HIS name is Sam Bankman-Fried.
Nasdaily host Nuseir Yassin interviewed the 29-year old billionaire at his five-bedroom penthouse in the Bahamas. The video, posted in January 2022, has been deleted after the fall of the FTX investigation started on the crypto billionaire
A curly, slightly disheveled nerd, the young billionaire, wanted to donate to charity all of his assets. In 2021, his net worth was US$22 billion (approximately Php1.2 trillion), almost half of the Philippine government’s budget for 2023.
“Bitcoin was running at US$10,000 on a US Exchange, US$11,000 on a Japanese Exchange. You take US$10 million, you buy US$10,000, you sell at US$11,000, you make US$1 million. And we were able to do that every weekday,” Bankman-Fried.
Effective Altruism
The NasDaily painted him as a generous man giving away money like candy. It seemed ostentatious for the cynical, and yet it appeared he was a gregarious man who was unaffected by his wealth
“But Sam is not a traditional billionaire. Because he believes in the concept of ‘earn-to-give,’ which means his goal as a human is to make as much as possible just to give it away,” Yassin said.
Fortune Magazine later would call Bankman-Fried as “evangelist” of effective altruism.
Last month, Yassin said he only reported on Bankman-Fried’s philosophy of effective altruism– and did not endorse FTX. Other credible news magazines like Fortune and Forbes featured him, too.
Used car salesman
How was he able to dupe rich men, celebrities and the regular crypto nerd to invest in and endorse his company built on what seem to be lies of another level?
Shark tank tv series investor and billionaire Kevin O’Leary, who lost 10s of millions dollars said they did their due diligence and what convinced him is the fact that his parents are tax lawyers combined with his being american took it home for him.
He has built relationships based on playing the brilliant nice guy who graduated from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Celebrities and popular athletes soon joined the bandwagon. Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Stephen Curry and David Ortiz are some of the high profile people who were associated with FTX.
HIs marketing savvy can not be underestimated. FTX became a viable option to the eyes of many from manufactured trust and confidence built on deception and a cold calculating spirit.
Consequences
He is now facing multiple indictments from the Southern District of New York and is facing as many as 110 years in jail if convicted.
Perhaps another Netflix documentary in the offing following the path of the Lehman brothers’ culpability in the 1997 stock market crash is not far from happening in the not so distant future?
Watch out for this guy. He’s another can’t miss cautionary tale.
