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True words from SBF after FTX Thunder: Winners are noble in victory

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"The greatest heroes of the age will never be known, and some of the men who are admired by millions are rarely worthy of their name."

Original source: Kelsey Piper, Vox

Leo, 0x9F, FYJ, BlockBeats

Here's Vox's Kelsey Piper talking to FTX founder SBF on the night of Nov. 16. From a global crypto giant with a $32 billion valuation to "Scammer" who went bust with a $9 billion breach, the global celebrity has said a number of things that have never been heard on camera before. He says regulators failed to protect industry users. He says winners are noble only because they win. He wants to raise another $8 billion to get back on his feet.

BlockBeats put together this conversation to listen to the truth about a life that's just been through a lot of ups and downs.

On Regulation

Kelsey Piper:You've said a lot of good things about how you want regulation to be made, but is it all just PR?

SBF:No one is really making sure that only good things happen and nothing bad. It's usually just switching between doing more and doing less. Yeah, it's all PR. Fuck the regulators, they are making everything worse, they are not protecting customers at all.

Kelsey Piper:Wouldn't it be nice to have some form of retail protection? Regulators may not be able to achieve that goal, and it does look like retail investors will lose their shirts.

SBF:I agree with you that some form of retail protection is good, but regulators simply can't do it.

Kelsey Piper:And you can't do it. CZ won't do it, so who else?

SBF:In fact, they make no distinction between right and wrong, good and evil. They only consider whether to do more business or less, whether to build more moats or less moats. No one will, but do you want to know the truth? No one else in finance does either.

For that fact alone, this is true of any regulated field. The FDA is also useless. Nor does the attack on Big Tech have any philosophical meaning or purpose behind it. OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury) is slowly damaging US interests around the world and is the single biggest threat to the US as a superpower. ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) has been distorted beyond recognition.

Kelsey Piper:I am trying to understand your words gradually. You don't believe that anyone does anything for a good reason. You don't believe that "good people" are good. So why not be very successful and decide for yourself what "good" is? If you have to do something unseemly, then others are doing it too, many worse. But as long as they win, people still like them. Is that just?

SBF:What we end up with is "only the rich can invest; only they can make or lose money." Well, that's a good point -- but I really don't want to do something unseemly because it can have a huge negative impact. I don't want that. Everyone's decisions seemed pretty good, but it wasn't until the end that I realized how much they all added up to.

关于做不道德的事

Kelsey Piper:I just re-listened to a conversation we had this summer, about whether or not you should do something immoral for the greater good.

SBF:What did I say at the time?

Kelsey Piper:"It's like if you started Philip Morris, no one would want to do charity work with you."

SBF:Haha.

Kelsey Piper:You also say there's a risk of doing more harm than good, but even without the risk, it's not worth it.

SBF:Yes.

Kelsey Piper:I wonder if this is just a PR stunt, a throwaway response.

SBF:All the shit I said before, it's not true. Not at all.

Kelsey Piper:I guess so.

SBF:Everyone thinks perception reflects reality, but that's not the case. The greatest heroes of this era will never be known, and some of the people who are admired by millions of people are hardly worthy of their names.

Kelsey Piper:So you think "doing something immoral" is just a judgment we give losers?

SBF:A month ago, CZ was the best example of this saying: "Don't do immoral things or your money will be worth nothing". Now he's a hero because he has morals? Or is it because he has a better balance sheet? He just won.

Kelsey Piper:I can see why you didn't say that in your previous interview.

SBF:Hehe.

Kelsey Piper:So morality, this thing, is a shell, right? Whether you win or lose determines whether people like you or dislike you. Is that human nature?

SBF:Yeah, it might not be 100%, but it's a lot. The worst outcome is "losing disgracefully," the best outcome is "winning any way." "Decent failure" is also bad, but not the worst.

Kelsey Piper:For someone who boils morality down to winning and losing, you really have a way with ethics.

SBF:Yeah, I have to be this guy. To some extent, reputation is based on winning and losing. I'm sorry for the people who have nothing because they lost. Through this stupid game, we wake up the Westerners. We said all the right slogans to make everyone like us.

On the distortion of the truth

Kelsey Piper:You said on Twitter that we never invest in user assets. That's bullshit, isn't it?

SBF:I'm not wrong, exactly.

Kelsey Piper:Did you or didn't you?! The money is now gone, or are you saying that Alameda is actually responsible for the shortfall?

SBF:Yes, FTX's money is gone, but that's because of Alameda.

Kelsey Piper:So it's not strictly FTX investing in user assets, it's FTX lending money to Alameda, and Alameda gambling it all away, and you didn't realize how big the hole was in the process?

SBF:And always thought Alameda had enough collateral.

Kelsey Piper:I see how you're trying to stay out of this, but that's not an honest statement.

SBF:I never meant for this to happen, but sometimes things just happen.

About what happened

Kelsey Piper:Did Alameda borrow user assets from FTX in the LUNA case, or did you use user money for a lot of the things you did?

SBF:Muddled accounting, margin trading and various positions built up over a long period of time, though in hindsight those pitfalls existed before and after LUNA's collapse. But actually, I didn't know how big the hole was until a few weeks ago.

Kelsey Piper:If you could do it all over again, would you put more effort into accounting? Never touch user funds? Or do we just stop doing encryption?

SBF:I will conduct a more careful accounting review and allow FTX to cut with Alameda at the right time.

Kelsey Piper:Has anyone ever told you to be more careful? Have you ever listened to them?

SBF:That's weird. Maybe there is? But they didn't, and if they did, they weren't focused on that. It's really weird that everyone is worried about a bunch of things that don't matter, but on this one, everyone is blind.

Kelsey Piper:Lending customer money to someone else, something so obvious, and nobody cares?

SBF:Yes, but it's complicated.

First of all, we are not simply borrowing, in fact it is more chaotic or reasonable, each of these steps individually makes sense, but when we looked at them together last week, it did not;

Second, most trading platforms do not differ much from our operations, except that they are less massive, have no bank runs (at least not recently) and are more purposeful;

Again, everyone does a bit of smart-ass, which involves customer orders, data, and the like, but these sums don't make any sense.

Kelsey Piper:So there was no such thing as "let's lend out customer deposits," but just a combination of financial instruments that ultimately led to this without anyone realizing it?

SBF:是啊，类似于，「哦，FTX 没有银行账户，我想我们可以先电汇给 Alameda 然后直接用 FTX 上的钱。」....3 年后... 「哦，TMD，看起来我们总共向 Alameda 电汇了 80 亿美元！天哪，我们忘记了与之对应的存根帐户，FTX 上的钱忘还了！」

About what he regrets

SBF:I screwed up, a lot of times, and you know what the worst one was?

Kelsey Piper:Oh?

SBF:That time "everyone" told me to do it. If I hadn't done that, there's a 70% chance that things would have been right by now.

Kelsey Piper:Which thing are you talking about?

SBF:Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Act.

Kelsey Piper:You mean, you should just hang in there and try to make $8 billion back?

SBF:If I hadn't, the withdrawal would have opened a month later, with the client's account intact. But I put in the application, and the person in charge is trying to burn it all down out of shame, and I might be able to do it, but maybe only a 50-50 chance after it happened and caused more damage.

Kelsey Piper:I accept that.

SBF:Basically, if you meet the two things of "Gary (CTO) or Nishad (engineering director) back; we can win the jurisdiction battle for Delaware," everything will be fine.

Kelsey Piper:They're gone?

SBF:Yes, they are afraid, or Gary is afraid, Nishad is ashamed and guilty.

Kelsey Piper:Feeling guilty and ashamed because all your customer savings are gone?

SBF:Yes.

Kelsey Piper:People I've talked to say that Nishad is more ethical than you are.

SBF:Yeah, it hit him hard. I mean, it hit us hard. It hit him even harder.

Kelsey Piper:In this case, you have an attitude along the lines of "If you lose, you're wrong." His attitude was more like, "We stole money from customers we trusted."

SBF:The world is never black and white.

About FTX being hacked

Kelsey Piper:Do you know what happened to the money that was mysteriously transferred after FTX declared bankruptcy reorganization? That's another thing that a lot of people are speculating about.

SBF:Hackers. Either a former employee, or a virus on a former employee's computer. Hundreds of millions of dollars were stolen.

About what's next

Kelsey Piper:What's next? What's your plan?

SBF:Raise $8 billion in two weeks. This is basically the most important thing for the rest of my life.

Kelsey Piper:I would love for the users to get their money back, but I don't think it's going to happen.

SBF:A month ago, I was one of the best money-raisers in the world, and now I'm not. But I still want to say, "There must be someone out there who knows what it feels like to fail, and there must be someone out there who wants to do something for someone else, because nobody did it for them when they were failing."