Bankman-Fried being invited to speak at a New York Times event alongside Yellen | Hacker News Reader

Bankman-Fried being invited to speak at a New York Times event alongside Yellen

nytimes.com

109 pointsRadixDLT135 comments

I just heard that a guy I knew committed suicide over the FTX implosion. He was a weath adviser with a bunch of his clients' money tied up there.

FTX fucked with peoples' livelihoods, and by extension their lives.

Edit: just to clarify, it was his decision to park his clients' money there. But FTX spent a lot of money courting retail investors with slick campaigns. A superbowl ad that implied people were stupid not to participate. Big Silicon Valley VC firms imbued SBF with the aura of a wunderkind who could do no wrong.

Please make sure this information makes it to sentencing when Bankman-Fried’s trial concludes.

Only if it makes you feel better. There's no degree of punishment that can be done to this person whom you've never met that can bring the dead that you knew back to life. There are no refunds for spending our civilization lionizing the massive accumulation of wealth by financial manipulation. The danger is in the system, not the random narcissist promoted into a position of power within it; there is an endless supply of narcissists.

Punishment isn't for the benefit of the dead, it's for the living. Kind of like the funeral.

It's a trick played on the living by the people in charge of punishment. If it were for the living, the living would have a lot more of a say than they do, and some of the millions that are spent on the process of punishment would go to the bereaved. The bereaved are the pretense.

Sometimes the bereaved want retribution.

The average peasant cares not for this cold utilitarianism. They want to see him drawn and quartered. This is not something imposed by the ruling class.

You are correct that it's only if the poster feels better. You are wrong about the reasoning. Unfortunately, sentencing takes into account the harm done, but not causing so much harm that the person then takes their life.

Punishing the guilty may put off the next fraudster.

Can't trial the judge.

I don't want to sound negative, really. It's a great tragedy.

But when you are a wealth advisor, one of your jobs is to inform your clients about the inherent risk of all forms of investments you deal with. As for cryptocurrencies, your duty is to tell your clients all their money can evaporate in a second and they won't be able to do anything about it. If they don't like that, they can use other forms of investments. In my country it's even regulated: the client needs to sign a statement they were informed about it and they accept this risk. So no reason to commit a suicide because it's not your problem in the slightest.

Unless of course you were basically bandwagoning on it as well and telling your clients it was a great idea with little risk.

edit: this came off as implying suicide was reasonable in such circumstances. Not intended to go that far.

> telling your clients it was a great idea with little risk.

Or even worse: Telling your clients they are invested in something else with a completely different risk profile when they were actually exposed to this.

If he invested his clients money in FTX, it’s certainly possible he put a lot of his own money into it as well, and lost it all.

Yes, I assume this is what actually happened. But unless it was a borrowed money, again this is not a reason to commit suicide. You can always start from zero and have a more or less normal life. If it was borrowed money, well, that person shouldn't be a wealth advisor.

Sure, as long as your emotions are driven only by the contracts you sign.

People sign a waiver accepting the risk when they go whitewater rafting, but that doesn’t stop it from being a potentially life-altering traumatic experience for a rafting guide when a kid falls out and drowns under the raft.

Likewise, if you care about your client’s financial well-being as a wealth advisor, and you make a choice that destroys years of your client’s savings, retirement, etc. it would be understandable to feel distraught about that.

Sorry for your loss.

While I do not want to dismiss your comment in any way, the same can be said for all of Crypto.

Get out while you can.

> Get out while you can.

Nice, the opposite of HODL. Only requires an acronym or something. And indeed, to OP: my condolences.

A wealth advisor that is directing clients to crypo has more problems than FTX.

Sorry for your loss.

Financial advisor without professional insurance? Why would anyone do that? Shouldn't they be the people who know how to use financial products and services to protect themselves?

If I ran a forum like this I’d invite SBF too… assuming he was stupid enough to come. This isn’t a privilege people are handing him, it’s an opportunity to gawk at the dumpster fire.

Plus it'll save the New York court the trouble of extraditing him for arrest.

I guess it depends on what will be happening. Are they trying to give him enough rope to hang himself with? Or are they actually going to try to exonnerate him in some way?

(The usual "rope to hang yourself with" genre in journalism is the interview, where the journalist has significantly more control, compared to a public talk.)

The biggest question to me is why he isn't in prison or at least why there seems to be some possibility that he won't end up in handcuffs the moment he lands in the US.

The reason he might not end up in handcuffs when he lands in the US is that the Bahamian government currently has control of him and wants to try him first. They'll only let him come to the US if the U.S. guarantees he'll go back to the Bahamas for their charges. Or, if he uses zoom.

And as of now, they can only be handing him more rope. The media can help convict, but they cannot exonerate anyone. A prosecutor can just go forward and find 12 people who never saw this fairly niche event.

> They'll only let him come to the US if the U.S. guarantees he'll go back to the Bahamas for their charges.

The US has a law that says they will invade The Hague if the court there makes a decision they don't like. Are you sure there's such thing as "the US guarantees"?

Source on the law?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

"Hague Invasion Act" is in the first sentence, not hard to Google...

“However, this is an extreme interpretation of the act, and the act does not expressly authorize nor mention military action against the Netherlands (a close ally of the United States) or any ICC members, nor does it threaten an invasion of The Hague.”

Not hard to read either…

> the law authorizes the President of the United States to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court"

It might not be expressly stated, but it's pretty clear. Sure, it's a super-extreme case - but it's there, explicitly saying "by all means necessary ...".

The US has always abided by such agreements. The Hague requires the US to rescue soldiers held by an international body whose authority over US forces they publicly and perpetually deny the legitimacy of. It's not going back on your word when you keep reiterating you're not involved.

The biggest question to me is why he isn't in prison

He hasn't been convicted of anything yet. He hasn't even been charged with anything yet.

(Aside: prison is for sentences of greater than 1 year. Defendants awaiting trial who were denied bail are held in a jail.)

>He hasn't even been charged with anything yet.

That is exactly my point.

Once charges are filed there is a limited window of time to bring the case to trial, and you can only try a defendant once for a particular set of acts (in the U.S. at least; "double jeopardy").

FTX hasn't even finished collapsing. There will be plenty of time to prosecute him once all of the facts are known, assuming he hasn't been killed by one of his many victims before then.

I wonder if SBF was really dumb enough to think he could just get away with it, forever. It makes no sense, like stealing a car you always wanted on camera with a gps tracker in it that you know traces your exact location. You know you're caught no matter how fun the drive is at the moment.

Nowadays if you pay the right people you can do whatever you want.

yeah seems like a ploy to get him on us soil and in a jurisdiction with prosecution claims.

The Bahamas is not going to let him leave the country unless the US extradites him.

pretty sure the Bahamians have been paid off

I've read he joins over the internet unless it has changed?

Interesting that FTX bought a tiny bank and then joined the Federal Reserve system https://protos.com/the-curious-case-of-ftx-and-farmington-st...

With all the interviews and speaking the principals are doing, some say they are narcissists and/or feel immune.

There might also be a lesson in here: Any exceedingly wealthy person who's lawyer is their father has a fool for a client.

"One man with a briefcase can steal more money than a hundred men with guns."—Don Corleone

"One man with a keyboard and an internet connection can steal more money than a thousand men with briefcases."—SBF

To make it complete they probably should invite Elizabeth Holmes to give a lecture about visionary leadership.

They've got NYC Mayor Eric Adams to speak on visionary leadership. lolz

The Get-Out-Of-Jail Free Card is real, and only costs a few $100m in donations to the right people.

That sounds more like a get-out-of-jail-for-hundreds-of-millions card. Though if this is the event that makes people realize that wealth inequality leads to all kinds of perversions of justice, perhaps that's a silver lining at least.

People have always known. But what are their options? Short of a revolution, people don’t really have the power or resources to make the necessary changes. Even after a revolution, you probably end up with the same issue: a pyramid-like power structure with similar levels of inequality, just different people in power.

SBF was donating crazy amounts of money to Democrat PACs -

https://newrepublic.com/article/169104/sam-bankman-fried-ftx...

No word on if those Democrats or PACs will give back the dirty money

FTX donated slightly more to Republicans than Democrats.

Based covered, with donor alignment selected for optics and press value.

Source? I agree with the "bases covered" big picture, but all the numbers I've seen so far have D > R.

https://prospect.org/power/congressmembers-tried-to-stop-sec...

You were only looking at the ~$570k assigned to specific candidates at the top. Look further down on the page: there's a $28000k donation to the Democratic "Protect our Future PAC", a $15000k donation to the Republican "American Dream Federal Action", ...

What you're missing is that the Protect our Future PAC only participated in the primary campaign cycle, meaning intra-party elections. POF did not participate in the general election in November.

If you look at donations based on when they were made, the GOP was the overwhelming recipient of FTX money for the general election in November, i.e., the election that mattered.

Protect our Future PAC is just one of several donations that were enormously larger than the $286k R / $283k D total direct candidate donations.

Meanwhile, just because a donation is received during the primary season doesn’t mean it can’t be spent during the general election period, when the candidate in question wins the primary.

Is there a difference? They're all grifters.

Source?

Soros and SBF are first and second as Democrat top donors

https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donor...

man how many times does the list need to explain to you that Salame was a republican megadonor.

And how many time do you need to realize we are discussing SBF and not whole FTX. FTX was a child-like run cult that did what it wanted and every single individual had their agenda. When we are discussing Salame and FTX, bring this point up.

The premise still stands that SBF was biggest personal contributor.

> The premise still stands that SBF was biggest personal contributor.

he was not, Soros outweighs him, so does Bloomberg, i do not see your point

furthermore i would love to know why this demands a partisan lens when the whole of FTX was clearly co-mingling funds; the line between SBF's "personal" contributions and FTX's broader contributions as a network is likely governed more by campaign finance law than anything else

I don't think you were trying to make a political point by only referencing one party but it should be noted that FTX was a huge donor to both parties

https://www.businessinsider.com/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-donate...

> Meanwhile, Ryan Salame, a fellow FTX senior executive, donated more than $23 million primarily to Republican candidates and efforts.

You're redirecting off SBF

https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donor...

no, he's merely noting that the FTX inner circle gave to both sides, which is important information.

Perhaps they already spent the money on the 2022 mid-terms? If the money is dirty, should they be able to get those dirty dollars back from the places they spent it?

The money is not "dirty" in the typical definition of the word. "Dirty" money needs to be "laundered" so that you can appear to have a genuine justification of having it. That is, it's basically just a matter of whether it was declared as income to tax authorities.

The FTX money was all above board from that perspective. Taking money back from parties that FTX paid seems very unlikely.

There have been “clawbacks” in cases of major fraud before. Irving Picard is something of a legend for his ability to “recover” stolen funds for Madoff victims: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-amazing-madoff-clawback-154...

Donated to Republican and Democrat PACs (from the numbers being thrown around fairly evenly).

They were donating more or the same amount to Republican PACs.

> Some of the “Blockchain Eight,” as the Prospect termed them in March, have benefited from crypto largesse. Five of the eight members received campaign donations from FTX employees, ranging from $2,900 to $11,600. Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC), one of the signatories, received half a million dollars in support from a Super PAC created by FTX co-CEO Ryan Salame.

> More consequentially, Emmer was the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for House Republicans, this year. The NRCC’s associated super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, received $2.75 million from FTX in the 2022 cycle; $2 million from Salame in late September, and $750,000 from the company’s political action committee.

> That money helped House Republicans win the majority in 2022. Though FTX has been portrayed as a Democratic firm, thanks to the high profile of former co-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, the company sprinkled around campaign donations fairly evenly, with a shade over 50 percent going directly to congressional Republicans and a shade under 50 percent to Democrats this cycle.

> In an email, the SEC declined to comment. Six of the eight congressmembers have yet to respond

https://prospect.org/power/congressmembers-tried-to-stop-sec...

>No word on if those Democrats or PACs will give back the dirty money

Now you're just straight up lying on something that happened 10 days ago.

There's been a concentrated effort by the Republican party to try to link the FTX collapse to the other party, even though the Republican party actually received more contributions from FTX during the general election.

Almost all of SBF's donations were during the primary, and he made almost no donations during the general election. This means his money might have helped influence who showed up on the November ballots he didn't spend anything to help one party win over the other.

In contrast, almost all of the FTX's GOP spending, and all of the FTX executive's donations to the GOP, were during the general election cycle, and specifically to the GOP House races. This means that the GOP owes it's current majority in the house directly to stolen money donated to it by FTX and FTX executives.

>Almost all of SBF's donations were during the primary, and he made almost no donations during the general election. This means his money might have helped influence who showed up on the November ballots he didn't spend anything to help one party win over the other.

That's not how it works. There is no rule that says that donations made during the primary season cannot be spent by the campaign after the primary.

Right, but in this case, the Democratic PACs listed were only active in the primaries; they sat out the general election.

You're evading the point. Money given to a candidate during primary season can and does get spent during the general election, too.

Yes, money from a primary can be used in the general. But in this case, it wasn't. The FTX money was used to select candidates but not to elect them.

In contrast, almost all of the FTX-related donations to the GOP were given during the general cycle meaning that they were specifically given to help elect candidates. This means the GOP actually benefited more from FTX money than the Dems, and explains why McCarthy is focusing his efforts on committee assignments rather than on going after FTX.

>Yes, money from a primary can be used in the general. But in this case, it wasn't. The FTX money was used to select candidates but not to elect them.

Money doesn't work that way. Money is fungible. There is nothing about contribution x that distinguishes it from contribution y once both are received, or prevents x from being used for the same purpose as y.

Further,

>In contrast, almost all of the FTX-related donations to the GOP were given during the general cycle meaning that they were specifically given to help elect candidates. This means the GOP actually benefited more from FTX money than the Dems

The other way around. Money given later in an election cycle means there is less time to use it.

No, campaign money is not fungible. There are rules about how and when it can be spent.

So I'm going to leave this conversation, since it's clear that you're coming from a position of ignorance and there's no point in continuing this conversation until you spend time reading a primer on campaign finance laws.

>No, campaign money is not fungible. There are rules about how and when it can be spent.

Yes, in terms of individual contribution limits, and various other rules. However, not in the context that we have been discussing, which is using primary contributions in the general election. As the FEC explains <https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate...>:

>As previously noted, should the candidate lose the primary election, contributions accepted for the general election must be refunded, redesignated or reattributed within 60 days and may not be used to repay primary election debt. Therefore, candidate committees should ensure they have enough cash on hand to make those refunds if needed.

>Candidates running in the general election, however, may spend unused primary contributions for general election expenses. The contributions would continue to apply toward the contributors’ limits for the primary. [My emphasis] In addition, the campaign of a candidate running in the general election may use general election contributions for primary election debts; the contributions would still count against the contributor’s general election limits.

As I said, this is why donating earlier is better than donating later, and why your claim that "The FTX money was used to select candidates but not to elect them" is meaningless.

Of course you won't pay attention to the above, since you've already pontificated that

>So I'm going to leave this conversation, since it's clear that you're coming from a position of ignorance and there's no point in continuing this conversation until you spend time reading a primer on campaign finance laws.

Sheesh.

SBF was the second largest Democrat donor, only second to Soros

https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donor...

Both these things— SBF donated more to Republicans than he did to Democrats and that he was the Democrats’ largest donor— can be simultaneously true. And that’s not exactly a great look for the GOP, since it means the plutocratic donor class is heavily on their side.

Check your sources on SBF, he put more into liberal than conservative PACs

https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/donor_detail/20...

that's true, but his lieutenants were major donors to republican candidates -- Ryan Salame was advertised as a budding "republican megadonor" at events

You're confident SBF won't be arrested and charged under a Democratic-controlled DOJ?

He will be arrested, trial date will be set to few years later..case will drag on. He will get an year suspended sentence. He will be out on parole next day.

I will soak my socks in vinegar and eat them on Livestream if I am wrong or if he gets the book thrown at him

Appears he was listed weeks before the crash in October:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221018125217/https://www.nytim...

FTX public crash started in November:

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_of_FTX

____________

EDIT: Another comment links to tweet by NYT & SBF both confirming he’s still “speaking” at the event, though who knows if he’ll actually be live and in person:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33743735

Yeah, it’s less a recent invite and more of a lack of un-invite.

Why would they un-invite him though? After Pete Carrol made the call to pass on the 1-yd line , everybody wanted to interview him. Much more than they wanted to hear from Bellichick.

Making some sort of error in a sports game is not a criminal act; fraud is.

As people on fintwit have mentioned Madoff was in handcuffs less than 24 hours after his fraud was exposed. Bit this dude who literally described his business model as a Ponzi scheme?...

I can't help but feel a bit of cynicism over everything right now

SBF is in the Bahamas, the Feds will need to get him extradited.

And Madoff confessed immediately.

I was getting ads for this on LinkedIn, including SBF, before the FTX crash.

Pretty sure this is just that they haven't updated the content and pre-exists FTX imploding.

Would be great if he still showed up though. Would make for an amazing Q&A.

They've confirmed that he will still be showing up: https://twitter.com/andrewrsorkin/status/1595517635441090565

I’m willing to bet he’ll be making a virtual “appearance” if he makes any appearance at all.

Yes, anyone can commit to a Zoom appearance.

Even Snowden does those.

Do the writers at NY Times simply not know he deliberately ran a fake exchange and quite literally stole money from people?

Or is someone with deep pockets influencing things?

Either way, a totally horrible look for NY Times

He's not even going to be the worst person speaking at the event, by far.

I don't know, I think he is undoubtedly a newsworthy individual, and if it is true that he is not receiving a speaker's fee, I think it makes sense for them to keep him on the agenda.

Bernie Madoff is also a newsworthy individual

And it would be in the public interest to have Madoff on a public panel forum. Democratization of information, open platforms, etc

And if Madoff agreed to an interview the month his scheme collapsed the NYT would publish it too.

In fact, the NYT did publish the first post-arrest interview with Madoff as soon as he agreed to one.

It was already scheduled, but also why wouldn’t they want him to appear? It’s an on going story. They’re obviously not endorsing crime or fraud.

They’d interview Bernie Madoff the week he was caught too.

I hope this is an operation to arrest the #$%#$% SBF and bring him to justice for the scorched earth he caused. What possible benefit could SBF bring to the NYT event--how to blow up millions of people's finances while you rob the company blind? Well SBF's financial insights _would_ go well with a Yellen's "transitory inflation" disaster. Just sayin.

Not “millions”, as FTX barely had a million customers. And most of the money belonged to entities like Sequoia Capital and SoftBank and not actual people.

Also, given it was a crypto exchange, ie a ponzi scheme by design, I’m not sure if there’s any point in blaming the owners for making it a bit more scammy.

It’s a big club and you ain’t in it

could really use carlin right about now

I suspect he will attend only virtually.

As I understand it, he’s not allowed to leave the Bahamas, so yes. It’s not like Zelenskyy is likely to attend in person either.

I’d be more interested in what either of them have to say than Pence or Zuckerberg though.

It's kind of strange that there are so many hated people speaking at this event.

Wait what? They got Zelensky to come to NYC? And Netanyahu agreed to speak at the New York Times event too?

I am missing something here… all these people will be in NYC when and where exactly?

Contrary to folks in thread anticipating SBF arrest at airport, you may be on to something.

I suppose a number of them could be video appearances.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bankman-Fried is still quite welcome to be in this.

What are the chances he gets arrested immediately when leaving the airport? Or does the US not have any jurisdiction since FTX was located in the Bahamas? Even FTX US?

Not that unlikely, but as far as I know he isn't actually charged with anything yet? But, even if I am correct on that, he almost undoubtedly will be at some point. You can lose a lot of poor and maybe middle class people's money and walk free, but FTX also lost some rich people's money. You don't lose that many rich people's money without getting charged, unless you're absolutely saintly in your behavior, which SBF certainly was not.

I can't believe this is still actually happening.

A piece that claims that yes, he is still invited, but will receive no speaking fee. https://popula.com/2022/11/23/will-sam-bankman-fried-show-up...

They could pay him in FTT.

If he manages to get a single word out before getting boo'd off the stage I would be impressed.

If I were the interviewer I would treat him very gently... for the first 30 minutes or so. Hand him his own rope by fawning over his every word as you extract every confession possible.

Then when it's clear he's said everything you're going to get out of him, publicly embarrass him with the dress down on all his double speak.

How delightfully nefarious, that would be far more entertaining to watch.

That's basically what Kelsey Piper did in the Vox interview, and SBF said a lot because he viewed her as friendly:

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-frie...

This will never happen and if he did show up he will likely be arrested.

I say do it. I would be frankly amused to see what he would dare to present.

It would also be over of the few times you would actually cut through the survivorship fallacies that define these speaker lists.

We should make this about Janet Yellen instead. Why does the Secretary of the Treasury, who is tasked with setting monetary policy, voluntarily share the stage with a crypto-shyster?

As a top-of-her-field academic and policymaker, I can’t think of many who are better suited than Yellen to directly engage SBF on the substance of what’s happened

Yellen has been Treasury Secretary for almost two years. She had enough time to set policy and failed to do so, and now we are here.

Top of your field academic means nothing in the dismal science.

Economics is a sad joke. Has never had anything useful to say. And never will.

Now you can only expect a non-biased nyt interviewer.

Let’s get Robert Kiyosaki and David Shing too!

Clawback is going to be hell for all the entities he donated stolen money to. This is why KYC is so important anytime money is involved.

How would KYC have helped? They knew the customer. At the time, FTX was considered poster child of regulatory cooperation.

It doesn’t sound like too many layers had to be peeled away to see that it was all a scam. When you’re dealing with donations that large, you need to get to the root of it. They wound have noticed they didn’t have any real accounting or auditing and knew they’d have to reject the money.

Lol. No

Hopefully the employees at the organizations loot the office rather than the the fancy office furniture be auctioned off to pay back the depositors.

My first instinct upon reading this headline was, which of the two is the bigger crook? Sure, SBF stole a lot of money, but Yellen is a dishonest political hack whose inflationary policies caused a lot more harm to the economy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com