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Former FTX US President: Working with an emotionally unstable SBF (full text)

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After 17 months of working with SBF, why did you finally choose to part ways?

Former President of FTX USBrett Harrison

Moni, Odaily

In a lengthy review of his time at FTX US posted on social media yesterday, Brett Harrison, former president of FTX US, said SBF was "emotionally unstable" and that his relationship with SBF and its lieutenants had deteriorated completely following months of wrangling over how FTX was managed. In response, SBF said it disagreed with most of Brett Harrison's tweets and would not publicly dispute them. Here is Brett Harrison's full text:

Many people have asked me about my time at FTX US and my reasons for leaving. I addressed these questions earlier this week and am happy to share my experiences and opinions publicly.

I had been with FTX US for 17 months and when my resignation was made public, those who didn't know about it were surprised, there were questions about whether I had been fired and people who didn't understand why I had such a short tenure in a dream job. In fact, working at FTX US was not as "ideal" for me as it was made out to be in the industry and media, and my departure was not as sudden.

My relationship with SBF and his deputies over FTX management practices was not good and, after months of wrangling, eventually hit a full-blown sour pitch.

And, as a group of my friends, mentors and investors knew at the time, I had decided I wanted to start my own company and wasn't worth being stuck with a so-called "dream job." So I put aside the prestige, the pay and the risk to my reputation and decided to leave FTX US.

Why did you join FTX US?

Back in late March 2021, SBF invited me to join FTX US by text (in a seemingly random way). SBF is a former colleague of mine at Jane Street. I have fond memories of working with him. We had little contact over the years, though, but I did occasionally catch up on FTX news. So, when I saw his text message, I was very happy and interested in further exploring more about FTX. I know that SBF was a dedicated junior trader at Jane Street, where I taught the trader programming course. SBF was my student and did an excellent job. I remember that at the managers' meeting to review SBF's performance, many senior traders said he was promising and promising. In addition, SBF also seems to be a sensitive and curious person who cares about animals, which makes me like him.

The negotiations to join FTX US moved very quickly, and each step of my recruitment in traditional finance took four to six months. I developed software for Jane Street's encryption services platform in 2017, but haven't worked on encryption since, so I'm excited to get back into it. I felt great in my first few months at FTX US because I was working largely independently of SBF and wanted to build a team dedicated to the US market and a professional environment for regulated companies.

At that time, I developed a plan with the LedgerX team, established legal, compliance and operations departments, and hired top-notch employees as I set about building and building a US-regulated retail stock brokerage firm. FTX US is also growing market share, the team is dedicated and productive, and customer feedback is extremely positive. I am excited about the future of FTX US.

Tensions with the SBF and the Bahamian hierarchy intensified

From the outset, however, I noticed that SBF had little involvement in the US, but would influence FTX US's decisions. After six months at FTX US, the cracks in my relationship with SBF began to show. Around that time, I became a strong advocate for separating and maintaining FTX US's enforcement, legal, and development teams from FTX, but SBF disagreed.

In that early conflict, I saw that SBF was completely insecure when his decisions were questioned, but it was difficult to compromise with him, and at times SBF was spiteful and temperamental.

I realized that SBF was not the man I remembered, and I wasn't sure what had caused such a dramatic change in him. Like many of us, I have family and friends who may suffer from addiction and mental health issues, and I have seen them manifest themselves without warning in SBF. I think this may have been a contributing factor and initially felt sympathetic. But I don't know enough about SBF personally or have any time to think about it, I have a business relationship with him and he makes a lot of decisions about running the business that I don't agree with.

Frankly, it took a lot of pressure to disagree with SBF, but I did it anyway. At that time, and in all my time at FTX US, SBF's influence on the media, FTX's partners, the venture capital industry and the traditional financial industry was pervasive and assertive. In any case, it is hard to tolerate an insecure, cocky manager. Because every day, every major voice in traditional corporate culture and business environment is deafening with a narrative suggesting that if you disagree with your leader, then you must be wrong.

I am not the only one at FTX US who disagrees with SBF and members of his inner circle. FTX US has experienced professionals from U.S. financial companies, law firms and regulated exchanges. However, it is very frustrating for all of us that FTX's collective experience and professional acumen are often seen as irrelevant and worthless.

In the coming months, I further advocate for sound recruitment policies, experienced senior management at FTX US, and transparent communication between SBF and FTX US leadership, This includes formalizing the software development responsibilities of Gary Wang and Nishad Singh, delegating management responsibilities and control to SBF and Bahamas executives, and other important matters.

However, the SBF was uncomfortable with the management conflict, he began to give some hostile responses, and ultimately chose to isolate me from the key decision-making level and not let me participate in the communication, which felt really bad. So I wanted information about the decisions they made behind my back, when I was desperate but trying not to show it. In early April 2022, my eleventh month at FTX US, I made one last attempt to file a formal written complaint about what I believed to be the biggest organizational problem impeding FTX's future success. I wrote that I would resign if the problem was not resolved.

I threatened to claim that I was fired and that the SBF would destroy my professional reputation, but in the end I was ordered to formally retract my writing and apologise to the SBF, which cemented my decision to leave FTX. Knowing that an abrupt departure would be detrimental to the company, I wanted to leave in the best possible way to prepare the company for future success. Therefore, I gradually gathered my mind and completed the construction and release of the United States stock brokers.

After that, I began to turn my attention to the future and my own company.

Part ways with FTX US

Now, based on information in the public record (from indictments, complaints, guilty pleas or otherwise), there are many problems with FTX.

At the time, I raised these concerns at the company. I saw that FTX had management and organizational problems, which are typical of startup growth. As an experienced financial services executive, my role was to correct these problems and start the next phase of growth.

I have seen these problems in other, more established companies throughout my career, and they are not actually fatal to business success, but I really did not expect the multi-billion dollar fraud behind these problems at FTX.

It is clear from what has been made public that the implementation of the fraud scheme was closely held by SBF and his inner circle at FTX.com and Alameda, of which I was not a part, nor were other FTX US executives.

Now, I can see why they were careful to hide their criminal activity from US, given FTX US's extensive professional network, access to US regulators and access to US media. If one of us suspects fraud, we report it immediately.

In my 17 months at FTX US, my colleagues and I have worked hard to meet our customers' needs and grow our businesses on a down-to-earth basis, providing consumers with fairer access to the financial services that are essential to their lives, and becoming more aware of the fact that greed and fraud undermine trust and accelerate corruption.

After I left FTX US until November 2022, every conversation my new company and I had with venture capitalists ended up with the same questions: "Is FTX investing? Is SBF OK with you? Do you mind if we check with him?" But in the wake of FTX's collapse, the question from venture capitalists became a copout: "We know you weren't involved in what SBF and others did, but we can't take the PR risk of associating ourselves with FTX, no matter how capable you are or how compelling your ideas are."

Over the past few months, I've conducted a valuable personality study of the crypto industry, and the results are stark: Some people change overnight, and others find it easy to sympathize and support.

There is no doubt that working for FTX US has been an unforgettable experience, but I have found that there have also been wild and unfounded allegations made against me on social media.

I am grateful from the bottom of my heart to those whose unwavering faith and support during the turmoil of the past two months has helped me tune out the noise and stay focused on the future. Now the path ahead is clear, and I'm happy to be with them.