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Every round Anthropic raises twists the knife deeper in SBF. If only he could have survived the downturn his Antropic investment alone probably could have paper
by jdoliner 1y ago
Every round Anthropic raises twists the knife deeper in SBF. If only he could have survived the downturn his Antropic investment alone probably could have papered over the other loses.
- paulpauper 1y agoyeah, had CZ not made those tweets... He only had to weather another 2 months of the BTC bear market. BTC began to rebound in Jan 2023. Of course hindsight is 20-202
- arduanika 1y agoCZ was a minor factor. Someone internal leaked the balance sheet. Hindsight says, don't do fraud.
- Aeolun 1y agoOr hide it better?
- Nextgrid 1y agoFraud is only called fraud if you get caught and defraud the wrong people. Corporation-on-consumer fraud is generally OK and a lot of businesses we consider "legitimate" do it as standard practice. Fraud against investors and "the rich" can still be papered over and forgotten if everyone ends up richer in the end. SBF just got unlucky.
- ramesh31 1y ago>"Every round Anthropic raises twists the knife deeper in SBF. If only he could have survived the downturn his Antropic investment alone probably could have papered over the other loses." Things working out in the end doesn't make what he did not a crime at the time. He was a common paper hanger, albeit with billions instead.
- yunwal 1y ago> Things working out in the end doesn't make what he did not a crime at the time Morally speaking, no. Practically speaking, it does. He would not have seen jail time.
- ramesh31 1y ago>Morally speaking, no. Practically speaking, it does. He would not have seen jail time. It's literally exactly what Shkreli got 7 years for, even after repaying investors. If you defraud money from someone and put it back before they find out, it's still a crime. Fraud is about intent more than anything else, and they proved it for SBF.
- yunwal 1y agoRight, but that’s because Shkreli openly admitted to it on the internet
- Nextgrid 1y agoPractically speaking I think everyone involved would've had a good incentive to brush it off behind closed doors and not rock the boat. Crypto is entirely based on vibes (there are very few - if any - legitimate applications) and rocking the boat would cause losses across the entire industry.
- FinnLobsien 1y agoAlways makes you wonder how many companies that are successes today could’ve had their SBF moment, but market conditions kept them afloat
- adamgordonbell 1y ago> In the early days of FedEx, Smith had to go to great lengths to keep the company afloat. In one instance, after a crucial business loan was denied, he took the company's last $5,000 to Las Vegas and won $27,000 gambling on blackjack to cover the company's $24,000 fuel bill. Some who take on unreasonable risk will be among the most successful people alive. Most will lose eventually, long before you hear about them if they keep too many taking crazy risks. Who is a great genius, and is who is just winning at "The Martingale entrepreneurial strategy"?
- matheist 1y agoYou know, it only just now occurs to me to wonder if the blackjack story is the public sanitized version of "how I got $24k because I'm not allowed to tell you the real version"
- askafriend 1y agoGreat thought, that seems very likely since so many "founder stories" are heavily spun tales.
- Analemma_ 1y agoLas Vegas still had deep mafia ties in the 1970s so that’s very possible.
- FireBeyond 1y agoWhat this version of the FedEx story doesn't mention is that Fred was already stiffing his pilots on their salaries. Taking the last money in the company and deciding that the best use for it was the blackjack table in Vegas and not paying his employees ... worked well, but it was a gamble, let's be clear, not a calculated decision - like you say, not the decision of a "great genius". It goes a different way, and you have "FedEx founder decides to go gambling, leaving his employees without paychecks".
- bambax 1y agoProbably would have made his crimes less visible, but not less criminal.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoLike Martin Shkreli, who made his investors whole with his gambling, but still went to jail.
- hnav 1y agoHe went to jail because his autism wouldn't allow him to be duplicitous like a CEO doing evil things has to be and he attracted too much negative attention.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoAlso true.
- brandall10 1y agoLet's not pretend there aren't multitudes out there doing similar things who never get caught. SBF was just more egregious and untimely w/ his actions.
- stravant 1y agoThat assumes he would have stopped with the shenanigans, which is a pretty big if.
- Symmetry 1y agoProudly proclaiming on the Conversations With Tyler podcast that given a double or nothing bet with a 51% chance of success he'd keep playing forever.
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoNot forever. He'd have nothing soon enough.
- arduanika 1y agoIt is probably just a coincidence, but it's darkly funny how well this lines up with the strategy described in a rather infamous LessWrong post. The title is "Solutions to the Altruist's burden: the Quantum Billionaire Trick", but you probably know it by a different name. The author is one Roko Mijic.
- rsynnott 1y agoProbably not a total confidence; it’s EA/rationalist theory taken to ludicrous extremes in both cases.
- 1y ago
- LarsDu88 1y agoSo the difference between criminal fraud, and precient genius investor is a difference of a year or so. We should all try to remember this the next time we vote to cut taxes on billionaires.
- arduanika 1y agoThat's a pretty distorted view, and it's probably what people tell themselves right when they're about to do fraud.
- stefan_ 1y agoWhat if we put criminals into prison because they committed crimes, regardless of them making their victims "whole" (it would not happen anyway).
- xpe 1y agoDoes someone care about this alternative speculative history? Why? If there was something called the sunk death fallacy, I would invoke it.
- cellis 1y agoHe'll get a pardon next election cycle.
- sidewndr46 1y agoI'm pretty sure giving yourself a 1 billion dollar loan had something to do with his downfall. Not a failure to 'survive the downturn'.
- m101 1y agoA joke for finance types I was told a while back: "what do you call a rouge trader that makes money?" "Managing director" If someone makes money on time, everything is forgiven. Money blinds us.
- willhslade 1y agoRogue