Comment by bmitc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bmitc | Hacker News Reader

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Those were not his primary complaints. Yes, he took some shots at his appearance, but let’s be honest. The financial and VC world has a stick up it’s butt, but this nobody (Sam Bankman-Fried) shows up to interviews and meetings in a three day old t-shirt and shorts and can’t keep his leg still and talks like he’s been up for 24 hours straight on Red Bull. It’s strange. Why does that work for him, who has nothing to explain it away, and no one else? Where did he come from? Where did he get all his money? Why were major VC funds fawning over him?

The short seller also mentions that this is only “3%” of what he has and is working with an investigative journalist to blow this up. And that was weeks ago, and they were probably working on it before that.

It’s not about credentials. It’s that you have 20 year olds out of nowhere suddenly managing tens of billions of dollars. Like the guy says, it doesn’t make any sense.

In interviews, FTX never gave reasons of why they moved to the Bahamas from Hong Kong. He really doesn’t ever explain anything.

> Why does that work for him

It works for him the same way it works for Neil Gershenfeld. Be palatably erratic, assume the mad scientist role, make your credentials known, and people will eventually start to treat you as though you are brilliant.

That schtick hits more than one of Cialdini's six principles of persuasion.

(NB this is not a comparison of Gershenfeld and Bankman-Fried, just an observation of what seems like one shared attribute.)

> only “3%” of what he has

Ok, sure, when he's ready to present that let's discuss it. Until then it's nothing. But what's the point of doing an interview and saying "I've got good info but I'm not going to share it until later"

I think most of his points stand. The questions should be answerable. However, you’re right that we’re taking it at face value that he has more that he supposedly wants to publish later. It isn’t clear he has more, but certainly there are huge amount of questions surrounding FTX and Alameda that are not answerable, even prior to this whole debacle.

I think one searches for darker answers because the likely answer, that everyone was duped by these people in normal ways and there’s not some deeper connection, is a far more disturbing prospect.

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