Said Andy Croghan — a colleague of Sam Bankman-Fried's — quoted in a May 2022 NYT article, "A Crypto Emperor’s Vision: No Pants, His Rules/Sam Bankman-Fried is a studiously disheveled billionaire who made a fortune overseeing trades that are too risky for the U.S. market. Now he wants Washington to follow his lead" (NYT).
Croghan was trying to get SBF to look more conventionally presentable. He says he said, "Sam, you’ve got to cut your hair, dude — it looks ridiculous." SBF retorted: "I honestly think it’s negative EV for me to cut my hair. I think it’s important for people to think I look crazy."
When SBF did testify before Congress, he wore long pants and was more subtly weird by doing his shoe laces like this:
That article from last May is by David Yaffe-Bellany, who was on yesterday's episode of the NYT Daily podcast, which I highly recommend. Yaffe-Bellany talks about how SBF tried "to create a mystique for himself as a kind of nerd genius," affecting a "disheveled appearance" that was "all very calculated." Don't miss the voice of Bill Clinton at 16:20.
"It’s negative EV for me to cut my hair" — What's "EV"? From the May article:
Before making any kind of business decision, Mr. Bankman-Fried weighs the options in quantitative terms. “What’s the expected value?” he often asks co-workers, before assigning numbers to each possible outcome: A good result has positive EV; a bad one, negative EV. Once, while a few colleagues were cracking crypto-themed sex jokes in the office, he whirled around in his chair. Was there positive EV, he wondered, in distributing condoms with jokes on them at an upcoming conference? (The answer was yes: “Never breaks,” one of the FTX-branded wrappers read, “even during large liquidations.”)
ADDED: In the comments to yesterday's post John Borell — obviously aware of my longstanding critique of men in shorts — wrote "all SBF posts should have a 'men in shorts' tag."
I responded:
He owned his personal style and it was a good message if people knew how to understand it. Which they didn't. Because they were listening to their own (greedy) hopes 'n' dreams.
Let them now enjoy their own stupid genius-god in short pants. I think it's very funny.
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62 comments:
Peter (The Peter Principle) noted an exception to being promoted until you reach your level of incompetence, namely always do something wrong that doesn't actually matter but impedes promotion. Like wearing bermudas to work. You're competent all your life that way.
Fake money. plastic currency. No wonder he gave so much of it the party of fake news.
Ok, SBF. what’s the EV of the rest of your life in prison? Even in the Bahamas?
Prediction. Before the end of the year, SBF will be in Bali or some other country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US. His parents are both law profs at #1 Stanford Law. They can figure the odds of him getting convicted. I say 100%.
SBF’s mother in the Boston Review, “ our worldviews, aspirations, temperaments, conduct, and achievements—everything we conventionally think of as “us”—are in significant part determined by accidents of biology and circumstance.”
His parents have plenty to answer for. They raised one of the biggest crooks in US history. Bigger than Madoff.
Here is a picture of him with his shorts down over his ass showing his undershorts. Free as a bird in the Bahamas after emptying FTX’s accounts and giving the government there $600 million.
https://mobile.twitter.com/readytrader01/status/1593703082763984896
Democrats got a lot less than that, the grift seemed so perfect, billion$ to Ukraine, who kick back billions to FTX, who kick back scores of millions to the Democrats. This happened, even though a resident expert here on “stupidity” seems to believe that only stupid people would talk about it.
SBF also showered money on so-called “liberal” publications, probably to ensure that headlines are rigorously stylish.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1593724962195607553
A trial uncovering the rank stupidity would be a revelatory unmasking of base stupidity. It will not be allowed to happen. He walks.
The lost key to this story is that FTX got special status from the SEC.
The SEC is regulating Crypto right now. They are arresting people and they are taking companies to court and assessing fines. They don't have any real authority to do so but they do it anyway.
Most crypto companies exclude people from the US in many of their investment activities because of the SEC.
CZ, the CEO/Founder of Binance exchange and Binance Smart Chain is the person that saw how fraudulent and corrupt FTX/SBF were and he lanced the FTX boil of corruption.
Not the SEC who was working with SBF.
And Zelensky was "investing" in FTX. Where did he get that money? From the US Taxpayer courtesy of Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, and Mitch McConnell. FTX conveniently rewarded Corrupt Democrats and Republicans for sending our money to Zelensky to invest and wash back to them.
This is a government corruption story, not a lack of regulation on crypto story.
I'll bet everyone here remembers Lesko, Right?
Or the stereotype of the used car salesman in the loud plaid suit?
Or the loud brash real estate developer?
Or the computer entrepreneur who always wore a black turtleneck shirt?
Or the stock tout on cnbc who is always yelling?
If you are selling something you need to stand out. Looking like a bum, or someone who doesn't give a shit about appearances because he is too busy making money for YOU! is just another way to stand out, promote the brand, advertise and most importantly, sell!
Successful sales people are always memorable.
John Henry
SBF will end up in Cuba. No treaty with the US. Cuban fighter jets can escort his jet. Price would be at least $10 million, but that’s much less than his EV in the slammer.
And he can wear shorts every day!
His parents bear a big responsibility here. So does the Democrat party. The Dems are immoral monsters. No question about that.
billion$ to Ukraine, who kick back billions to FTX, who kick back scores of millions to the Democrats.
Don't stop there, keep going:
Democrats who kick back scores of millions to the media. In campaign ads.
John Henry
Act Surprised.
What was it Yellowbeard said? "Pride of me loins."
Mommy's all right. Daddy's all right.
They just seem a little weird.
Let them now enjoy their own stupid genius-god in short pants. I think it's very funny.
If you also mentioned baldness and a hoodie, that could also be said to Pennsylvania voters about John Fetterman.
"it’s negative EV"
Now we get some insight into this guy's mind.
Negative EV (expected value) is a poker term. A gambling term.
Did ya notice he's still not under investigation or arrest by the US Department of Justice or the SEC, even though he just stole BILLIONS of dollars (and handed it out to all those Democrats!)
Bigger thief than Bernie Madoff. And he's scot-free.
"it’s negative EV"
Now we get some insight into this guy's mind.
Negative EV (expected value) is a poker term. A gambling term.
Did ya notice he's still not under investigation or arrest by the US Department of Justice or the SEC, even though he just stole BILLIONS of dollars (and handed it out to all those Democrats!)
Bigger thief than Bernie Madoff. And he's scot-free.
Why is it that the more ethicists we have, the more ethics we teach, the more people talk about ethics, the less moral we are?
Beyond Blame
The philosophy of personal responsibility has ruined criminal justice and economic policy. It’s time to move past blame.
Barbara H. Fried
Of course she feels that way. Moms always forgive.
"to create a mystique for himself as a kind of nerd genius," affecting a "disheveled appearance" that was "all very calculated."
Is this another story that we will never fully understand? It appears that SBF was a nerd genius. He knew just how eccentric he needed to be so people gave him billions of dollars, he knew who to give millions to in order to associate with high profile people without anyone asking serious questions.
SBF is in the Bahamas and is likely to have billions squirreled away. Does anyone think he will ever serve serious time in a serious prison? I don't even care that he will get away with it because he bilked people who should know better and he gave them plenty of clues.
When SBF did testify before Congress, he wore long pants and was more subtly weird by doing his shoe laces like this:
Subtly weird or not properly instructed in how to tie shoe laces?
"I honestly think it’s negative EV for me to cut my hair. I think it’s important for people to think I look crazy."
When does this stop being a quirk of personality and become deliberate artifice?
I agree with Dave B. He can always go to Israel which per the DOJ website has the following laws:
An Israeli national may not be extradited except for an offense committed prior to becoming a national. Extradition can be granted only if the person has been charged or convicted of a felony or some other specific extradition offense. The offense must be a criminal offense under the laws of the requesting state and an extradition offense under Israeli law. Every request must be accompanied by evidence showing a prima facie case against the offender.
However, why would the Bahamas' convict him or extridite him? If Fried Bankster gives them a couple hundred million, he'll be OK. I'm sure he already has. And after all, not many native bahamians lost money to FTX.
And if that's not enough, Fried bankster has already bribed numerous Democrat pols and probably is involved in money laundering with the Ukrainian aid. Not someone the D's want spilling the beans.
Elizabeth Holmes was predicting the future for this twerp. She, too, was a big lefty supporter. It didn't help.
Expecting a financial whiz kid supposedly making billions to dress in a suit and tie, that's so bourgeois.
"Expected value", "effective altruim", "ethical imperatives"... who know what any of that is supposed to mean, other than to try and sound wise and noble while stealing other people's money.
I have read comparisons to Bernie Madoff but Sam Bankman-Fried reminds me of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Without the sex trafficking (I hope!).
Stanford and MIT, they have a lot to answer for.
I'm pretty sure that photo is not SBF, just some overweight kid riding his bike to school. For one thing, he's wearing long pants, and why the hell would SBF be riding a little BMX bike wearing a kid's backpack?
Dave Begley: you say he's sure to be convicted. He has not even been charged with anything yet! He certainly SHOULD be convicted.
"accidents of biology and circumstance.”
Sounds half-racist. Charles Murray was crucified for less.
SBF's main squeeze Caroline Ellison has an interesting background/ lineage. "Ellison is the daughter of Glenn Ellison, Professor of Economics at MIT, who coached her math team as a middle schooler, and Sara Fisher Ellison, also an economist at MIT. (wiki) "
So we have Stanford Law (SBF) and MIT economics (Ellison) covered here. And let's not forget Ellison interned and later worked for Jane Street. The best and the brightest!
For amusement only: https://www.janestreet.com/culture/overview/
Democrat troubles are aborted under an NYT paper roll. Bad reader. Sit. Lie over.
Elizabeth holmes, Madoff, shkreli, sbf - it's a good idea for society to wonder how they got there.
Meade,
Would you wear long pants to Congress?
SEC Enforcement Division Director...
https://biographymask.com/melissa-hodgman/
Peter Strzok's wife...
Discuss
His slob shorts, tee, sagging socks, and tennis shoes just as affected as the top hat, monocle and morning coat of the Monopoly man.
Who did he steal all that money from, anyway? Have we figured that out yet?
“Meade,
Would you wear long pants to Congress?“
Hmm let me think about that…
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/khZbnfkQRZVutiKFPXNxWr-zEgJFjuoi8el5_FH8Qsze84xTaJc6_2otACiIendzImp4ui_BOom5TUlHEJii=s0-d
Since high school I've done my shoelaces with a three-loop knot. Nobody has ever noticed, during 40+ years of oddly tied shoes. Who noticed this guy's knotted shoes, and was a publicist involved?
"What [Nassim] Taleb has identified and calls antifragile are things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish." Google.
Disheveled appearance is one thing, but finance is something completely different.
Finance is too tied to the tidiness of math. "The difference between what we wish and what we do."
We'll see if his lawyers can persuade him of the EV of putting on the big boy pants for a jury trial. Maybe not. He might actually be better served with the shorts, visual confirmation of the "He's just an excitable boy" defense.
Compliments to Althouse on her saint-like forbearance on the "men in shorts" issue. If it were me, I would've spent the last week doing a nonstop "told you so" on this blog.
As a devout reader and sometime commentator, I love being quoted in a post!
Maybe a tag for men with poorly laced shoes.
Gianni Agnelli had better, more understated idea.
Link to pics
The whole idea is, "I'm weird, therefore I'm brilliant and you can trust me with all your money."
Apparently, it convinces a helluva lotta people.
I bet SBF will wind up living next door to the Sham-Wow guy.
Holmes just got eleven years in prison. First they come for the cute blondes, then they come for the disheveled intellectuals. They're gearing up. Someday they will come for the bribe taking, crack addicts and democracy will have died in America.
Some time back I read Chernow's bio of John J. Rockefeller. Rockefeller was the richest man alive (exclusive of royalty and aristocrats) and didn't much care for public opinion. He went to church every Sunday, never cheated on his wife, and funded many philanthropies that appreciably changed the world for the better. Despite this, he got a bad press. He was Montgomery Burns in the world's abiding opinion.....Billionaires have since learned from his example. It's not enough to provide a reliable product at a reasonable price or to eradicate several major diseases from the world. It's more important to be lovable, folksy, and accessible. SBF's product was not as reliable as Rockefeller's kerosene and donating to Dem causes was not as worthwhile as eliminating tapeworm from the southern states, but, by God, this man was observably nicer and more sincere than John J Rockefeller ever was. He didn't have any pesky Ida Tarbell dogging his various business deals. Even to this day, the press considers him one of their own and, of course, he is.
BUMBLE BEE referred to Peter Strzok's wife.
A brief summary of the lovely bride: " ... in 2018, Melissa joined the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a staff attorney. She received a promotion and became an assistant director after working at SEC for four years. Currently, Melissa works in the US Securities and Exchange Commission and plays a very crucial part."
Small world, isn't it?
"Sam literally said to me...."
So he had one of those speech balloons like in the comics?
Going forward, I will never invest millions in a "currency" controlled by a guy in shorts. Yes, so far I had been ignoring Althouse's timely warnings against men in shorts and might have invested my millions (imaginary, to be sure, but so were his) into Crypto-data-crunchy Bits, the brunch of champions. But no more. So, not having lost that money, which means I have it to invest, where should I put it? I have always known that a company with "death" in the title run by a woman in black was no good. It's hard to know how to ask whether the company is running flights to the Bahamas, planes stocked with underage girls, drugs and Our Betters the Regulators. Best just to avoid any company connected with the words: "high-flying" as this might be a noun, not a metaphor.
But Elon Musk? He's really shown how to shake up a company - require staff to agree to come in and work to make the company a success. It's right ... but will it make money in the world of DIE?
I think I'll bury all I saved from crypto in the back garden in a marked spot under one of those ash trees. Unless I but some Treasuries, debt guaranteed by the USA. By me. Yikes.
Would you play goofball for, say, a couple million stash?
Just sayin.
It all goes one way.
what is literally saying something?
I can grasp 'orally' 'vocally' etc.
Going forward, I will never invest millions in a "currency" controlled by a guy in shorts.
Backed by the full faith and credit of a minority, and made viable through ponzi investor and energy schemes, with a virtually indelible fingerprint.
There's a relative in my family who is eternally envious of people who are well-off, and she's always looking for a "Get Rich Quick" scheme to level the playing field. She asked me about crypto a couple years ago, and I told her it was a bad idea. Something about it just reeks of criminality, and government evasion.
Wonder if she listened to my advice? I guess I'll find out during the holidays when she comes round to visit ...
@wildswan: Here's a crazy idea: Invest in spider funds, which grow at the same rate as the US major indices, like the S&P 500. That way, you're not beholden to crazy people living in polycubes with children, or fanatic Crazy-Eyes cult leaders who believe in unicorn farts and pixie dust.
Want to be rich? Get boring, and diversify. Use deferred gratification and compound interest to your advantage.
Well, hopefully the Strzoks' plowed all Peter's media payoff money in FTX at the top of its value.
"I bet SBF will wind up living next door to the Sham-Wow guy."
ISWYDT.
You listen to those two geebos talk and there is absolutely no way any sharp, responsible person EVER thought they were "Math Geniuses." I know people who made big money in early dot-com stuff and, although they weren't "geniuses," they were definitely smarter and more articulate than Sam and Queen Caroline. I cannot imagine real VC people ever giving money to people like that, so I think it was a money-laundering operation for the get-go, and then, because of the crypto boom, it evolved into a pyramid scheme, probably by accident. I wonder how much of not just U.S. aid sent to Ukraine, but Ukraine's actual treasury funds were funneled through FTX with a wink and nod from U.S. regulators because "by putting into crypto they are 'saving' it from Putin." Also note that his parents teach at Stanford and he went to MIT while hers teach at MIT and she went to Stanford and all parents are connected to upper echelons of U.S. government. Gives you a glimpse into how the status-grift system works just as the H.Biden laptop shows you how the younger/dumber sons/stepsons are the bagmen so that the older/smarter sons are 'clean' to inherit the political office.
You listen to those two geebos talk and there is absolutely no way any sharp, responsible person EVER thought they were "Math Geniuses." I know people who made big money in early dot-com stuff and, although they weren't "geniuses," they were definitely smarter and more articulate than Sam and Queen Caroline. I cannot imagine real VC people ever giving money to people like that, so I think it was a money-laundering operation for the get-go, and then, because of the crypto boom, it evolved into a pyramid scheme, probably by accident. I wonder how much of not just U.S. aid sent to Ukraine, but Ukraine's actual treasury funds were funneled through FTX with a wink and nod from U.S. regulators because "by putting into crypto they are 'saving' it from Putin." Also note that his parents teach at Stanford and he went to MIT while hers teach at MIT and she went to Stanford and all parents are connected to upper echelons of U.S. government. Gives you a glimpse into how the status-grift system works just as the H.Biden laptop shows you how the younger/dumber sons/stepsons are the bagmen so that the older/smarter sons are 'clean' to inherit the political office.
You listen to those two geebos talk and there is absolutely no way any sharp, responsible person EVER thought they were "Math Geniuses." I know people who made big money in early dot-com stuff and, although they weren't "geniuses," they were definitely smarter and more articulate than Sam and Queen Caroline. I cannot imagine real VC people ever giving money to people like that, so I think it was a money-laundering operation for the get-go, and then, because of the crypto boom, it evolved into a pyramid scheme, probably by accident. I wonder how much of not just U.S. aid sent to Ukraine, but Ukraine's actual treasury funds were funneled through FTX with a wink and nod from U.S. regulators because "by putting into crypto they are 'saving' it from Putin." Also note that his parents teach at Stanford and he went to MIT while hers teach at MIT and she went to Stanford and all parents are connected to upper echelons of U.S. government. Gives you a glimpse into how the status-grift system works just as the H.Biden laptop shows you how the younger/dumber sons/stepsons are the bagmen so that the older/smarter sons are 'clean' to inherit the political office.
EV in this case is not expected value. It is ENTERPRISE VALUE. Oversimplified, it is Market Cap + Debt.
Subtly weird or not properly instructed in how to tie shoe laces?
I thought the latter when I saw the photo. Quite often I have intelligent co-workers in their late twenties or thirties ask me how to do simple personal tasks that every 11-year old knew how to do back when I was that age. I’m a nice guy who has a reputation for fatherliness so I explain without mockery or condescension. But I can’t help but wonder.
OTOH, I start my numeral 5’s from the bottom, so there you go.
" you say he's sure to be convicted. He has not even been charged with anything yet! "
Hell, the guy that ran over the class of Sheriff deputies in LA has been released and not charged yet!
"spider funds"
Once when I was working at a bakery with early morning hours, I told a customer that I had observed that people who did not know each other and were not in the store with each other would come in and buy the same way on random days. They'd select the same doughnuts and croissants, buy extra for colleagues, etc. He was quite excited and told me I could predict the market from that = with a little research - and get rich. From doughnut purchase patterns?A theory with holes in it.
It's okay to be weird if you produce. But if you screw up, it's off to the barber and mens clothing store for you!
What was it Yellowbeard said? "Pride of me loins."
It was “prawn of me loins…”.
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