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.
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