Sam was fine with me telling prospective AR employees why I thought they shouldn’t join (and in fact I did do this)
Didn’t quite follow this part. Is this referring to while you were still at AR or subsequently?
If it was while you were still working there, that seems pretty normal. Not every candidate should be sold on the job. Some should be encouraged not to join if it’s not going to be a good fit for them. Why would this even be controversial with Sam? Or were you telling them not to join specifically because of criticisms you had of the CEO?
If it was subsequent, how do you know he was fine with it? What would he have done if he wasn’t fine with it?
And yeah, the article reports Sam telling someone that he would “destroy them”, but I don’t fully understand the threat model. I guess the idea is that Sam would tell a bunch of people that I was bad, and then I wouldn’t be able to get a job or opportunities in EA?
I guess I don’t know for sure that Sam never attempted this, but I can’t recall evidence of it.
In early April 2022, my eleventh month, I made one last try. I made a written formal complaint about what I saw to be the largest organizational problems inhibiting FTX’s future success. I wrote that I would resign if the problems weren’t addressed.
29⁄49 In response, I was threatened on Sam’s behalf that I would be fired and that Sam would destroy my professional reputation. I was instructed to formally retract what I’d written and to deliver an apology to Sam that had been drafted for me.
The threat model is still unclear, but this is at least somewhat corroborating evidence that Sam is not above using threats in such situations.
Maybe the threat was via Sam being influential and people checking in with him about past employees?
41⁄49 After I left FTX US and up until November, nearly every conversation I had with a venture capitalist about my new company eventually came around to the same kind of question: “Is FTX investing? Is Sam okay with you doing this? Do you mind if we confirm with him?”
And as a general rule most people try to avoid making enemies out of people who they perceive to have lots of power/influence when possible. So their threat model doesn’t necessarily have to be terribly well-defined to be effective at accomplishing the powerful/influential person’s objective.
I’m surprised by all the disagree votes on a comment that is primarily a question.
Do all the people who disagreed think it’s obvious whether Ben meant while he was working at AR or subsequently? If so, which one?
(I’m guessing the disagree votes were meant to register disagreement with my claim that it’s relatively normal for interviewers / employers to tell candidates reasons a job might not be a good for them. Is that it, or something else?)
Didn’t quite follow this part. Is this referring to while you were still at AR or subsequently?
If it was while you were still working there, that seems pretty normal. Not every candidate should be sold on the job. Some should be encouraged not to join if it’s not going to be a good fit for them. Why would this even be controversial with Sam? Or were you telling them not to join specifically because of criticisms you had of the CEO?
If it was subsequent, how do you know he was fine with it? What would he have done if he wasn’t fine with it?
It was both.
And yeah, the article reports Sam telling someone that he would “destroy them”, but I don’t fully understand the threat model. I guess the idea is that Sam would tell a bunch of people that I was bad, and then I wouldn’t be able to get a job or opportunities in EA?
I guess I don’t know for sure that Sam never attempted this, but I can’t recall evidence of it.
FWIW the former CEO of FTX US also claimed this:
The threat model is still unclear, but this is at least somewhat corroborating evidence that Sam is not above using threats in such situations.
Maybe the threat was via Sam being influential and people checking in with him about past employees?
And as a general rule most people try to avoid making enemies out of people who they perceive to have lots of power/influence when possible. So their threat model doesn’t necessarily have to be terribly well-defined to be effective at accomplishing the powerful/influential person’s objective.
He gives more details in this recent interview: https://youtu.be/yXgDlIlB93A?t=5625
He also briefly talks about what he heard about what happened at Alameda: https://youtu.be/yXgDlIlB93A?t=2859
Got it, thanks!
I’m surprised by all the disagree votes on a comment that is primarily a question.
Do all the people who disagreed think it’s obvious whether Ben meant while he was working at AR or subsequently? If so, which one?
(I’m guessing the disagree votes were meant to register disagreement with my claim that it’s relatively normal for interviewers / employers to tell candidates reasons a job might not be a good for them. Is that it, or something else?)