I can't help but wonder if the NYTimes article was intentionally designed to be 99% puff piece disguising the 1% of extremely damning information, just to get them direct access to the FTX team so they could get something juicy. Journalists can be sneaky like that sometimes.
The 1% of damning info was Caroline's reported admission that Alameda borrowed short-term to make long-term illiquid VC investments, and when those loans got called and Alameda couldn't pay, FTX commingled its customer funds with Alameda to pay them.
That was a new bit of info, that NYTimes just casually snuck into the middle of the puff piece without further commentary, but it's quite damning and kinda insane. While all the rubes are complaining about the article being too gentle, the financial crimes prosecutors are adding it to their case files.