Does he really expect anyone to believe his “poorly labeled internal ... account” story? How can you have $8 BILLION mislabeled? As in, if he transferred or loaned it to Alameda, literally no one was asking: wait, where did this sum of money, so large that it is a massive percentage of our value and could crash the company, come from? Despite all the idiocies that we’re learning about, it is still hard to believe.
Another thing is, it seems like this spreadsheet was hand-crafted by Sam Bankman-Fried just before their emergency meetings this past week. Why wasn’t this something that already existed for all top executives to see? How was it not just a printable document or report but was instead something he just typed up? Because no, it is not obvious that a balance sheet of a supposedly multi-billion dollar company would contain typos. Typos!? I mean, come on.
Then again, I have worked with people similar to how Sam Bankman-Fried seems to operate. Not the possible sociopathic tendencies he appears to have but the sort of twitchy smarts he does seem to have. People like that can sometimes think so fast with a lot of confidence that they create this wake of stuff behind them as they work. They “solve” (i.e., move through) problems so fast, that everyone gets lost in the wake and can’t catch up to find all the mistakes left behind or tie the loose ends together. They consider a problem solved if it’s essentially solved but doesn’t have details thought out or if there are possible mistakes that can be “easily” solved in ways not apparent to anyone else. If there’s no one around to slow these types of workers down, it can be complete chaos where you have one person spearheading away through the bushes, while everyone else is getting slapped in the face with the branches snapping back and thorns. At some point everyone gives up trying to follow. Then the person is off on their own where they lose sight of whatever actual problem they were solving and lose track of the bigger picture.
It is entirely possible that that is a component of what has happened here, coupled with some sociopathy, megalomania, and billions of dollars of funding in Sam Bankman-Fried’s case.
> you have one person spearheading away through the bushes, while everyone else is getting slapped in the face with the branches snapping back and thorns.
You just described me about 15 years ago. I've learned my lesson and avoid "unsupportable solutions" these days like the plague, but I still get pulled aside occasionally and get told quietly that nobody understands why I'm talking about solutions to problems that haven't even come up yet.
Another thing is, it seems like this spreadsheet was hand-crafted by Sam Bankman-Fried just before their emergency meetings this past week. Why wasn’t this something that already existed for all top executives to see? How was it not just a printable document or report but was instead something he just typed up? Because no, it is not obvious that a balance sheet of a supposedly multi-billion dollar company would contain typos. Typos!? I mean, come on.
Then again, I have worked with people similar to how Sam Bankman-Fried seems to operate. Not the possible sociopathic tendencies he appears to have but the sort of twitchy smarts he does seem to have. People like that can sometimes think so fast with a lot of confidence that they create this wake of stuff behind them as they work. They “solve” (i.e., move through) problems so fast, that everyone gets lost in the wake and can’t catch up to find all the mistakes left behind or tie the loose ends together. They consider a problem solved if it’s essentially solved but doesn’t have details thought out or if there are possible mistakes that can be “easily” solved in ways not apparent to anyone else. If there’s no one around to slow these types of workers down, it can be complete chaos where you have one person spearheading away through the bushes, while everyone else is getting slapped in the face with the branches snapping back and thorns. At some point everyone gives up trying to follow. Then the person is off on their own where they lose sight of whatever actual problem they were solving and lose track of the bigger picture.
It is entirely possible that that is a component of what has happened here, coupled with some sociopathy, megalomania, and billions of dollars of funding in Sam Bankman-Fried’s case.