1) Lewis's book was good and insightful, and it's unfair to describe it as an apologia. 2) SBF has severe moral deficiencies and belongs in prison for a long time, but not because he is "evil". 3) Let's have some damn humility.
- compiler-guy 3y agoLewis also soft-sells the polyamorous relationships and complications that caused around SBF's relationship with Caroline Ellison. Caroline wants to go public, and why that would be a much bigger deal in the polyamorous world they were living in. It's similar in many of Lewis's other analysis of SBF's relationships. Lewis avoids context that makes SBF look much worse.
- thot_experiment 3y agoI'm not familiar with the book but this doesn't sound like it pattern matches with any of the poly I've experienced. Going public is a big deal in poly in particular? Since when? What kind of self respecting tech bro group house doesn't have a graph of all the poly on their whiteboard?
- ametrau 3y agoGross
- compiler-guy 3y agoIf it wasn't a big deal, SBF would have been OK with Ellison going public with it. But he wasn't, and held out against it. Lewis spends not a single word digging into SBF's motivations around that. Worse, he spends barely a chapter on how the polyamory which pervaded the highest levels of both Alameda and FTX might have clouded everyone's judgement and ability to say no. Mostly just limiting himself to: "It was a bunch of young adults all living together and who slept with whom changed rather fluidly. It wasn't a sex or orgy den, and the lurid tales about sex parties and all that aren't accurate." Which I guess is probably true as far as it goes. But not spending any time at all about how those relationships may have affected the corporate governance shows a strange lack of curiosity and unwillingness to think about conflicts of interest any relationship between business partners creates. [I have no problem with polyamory itself--as long as everyone is consenting it's not really any of my business.]
- 3y ago
- sopooneo 3y agoNo dog in this race either way, but what is Michael Lewis meant to have done? Is it just that people feel hist treatment of SBF in Going Infinite was too lenient?
- caturopath 3y agoExactly.
- meowface 3y agoMany people feel he whitewashed him and continued to defend him and minimize his misconduct long after his arrest.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Randomizer42 3y ago[dead]
- geraldwhen 3y ago[flagged]
- red-iron-pine 3y agoput another way, you're engaged in sexual, financial, and managerial relationships with an epic fraudster, and continue that pattern well after it's become clear that they're, at best, kind of dubious. most people will never be anywhere near that, not on that scale and scope, and not with that kind of insight.
- foreverobama 3y ago[dead]
- khazhoux 3y ago> An uncle once commented about a cousin of ours that he demonstrated how it's possible to screw things up so badly that you can't possibly recover. Enough SBF talk. Let’s hear some cousin stories!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thedrbrian 3y ago>Not true for the people in his orbit You mean the other people at FTX or Alameda who knew it was a scam?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- realfeel78 3y ago> I hope it's not true for the people in his orbit; I hope they can get out from under this and try to find meaning, ideally from repairing the harm they've done. Lol they're all very well off. Why tf are you worried about them, of all people in the world?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cm2187 3y agoThey are not mistakes, they are crimes. Anyone who worked in finance for more than a week can recognise their actions as such.
- dinobones 3y agoYou think a 25 year sentence is impossible to recover from? I think he can still leave a meaningful life coming out in his mid 50s.
- pseingatl 3y agoHighly unlikely after spending most of his adult life in federal prison.
- abaymado 3y agoI highly doubt he will serve all 25. There is no parole in a fed case, but could get reduced time for good behavior. Unlikely he will be in prison stabbing people.
- outop 3y agoGood behaviour in federal sentences is restricted to 15% off the total.
- riwazp7 3y agoSo almost 4 years
- KptMarchewa 3y agoThere is also First Step Act.
- KennyBlanken 3y agoImagine going into prison in the late 90's and coming out all the technology in the world today, none of which you've seen except maybe on TV. The Dick Tracey movie came out in 1990 and now we've got smart watches which are literally a cell phone on your wrist. Imagine going into jail when AIM/MSN/ICQ were the hotness and coming out to tiktok and snapchat. That's someone who went into jail in the 90's. Imagine someone who went into jail in the early 80's or 70's. Coming out to the modern world would be like time traveling. A lot of inmates coming out of multi-decade imprisonment are completely overwhelmed by how far society has advanced.
- romeros 3y agoI don't think Caroline is a bad person. She was brilliant smart and focused on academics etc. She got pulled into this mess during the crypto mania phase.
- badrequest 3y agoShe willingly conjured up fake financial documents to suit Sam's needs. She had the kind of credentials that would have easily landed her a job at other financial institutions, she absolutely could have quit at any point.
- themagician 3y agoI think you mean to say, "An uncle once commented about a cousin of ours that he demonstrated how it's possible to screw things up so badly that you can't possibly get away with it."
- bilekas 3y agoSorry but he didn't "screw things up" he knew (objectively) early on that it was a cascade. And so he did the first mistake, load from a sister company, using self assets. When it wasn't called out, of course you think "this must be okay". He's cheeky and a chancer. He is a victim of your uncles idiom. But that's not the crime, the crime is getting there.
- Supernaut 3y agoI got a laugh from the author's assertion that the Lewis book examines "the psychology of an impulsive, chaotic, misanthropic genius". I mean, "genius" has long been a ludicrously overused word, but even so, this is a new low. Isaac Newton is an example of an actual genius, someone whose work changed the world. Sam Bankman-Fried is an epically hubristic confidence man who stole/lost eight billion dollars and will as a consequence be spending a long time in jail.
- imadierich 3y ago[dead]
- tw04 3y ago>We could easily make the same mistakes they do. Could we really all watch a friend spend hundreds of millions of dollars, getting into a questionable business, and not ask a single question about what’s going on? Because I’m really, really confident I would never find myself in that situation. It’s like comparing helping a serial killer bury 25 bodies to being a wingman to your buddy in a bar and backing him up when he claims to be 6’ when you know he’s really 5’10”. Only one of these situations I can picture myself in.
- fortran77 3y ago> I hope they can get out from under this and try to find meaning, ideally from repairing the harm they've done. After they do their time, of course.
- rvba 3y ago> I think that's true for Sam. I hope it's not true for the people in his orbit People in his orbit knew very well what they were doing and looks that they will get mostly slapped on their wrists, since most fault was attributed to SBF only.
- 2-3-7-43-1807 3y ago> An uncle once commented about a cousin of ours that he demonstrated how it's possible to screw things up so badly that you can't possibly recover. beyond me why this irrelevant uncle comment is at the top but let me tell you this ... you can always recover. the only thing you don't recover from is death.
- animanoir 3y agoWhat are you talking about? 25 years is absolutely nothing! You think he will not recover? I bet you he’ll be an influencer or something like that once he is out after 15 years (because USA is corrupt as hell).
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago"I hope they can get out from under this and try to find meaning, ideally from repairing the harm they've done." How exactly would they do this? Have you read the victim impact statements? Mistakes are errors. Like typing "Rick Heicklen" instead of "Ricki Heicklen". But intentionally breaking the law in order to profit, is that a "mistake"? A error in judgment perhaps. SBF claimed he made "mistakes" but he never admitted guilt and he never apologised for breaking the law. He perjured himself while expecting the audience to believe he was "brilliant", competent and trustworthy to handle other peoples' money. If what Heicklen calls "smart people" can work for a company with no organizational chart, no board of directors, no CFO, no need to use more than QuickBooks for handling millions of dollars in customer deposits, then perhaps these people are not "smart". And it would be a "mistake" to believe otherwise. (Heicklen may still be disillusioned.) We are living in a time when it is not safe to assume that because there is large amounts of money behind something that this something is in fact legitimate. These people named in the comment all come from privileged backgrounds. Many of the victims of the FTX collapse, the ones who wrote to Judge Kaplan before the trial and the ones who submitted impact statements before sentencing, do not. Call me cynical but I do not forsee any of those named in Heicklen's blog post going to work to serve (cf. exploit) people from non-privileged backgrounds.
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoDid they report the crimes? No.