Seeing how thoroughly he convinced people that he had political influence, and given his general lack of awareness, I’m willing to give merit to his believing he was immune. Similar to how people outside securities think insider trading is more rampant than it is, insider trade in the most obnoxiously obvious way, and then promptly get caught.
We’ve gotten tot he point where we’ve gone way too far off the deep end when it comes to this narrative around political influence. the collective imagination seems to have risen to comic book level proportions.
All people saw was SBF gave a bunch of money and thought, “he must have a ton of influence”. Meanwhile, in my state, he gave $11 million to a democratic candidate who lost in the primary and was transparently an absolute joke of a candidate.
If it's how it is in my weird African country (Nigeria), I'll wager that most of the money is spent on advertisements and clueless campaign managers and staff enjoying the grift. But then, I understand; the U.S. is a really rich country with a high percentage of politically-active citizens, so they put their money where their mouth is.
1- https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/03/2022-midterm-election-spendi...
You don't even have to give $5800 in most cases. $1k is plenty to get the attention of junior congressmen and even some less well known senators.
Just to put all this in perspective, it's actually possible to get meetings with these people without giving them money, especially if you're a constituent. But the more money you give, the higher you move up in the priority queue, and it doesn't take much to move to the front of the line.
Axios wrote that he spent $37 million on the midterms:
https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/ftz-crypto-bankman-fried-de...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/30/ftx-billi...
I also think the 1 billion figure is inaccurate. In May, SBF said that he could spend a billion between now and 2024. However, he backed away from that quote in October:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/14/sam-bankman-fried-backtracks...
Elon Musk later said that SBF “probably” donated over 1 billion, without providing any supporting evidence. I can’t prove that he’s thinking of the May statement but it seems plausible if not certain. Either way, Elon Musk’s guesses are not proof of anything.
I’m glad you asked for sources. It’s always important to provide them.
Here's an easy one: "He was only arrested because he was going to reveal damning truth in today's Congressional hearing."
Even if the DOJ, Congress, and SBF all swear until they are black and blue that it wasn't the reason for the timing of the arrest, the theory can change to "Of course they would say that, they are all in on the deep state conspiracy."
The beautiful thing about the world is that there is an unlimited number of unconfirmable and unrefutable possibilities and could-have-beens that can be used to support any idea - sensible, or silly.
There were numerous posts on this forum who were adamant that nothing would happen to SBF because they were certain that he had the Democratic Party bought and paid for. It’s the certainty that I’m calling out here (“comic book level), not the skepticism.
If he hadn't gotten indicted in, like, a couple of years, then sure. But people were assuming he wouldn't be indicted days after FTX collapsed.
Interestingly, if we take SBF at his word that he donated equally to Republicans in dark money, he would be the fifth largest donor to Republican candidates.
https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/3720141-here-are-the...
Seriously. If I had a nickel for every time someone had posted on HN "SBF is immune because he donated a lot of money to Democrats" I'd have… well, a lot of nickels.
Madoff donated a lot of money to Democrats too and it didn't help him one bit.
What's particularly stupid is most of the time that people are going off about how some company or person gave a bunch of money and that is obviously why Congress passed the bill that company or person supported, the companies or people that opposed the bill also gave a ton of money to the same members of Congress that the first company or person did.
Also, often those companies on both sides of the bill donated a lot to the members of Congress that supported the bill and those that opposed the bill.
Musk on stage with Chapelle last night, Elizabeth Holmes, or SBF’s whole schtick, who are the ones who have kept their feet on the ground?
What are the attributes of these others who don’t lose themselves in fawning attention and (sometimes short-lived) mountains of capital?
Although I get the impression a large part of Buffet's normalcy is because he's chosen to spend his time making money for other people.
If you're ridiculously rich... you could do worse than thinking of common people as your boss, for perspective.
By saying yes, she was, in effect, Amazon's first investor, and worked there in the early days. The value of positive support from family cannot be underestimated (see also Jeff Bezos' parents' early investment in the company).
You are only pointing to the very few who couldn't handle it or are drawn to attention.
The person who built a liquor store and grew into 20 stores across the city. People who started consulting companies. That immigrant family who scraped and scraped for decades while living above their restaurant. The list is endless, especially compared to the much shorter list of crypto criminals who are drunk on their illusory power and fame, which seems to always disappear overnight.
Any fool can make a fortune; it takes a person of brains to hold onto it.
Ross Perot was a billionaire from consulting, before being a billionaire was a thing. Plus he was a genuinely good person.
Both my perception and my experience from knowing several extremely wealthy 'self-made' people is that the vast majority are fairly quiet, prudent, bright and hard-working people who've managed to make (mostly) good long-term decisions and continue doing so consistently over time. I suspect the "crazy, playboy billionaire" stereotype is based more on high-visibility outliers rather than the majority. Outlandish, eccentric and/or entitled behavior makes for good stories and click fodder while typical long-term value-building behaviors are pretty boring.
I have no clue who these people are:
Hank & Doug Meijer
Tom & Judy Love
Stewart & Lynda Resnick
Andrew & Peggy Cherng
In fact the list of ones I recognize is tiny compared to the whole list.
Some of them don't even have pictures, but they're all billionaires. And yes, I consider even a single billion to be a great, real fortune. Most people will never crack a million.
You realize that he's not asking to go on the show, people are asking him to come on the show. Your questions should be directed at Dave Chappele.
Power is hard to measure, but in this context it seems reasonable to include lots of founders in the list. The Collison brothers, sama, and Brian Armstrong, to name a few. They’re all in charge of fortunes that normal people can only dream of.
I don’t think any of them have made critical errors. And it’s arguable whether Musk has, but time will tell.
Any time SBF ran into trouble, he could just raise another round of financing, or borrow against artificial valuations, or "smooth things over" with the right people.
Once that happens enough, I imagine a lot of people would start to feel some cosmic entitlement to it, like that's just how it is, the FTT tokens must be worth $24 each, it's only a matter of "getting liquidity"[1], you can always raise more money, you can always call in a favor, you can always borrow against what you think the assets are worth, there's no reason to hold customer assets in their original form.
Heck, even to the very last days, when his attorneys and CFO were telling him he had to declare bankruptcy, he adamantly insisted that new funding was just about to come through -- and even that he got the offer moments after declaring -- but, of course, he can't say who, or under what terms, even why they would invest. [2]
Personally, I always try to maintain a frame of "these good times don't have to last, they can go away at any moment, so make sure you're ready for if/when that happens". But maybe I'd falter too, in the same position.
[1] A frame even informed observers buy into! Earlier comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33539326
[2] ctrl-f for "Mr. Bankman-Fried was also frustrated.": https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/technology/sam-bankman-fr...
There are actual lawyers on HN. I don't think proximity to lawyers makes one as knowledgeable as an actual one.
Not everyone brings work home with them, or forces their kids down that path.
The answer is simple, through a lack of knowledge. Knowledge of the law is not genetically inherited.
Well, he’s not a lawyer, for one…
So if you believe he's committed crimes, then it doesn't become far fetched to imagine that he'd continue to not listen to his parents on matters of criminal defense.
Lawyers and judges break the law, sometimes intentionally out of arrogance derived from how adeptly they believe they can skirt it because of their knowledge and position.