Bankman-Fried's parents could face their own legal perils, experts say
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Anyone want to wager real money on what will happen to them in six months?
“Thing could possibly happen” is not news. It’s too bad we don’t have news organizations anymore.
Is that news-worthy, from the Post?
I've no idea if SBF told his parents what dodgy stuff was going on or not, but if he didn't then is it unreasonable for them to think "our son is rich from being a successful entrepreneur, of course we'll accept gifts from him"?
I feel they should only be in legal trouble if it's proven they knew laws were being broken. I don't run a criminal enterprise, but if I did then I'd sure as hell give my parents a version of the truth that excluded criminality...
Same exact vibe here. Everyone knew. It’s very easy to be ignorant when ignorance keeps you from a very long prison sentence.
Given they're both law professors, I think they could be expected to have a clearer view of laws and the breaking thereof than your average set of parents.
But also "[Bankman] reportedly also served as the first attorney for FTX" which suggests an even deeper insight into what may have been going on.
In the actual world we live in there are pages of emails and other evidence that they were involved in the commission of felonies.
To quote the comment I replied to: "From the emails that were released in court, it's clear that if they did not enable his crimes, they certainly profited from them and encouraged the continuance of the enterprise"
If they thought "the enterprise" was just a hugely successful startup, then why wouldn't they accept money from their newly rich son?
There are emails where the guy’s mom appears to be instigating brazen violations of various laws, among other things.
There doesn’t really appear to be much question they were active participants in a massive criminal fraud conspiracy.
That’s what the article is about. The only vagueness is if the DOJ feels like it makes sense to prosecute it.
It doesn't require explicit and specific knowledge of the laws being broken.
Although given that his mother is considered an expert on ethics, and his father is a Professor of Law and Business at Stanford, I'm finding it hard to imagine they were blindsided by what happened.
And, hypothetically, I was paet of a discussion in how to avoid being named as political donor, I sure as hell wouldn't put any of it in writing, e-mail, chat or otherwise. Unless, of course, I'd need some paper trail to protect my own ass down the line.
But still, he was paper very rich.
another nitpick, stock-to-flow comparisons can indeed make sense, eg "return on X" measures. they are also fairly common in the context of GDP, e.g. debt-to-GDP ratio, total banking assets or mcap as a percent of GDP,...
it's just this particular comparison that might not make too much sense. but since many countries have a debt-to-GDP ratio in the ballpark of 50-100%, you could try to infer from that statement that he could have singlehandedly paid down the entire sovereign debt of some smaller nation states. or he could have funded their entire education or total government budgets for several years. which does give a sense of how much wealth this was (on paper)