My own impression is that SBF seemed honest. He probably took a significant legal risk by agreeing to the interview, and many of the mistakes he pointed out seem coherent with most accounts of the FTX collapse (where SBF would have committed negligence by doubling down on a series of decisions while operating with limited information).
The New York Times was right in pointing out that there is some contradictory evidence, especially because of how the accounts were set up, but I don’t think this is strong evidence either.
That being said, I don’t think we should update significantly either way from this interview.
Agree with your impression. But I would give this interview more weight than you do. In my experience—around 15 years of legal work (including as both a lawyer, and as a defendant) - it is exceedingly rare for a defendant who has bad intentions to speak openly about what they did. SBF is probably already a defendant in any number of cases, and some of them may eventually be criminal.
The fact that he is speaking openly and transparently comes at significant personal risk and is much more consistent with the notion that he acted in good faith.
I was probably 75-25 on good faith/fraud prior to this interview. I’m probably 80-20 or 85-15, after this interview.
PS Great summary. This is helpful, as I missed part of the interview.
He’s not speaking openly and transparently. His answers are sometimes really evasive and he doesn’t admit to any mistakes in a lot of detail. There are lots of reasons he might do interviews (thinking he’s smarter than his lawyers; thinking he’s in trouble either way and may as well enjoy the spotlight; thinking he’s got a message to share that’s more important than his personal fate; somehow thinking he’s still got a shot at fundraising money[?], etc.) I’m in favor of giving people a lot of goodwill if they transparently explain themselves, but you have to actually look if they’re doing that vs. if they just say/pretend that they’re doing that.
What do we think might have been evasive in his answers?
I would have to re-listen to the interview to see what mistakes he admitted. But I thought it was pretty clear what mistakes he admitted to, personally: failure to manage risk (e.g., understanding how likely it would be that there would be a simultaneous drop in collateral value, and a sudden withdrawal of deposits); failure to maintain corporate controls (e.g., creating red flags or account pauses, if certain accountholders like Alameda exceeded lending limits); and improper account segregation (admitted he did not know about commingling of funds). He did not admit to specific fraud, but that’s consistent with the notion that he did not commit to fraud. He did admit to a number of things that, to me, provide a completely plausible account as to how FTX failed. And they are errors of risk management and even arrogance—but not malice or deceit.
He starts the entire conversation saying how he’s the CEO so he’s in charge and responsible. But then he claims ignorance about so many things! He blames it all on Alameda, but it’s left unclear how Alameda got FTX money to trade with in the first place. I definitely don’t feel like he explained clearly what went wrong and where he messed up. The way it sounds like, he had no clue about the things that went on. That’s not communicating openly and transparently!
When there’s a possibility of lying, you IMO can’t just go by your gut feeling “does it sound like this person’s story makes sense to me?” If you do this, you’ll believe any liar who’s good at coming up with plausible excuses. I think people have a pro-social duty to ask themselves “How would someone who tells the full truth sound different than someone who covers things up?” Maybe you did that and we disagree about how to do that comparison. But for me, it seems too suspicious how often Sam claims ignorance and how the narrative at the end doesn’t make much sense. I feel like if I lost so much money, I’d know exactly what went wrong and I could explain it so it makes sense.
He was so evasive about the “co-mingling of funds” questions. His answers were about how there’s margin/collateral and how Alameda had a position that got larger without him knowing and he was surprised. But that’s not the question! He’s being asked why the fuck Alameda was gambling with his exchange’s money. He repeatedly dodged that question. (After repeated dodgeings he then talks about opening bank accounts and stuff like that, but that’s awfully late and still doesn’t explain much. “And I’m still looking in to that...” Really?!)
Here’s a more recent interview with hard-hitting questions and follow-up questions. The evasiveness becomes more obvious when the interviewer is very prepared and doesn’t immediately move on to the next question when an answer is evasive.
It looks like SBF admitted to fraud in this interview. He admitted to knowingly commingling funds in a way that directly violates the terms of service, and he admitted that was their general business practice.
I guess there are multiple aspects to this. While he might seem to be open at the cost of personal legal risk, it might be that he’s also telling an inaccurate story of what happened. (EDIT: slightly edited the wording regarding openness/good faith in this one paragraph after reading Lukas’s take)
(Heavy speculation below)
A crucial point given SBF’s significant involvement in EA and interest in utilitarianism is whether he actually believed in all of it, and how strongly.
There are some signs he believed in it strongly: being associated with EA rather than a more popular and commonly accepted movement, being very knowledgeable about utilitarianism, early involvement, donations etc.
If he did believe in it strongly, it could be that this is just him “doing [what he believes is] the most good” by potentially being dishonest about some things (whether this was due to bad intentions), in order to, perhaps (in his mind), deflect the harm he’s caused EA and the future, at the cost of personal legal risk (which is minor in comparison from the utilitarian perspective). (Then again, at the same time, another (naive) utilitarian strategy might be to say “muhahaha I was evil all along!” and get people to think that he used EA as a cover and that he isn’t representative of it? If that also works (in expectation, to him), I’m not so sure why he picked one over the other.)
This is all speculative, and a bit unusual for the average defendant, but SBF is quite unusual (as is EA, to be fair) and we might have to consider these unusual possibilities.
My own impression is that SBF seemed honest. He probably took a significant legal risk by agreeing to the interview, and many of the mistakes he pointed out seem coherent with most accounts of the FTX collapse (where SBF would have committed negligence by doubling down on a series of decisions while operating with limited information).
The New York Times was right in pointing out that there is some contradictory evidence, especially because of how the accounts were set up, but I don’t think this is strong evidence either.
That being said, I don’t think we should update significantly either way from this interview.
Agree with your impression. But I would give this interview more weight than you do. In my experience—around 15 years of legal work (including as both a lawyer, and as a defendant) - it is exceedingly rare for a defendant who has bad intentions to speak openly about what they did. SBF is probably already a defendant in any number of cases, and some of them may eventually be criminal.
The fact that he is speaking openly and transparently comes at significant personal risk and is much more consistent with the notion that he acted in good faith.
I was probably 75-25 on good faith/fraud prior to this interview. I’m probably 80-20 or 85-15, after this interview.
PS Great summary. This is helpful, as I missed part of the interview.
He’s not speaking openly and transparently. His answers are sometimes really evasive and he doesn’t admit to any mistakes in a lot of detail. There are lots of reasons he might do interviews (thinking he’s smarter than his lawyers; thinking he’s in trouble either way and may as well enjoy the spotlight; thinking he’s got a message to share that’s more important than his personal fate; somehow thinking he’s still got a shot at fundraising money[?], etc.) I’m in favor of giving people a lot of goodwill if they transparently explain themselves, but you have to actually look if they’re doing that vs. if they just say/pretend that they’re doing that.
What do we think might have been evasive in his answers?
I would have to re-listen to the interview to see what mistakes he admitted. But I thought it was pretty clear what mistakes he admitted to, personally: failure to manage risk (e.g., understanding how likely it would be that there would be a simultaneous drop in collateral value, and a sudden withdrawal of deposits); failure to maintain corporate controls (e.g., creating red flags or account pauses, if certain accountholders like Alameda exceeded lending limits); and improper account segregation (admitted he did not know about commingling of funds). He did not admit to specific fraud, but that’s consistent with the notion that he did not commit to fraud. He did admit to a number of things that, to me, provide a completely plausible account as to how FTX failed. And they are errors of risk management and even arrogance—but not malice or deceit.
He starts the entire conversation saying how he’s the CEO so he’s in charge and responsible. But then he claims ignorance about so many things! He blames it all on Alameda, but it’s left unclear how Alameda got FTX money to trade with in the first place. I definitely don’t feel like he explained clearly what went wrong and where he messed up. The way it sounds like, he had no clue about the things that went on. That’s not communicating openly and transparently!
When there’s a possibility of lying, you IMO can’t just go by your gut feeling “does it sound like this person’s story makes sense to me?” If you do this, you’ll believe any liar who’s good at coming up with plausible excuses. I think people have a pro-social duty to ask themselves “How would someone who tells the full truth sound different than someone who covers things up?” Maybe you did that and we disagree about how to do that comparison. But for me, it seems too suspicious how often Sam claims ignorance and how the narrative at the end doesn’t make much sense. I feel like if I lost so much money, I’d know exactly what went wrong and I could explain it so it makes sense.
He was so evasive about the “co-mingling of funds” questions. His answers were about how there’s margin/collateral and how Alameda had a position that got larger without him knowing and he was surprised. But that’s not the question! He’s being asked why the fuck Alameda was gambling with his exchange’s money. He repeatedly dodged that question. (After repeated dodgeings he then talks about opening bank accounts and stuff like that, but that’s awfully late and still doesn’t explain much. “And I’m still looking in to that...” Really?!)
This is helpful. I might give the interview another listen with these particular issues in mind.
Here’s a more recent interview with hard-hitting questions and follow-up questions. The evasiveness becomes more obvious when the interviewer is very prepared and doesn’t immediately move on to the next question when an answer is evasive.
It looks like SBF admitted to fraud in this interview. He admitted to knowingly commingling funds in a way that directly violates the terms of service, and he admitted that was their general business practice.
I guess there are multiple aspects to this. While he might seem to be open at the cost of personal legal risk, it might be that he’s also telling an inaccurate story of what happened. (EDIT: slightly edited the wording regarding openness/good faith in this one paragraph after reading Lukas’s take)
(Heavy speculation below)
A crucial point given SBF’s significant involvement in EA and interest in utilitarianism is whether he actually believed in all of it, and how strongly.
There are some signs he believed in it strongly: being associated with EA rather than a more popular and commonly accepted movement, being very knowledgeable about utilitarianism, early involvement, donations etc.
If he did believe in it strongly, it could be that this is just him “doing [what he believes is] the most good” by potentially being dishonest about some things (whether this was due to bad intentions), in order to, perhaps (in his mind), deflect the harm he’s caused EA and the future, at the cost of personal legal risk (which is minor in comparison from the utilitarian perspective). (Then again, at the same time, another (naive) utilitarian strategy might be to say “muhahaha I was evil all along!” and get people to think that he used EA as a cover and that he isn’t representative of it? If that also works (in expectation, to him), I’m not so sure why he picked one over the other.)
This is all speculative, and a bit unusual for the average defendant, but SBF is quite unusual (as is EA, to be fair) and we might have to consider these unusual possibilities.