I have loathed Sam Bankman-Fried and his cronies for a while. They are prototypically horrible people who accumulated vast undeserved wealth while producing nothing of lasting value. This is the template they follow:
* Perform a dance (guided by rich parents) to get into an elite university. SBF’s parents are both Stanford law professors. Even though this is hard work, it instills the poisonous idea that life and achievements are just a charade.
* Coast through university without actually learning anything or struggling to improve. Listen to Caroline Ellison, SBF’s gal pal / coworker, explain that
networking is more important than classes.
* Use the degree as window dressing for the stupid bullshit that actually goes on at work. Ms. Ellison, with her Stanford math degree, describes how she uses only
elementary school calculations.
* Take loads of amphetamines to seem like a "genius", at least to venture capitalists. FTX
explicitly instructed their new hires on how to do this.
SBF and
Caroline were very open about using.
* Disregard physical training and even baseline physical appearance. SBF is
just gross, has apparently never lifted a weight, and is fat despite constantly mainlining Emsam. No, he's not just "working hard." His disconnect with physical reality seems to reinforce a belief in useless, overly abstract, convoluted propositions - like trading derivatives of pointless shitcoins.
It's a recipe for creating phony sociopaths. It's almost unsurprising that SBF talked loudly about being altruistic with his $15B while committing some of the biggest financial crimes in history.