FTX Implodes, and a Top VC Backer Falls on Its Face
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20221027181005/https://www.sequo... (linking it here because this deserves to be preserved as a cautionary tale in our collective memory)
What the crypto folks need to do to gain trust is stop behaving as though a lack of decentralized write-only communication means they can say whatever they want and nobody will remember the times they were wildly wrong.
As other comments point out, the Print Screen key, "Save to PDF", and archive.org are all you really need.
Since Sequoia isn't a news agency, its article is private corporate speech. And with the remarks about establishing trust in the crypto space, it seems to imply that either press release or adtorial-type stuff, or all private speech in the space, shouldn't be deletable.
Little did they know that the due diligence process for Sequoia wasn’t any better than any random no-name fund.
From everything we're learning, the writing was on the wall from day 1; these people were just enchanted by it.
But where are all the criticisms from before? While FTX was a multi-billion business, seemingly everyone kept quiet. Only when they went tits up suddenly everyone remembered how it was always a bad article.
It was a massive 90 minute listen. Even if he wasn’t a scam artist this would still be too long of a profile.
I don't want to sound too conspiratorial but seems odd they would bother to do a transaction for this while lending their name unless they were getting something back.
the biggest problem with NYT is they bend over backwards to appear neutral and give all sides the benefit of the doubt. it becomes doublespeak and provides cover for bad faith. for instance today's article on SBF - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/technology/ftx-sam-bankma... . it's an embarrassment to let him call looting client funds 'a margin position' without hard pushback.
but in the NYT they distinguish fact from opinion, and take reasonable steps to verify the stuff they print as fact. so even if they don't discount what SBF says as they should and draw the appropriate conclusions, a critical reader can. (even if it's while they are yelling at the screen)
so they are not going to print something like the Sequoia garbage that is completely one-sided, with technical absurdities and factual inaccuracies (and they will copy-edit properly and trim 14K-word vanity pieces).
people say the NYT is 'biased' but I think that accusation is misguided. Of course they have a point of view (like, democracy and government are usually good). the word 'bias' presumes the existence of some unbiased reference frame like 19th century ether theory. many people who call things 'biased' are just announcing, my own point of view is the one that must be privileged.
the question is not, do they have a point of view, but what is the point of view, is it transparent, do they check facts and distinguish between fact and opinion and dig regardless of who benefits. and the NYT is, despite its infuriating God-like view from nowhere, hard professional journalism.
the crap media is this stuff that has, not just a point of view, but an agenda, bogus facts, one-sided and self-serving, doesn't distinguish between fact and opinion.
and yes, it's important to know that Sequoia and Musk and other people want to control the narrative with wholly-owned crap media like this, and a Twitter zone they control and flood with BS. they want it so bad they hire 'private historians', try to discredit the real journalists, and spend megabucks for their own ecosytem.
Is this the new Trump Derangement Syndrome?