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Now imagine if we did not put sbf in jail and he kept leveraging. By now it would have been a quadrillion dollar company.

Analemma_ 2y ago
That's not how any of this works. If you steal money from the cash register to bet it all on black in Vegas, you're still going to jail even if you happen to hit and be able to return what you took.
- chimert 2y ago
  Yeah but what if you return 119% of what you took?
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > what if you return 119% of what you took? You go to jail. It’s not a hypothetical.
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    You can go to jail for stealing "nothing." Two Illinois cases I'm thinking of: https://casetext.com/case/people-v-kotlarz https://casetext.com/case/people-v-kotlarz https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/people-v-haissig-2110726-885408110 https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/people-v-haissig-2110726-88540...
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  That is, coincidentally, how we still have FedEx. Fred Smith taking the company's last $5K to Vegas and luckily winning $27,000. Mind you at that point, pilots were putting fuel on their personal credit cards, payroll had been bouncing for weeks. (Funnily, some people here think he did the right thing.)
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    That’s the story he likes to tell and it’s repeated uncritically often enough, but I find it stupendously unlikely to be reality that he converted 5k into 27k playing blackjack of all games. And that that one week was enough to see him through to close 11m at an unspecified future date after having burned 80m getting the company up and running. I chalk it up more to myth building and would love to see a reporter that dug into that story to know what actually happened.
    - sidewndr46 2y ago
      It's survivor bias. It seems unlikely, but we know FedEx to be a successful company to some reasonable level at this point in time. It stands to reason at some point in the past the company was very close to collapse. If it had collapsed we would never have heard about it.
      - vlovich123 2y ago
        Why does that in any way tell us anything about the veracity of a vague story with no details? I don’t doubt they were in trouble, just that I doubt that he gambles the last 5k and the extra runway of 1 week somehow got them through to 11M at a later unspecified date. What did they do between that 1 week and the 11M raise? It’s not like they became profitable suddenly and it takes a while to raise 11M and it doesn’t sound like they were just waiting for 1 week for all the wires to come through.
  - listenallyall 2y ago
    Do you actually believe if paychecks were bouncing, pilots would be paying for fuel with their own money? Myths are kind of cool sometimes but let's stay within the boundaries of reality. I'm sure the blackjack story is highly exaggerated, probably also the story that his professor gave his business plan a failing grade.
  - helsinkiandrew 2y ago
    > That is, coincidentally, how we still have FedEx. Fred Smith taking the company's last $5K to Vegas and luckily winning $27,000. The difference is it was the companies money - not FedEx customers.
- whatever1 2y ago
  Well if you observe me just for the moment I have on hand 1B, my net worth is 1B and JP Morgan will be willing to lend me 10B. Worst comes to worst tax payer bails again the banks out.
  - 8note 2y ago
    Why do you think the tax payer taking a gigantic loss is a good thing? I'd prefer that the government fund food for children rather than confidence men/women
    - whatever1 2y ago
      We did it for Elon and Twitter. So why not for SBF?
- helsinkiandrew 2y ago
  > That's not how any of this works. If you steal money from the cash register to bet it all on black in Vegas, you're still going to jail. But, if the investments hadn't hadn't gone bad and FTX hadn't run out of money, it's probable that no one would have known that he had stolen/borrowed customer money. The same probably goes for Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos and Nick Leeson/Barings Bank - its only when things go wrong that misdeeds are found.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > its only when things go wrong that misdeeds are found Counterpoint: Shkreli.
kelnos 2y ago
No, SBF would have continued to take ridiculous risks with customer assets, and eventually it all still would have collapsed. Don't look at this as validation of SBF's methods. This was luck. And there still isn't enough to make customers whole. For customers who deposited Bitcoin, for example, they're now still a lot worse off than if they'd held onto the coins themselves. Sure, they're getting back the cash value of their Bitcoin from several years ago (plus interest), but if they got the Bitcoins back, they'd have significantly more.

Analemma_ 2y ago

That's not how any of this works. If you steal money from the cash register to bet it all on black in Vegas, you're still going to jail even if you happen to hit and be able to return what you took.

chimert 2y ago
Yeah but what if you return 119% of what you took?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > what if you return 119% of what you took? You go to jail. It’s not a hypothetical.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  You can go to jail for stealing "nothing." Two Illinois cases I'm thinking of: https://casetext.com/case/people-v-kotlarz https://casetext.com/case/people-v-kotlarz https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/people-v-haissig-2110726-885408110 https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/people-v-haissig-2110726-88540...
FireBeyond 2y ago
That is, coincidentally, how we still have FedEx. Fred Smith taking the company's last $5K to Vegas and luckily winning $27,000. Mind you at that point, pilots were putting fuel on their personal credit cards, payroll had been bouncing for weeks. (Funnily, some people here think he did the right thing.)
- vlovich123 2y ago
  That’s the story he likes to tell and it’s repeated uncritically often enough, but I find it stupendously unlikely to be reality that he converted 5k into 27k playing blackjack of all games. And that that one week was enough to see him through to close 11m at an unspecified future date after having burned 80m getting the company up and running. I chalk it up more to myth building and would love to see a reporter that dug into that story to know what actually happened.
  - sidewndr46 2y ago
    It's survivor bias. It seems unlikely, but we know FedEx to be a successful company to some reasonable level at this point in time. It stands to reason at some point in the past the company was very close to collapse. If it had collapsed we would never have heard about it.
    - vlovich123 2y ago
      Why does that in any way tell us anything about the veracity of a vague story with no details? I don’t doubt they were in trouble, just that I doubt that he gambles the last 5k and the extra runway of 1 week somehow got them through to 11M at a later unspecified date. What did they do between that 1 week and the 11M raise? It’s not like they became profitable suddenly and it takes a while to raise 11M and it doesn’t sound like they were just waiting for 1 week for all the wires to come through.
- listenallyall 2y ago
  Do you actually believe if paychecks were bouncing, pilots would be paying for fuel with their own money? Myths are kind of cool sometimes but let's stay within the boundaries of reality. I'm sure the blackjack story is highly exaggerated, probably also the story that his professor gave his business plan a failing grade.
- helsinkiandrew 2y ago
  > That is, coincidentally, how we still have FedEx. Fred Smith taking the company's last $5K to Vegas and luckily winning $27,000. The difference is it was the companies money - not FedEx customers.
whatever1 2y ago
Well if you observe me just for the moment I have on hand 1B, my net worth is 1B and JP Morgan will be willing to lend me 10B. Worst comes to worst tax payer bails again the banks out.
- 8note 2y ago
  Why do you think the tax payer taking a gigantic loss is a good thing? I'd prefer that the government fund food for children rather than confidence men/women
  - whatever1 2y ago
    We did it for Elon and Twitter. So why not for SBF?
helsinkiandrew 2y ago
> That's not how any of this works. If you steal money from the cash register to bet it all on black in Vegas, you're still going to jail. But, if the investments hadn't hadn't gone bad and FTX hadn't run out of money, it's probable that no one would have known that he had stolen/borrowed customer money. The same probably goes for Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos and Nick Leeson/Barings Bank - its only when things go wrong that misdeeds are found.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > its only when things go wrong that misdeeds are found Counterpoint: Shkreli.

kelnos 2y ago

No, SBF would have continued to take ridiculous risks with customer assets, and eventually it all still would have collapsed. Don't look at this as validation of SBF's methods. This was luck. And there still isn't enough to make customers whole. For customers who deposited Bitcoin, for example, they're now still a lot worse off than if they'd held onto the coins themselves. Sure, they're getting back the cash value of their Bitcoin from several years ago (plus interest), but if they got the Bitcoins back, they'd have significantly more.