Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

This is the strangest story. Sam is clearly autistic, highly intelligent and was likely suffering form a variety of other maladies, many of them [I had thought] induced by massive overuse of stimulants. Either he is still abusing drugs or the delusions of grandeur / smarter than everyone else perception is just part of him.

As soon as the entire thing broke I expected him to be on a plane to Dubai like the 3AC founders. He didn't and kept insisting he could fix it. He was actively seeking to raise funds. It was baffling, who would give $ to someone that just liquidated billions? Why would he stick around? He likely has many millions hidden in a variety of wallets. I am not sure he fully understands what he has done and why it is wrong. This could be narccissm, could be something else. With that said, he broke a million laws and cost regular people billions. He probably needs to go to jail.

I always saw him, Vitalik and to a lesser extent Cobie [in a different way] and Hoskinson as part of the crypto brain trust. He was definitely the sketchiest of them though.

Based on some of his more candid interviews, especially ones shortly after the collapse, it seems SBF doesn't have much of a moral center. Whether or not he's also autistic, I can't say, but he clearly does consider himself to be superior to most everyone else, and his altruism was anything but sincere.

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

I'm open to the fact that he could very well be a psycho or socio path.

Clearly autistic? How did you come to this diagnosis?

Watch his interviews, he comes off as autistic to me. Open to the fact I could be wrong but he is definitely sitting on some sort of spectrum. I am willing to accept that it could also just be all the drugs he was on.

>This is the strangest story.

Not if you reject the premise that he's "highly intelligent", though this would mean questioning the hallowed Hacker News axiom of "rich = smart".

He graduated from MIT with a degree in Physics and a minor in math. That's not nothing. Then he built himself up to be the 41st richest American before the age of 30. That takes a certain type of intelligence, no matter what negative opinions we hold on the guy.

Highly intelligent? How?

He got into Jane street.

And he also got into jail for not knowing when to keep his mouth shut, and may soon be getting into prison for being the ringleader in a highly unsophisticated ponzi scheme.

Intelligence 20, Wisdom 3.

Pretty good summary

but aren't intelligence and wisdom positively correlated?

This is why I’ be careful to say “analytically intelligent” in cases like this.

Didn't see much of that going on either where FTX was concerned.

He graduated from MIT with a degree in Physics and a minor in math. That's not nothing.

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