Partnered With:

Alameda engineer's confession: SBF almost took away my life savings.

Read this article in 11 Minutes

SBF is good at making empty promises. As an engineer at Alameda Research, my entire life savings were stolen by my former boss SBF.

Original Title: "Alameda Engineer: SBF Stole My Life Savings"

Original Author: aditya_baradwaj

Original Source: Block unicorn

As an engineer at Alameda Research, my entire life savings was stolen by my former boss, Sam Bankman-Fried (known as SBF). Now, after the crazy few months of the FTX collapse, I am ready to tell my story.

Let's start from the very beginning:

I still remember the scene when I first met Sam - it was my first day in the office. I had just left my job at Google and was excited to work at this small and mysterious cryptocurrency trading company. At that time, the news about Sam was only a small-scale news report. In the tech industry, Alameda/FTX was not a well-known company. In fact, the reason why I knew about this company was because some early employees had also studied at UC Berkeley, and this news spread through word of mouth to my ears.

The office itself is unremarkable, located on the fourth floor of a typical office building in the center of Berkeley. I used to pass by this place frequently when I was in college.

On the directory, the name of the 4th floor tenant appears empty, only showing that they share this building with names such as "Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary", which is completely inconsistent with my expectation of a multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency trading company.

When I walked into the office, SBF was sitting in the middle of the trading hall, playing "League of Legends" while talking on the phone.

Yes, that's the trading hall of Alameda... Although on paper, Sam has already transitioned to full-time operation of FTX, in reality, the two companies are highly intertwined. The joint office space, social activities, and accommodation arrangements between the two companies are commonplace, but we'll talk about that later.

I'm not sure who he was talking to, but I heard a snippet of their conversation from SBF:

Decentralization is the future. The most important thing you can do for yourself is to let go of everything you have and join the cryptocurrency industry.

This is one of the many contradictions I see in the SBF. On the one hand, he talks extensively to those willing to listen about the benefits of decentralized, permissionless finance. However, a custodial derivatives exchange that requires intellectual property verification is not exactly a paragon of decentralization.

I guess everyone has two different thoughts in their hearts... or maybe something else.

The meaning of this paragraph is that SBF is promoting the benefits of decentralized finance, but the company he founded, FTX, is a centralized exchange. This seems to be a contradiction.

Perhaps SBF believes that decentralized finance is the future, but it is not yet mature and needs centralized exchanges to help it develop. Perhaps he believes that decentralized finance and centralized finance can coexist and play their respective roles in their fields.

Perhaps, there is also this kind of contradiction in SBF's heart. He hopes that decentralized finance can succeed, but he also knows that centralized exchanges are still indispensable at present.

That night, we ordered Sliver Pizza and chatted while eating. He also revealed his plan to move the entire company to a small island in the Caribbean. At the time, I knew nothing about the Bahamas, but as I talked with SBF, I could clearly feel that he had done his research.

SBF said: "Do you know that FTX's revenue exceeds 10% of the GDP of the Bahamas?" At the time, I didn't know, but after quickly searching on Google, I found that he might be right.

SBF further elaborated on FTX's vision, which is more than just a cryptocurrency exchange. He talked about establishing a vaccine factory in the Bahamas to address unnoticed medical issues caused by the slow approval of drugs by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He believes that due to the time-consuming drug approval process, many people may die without timely access to drug treatment, like an invisible grave. He discussed the strategy of political donations made by FTX executives. He also talked about future technologies that may emerge, such as iterative embryo selection, and the importance of not letting China dominate the field of basic biological research. Of course, he also talked about anti-malaria mosquito nets and veganism.

After hearing Sam's vision for the future, it is clear that every action he takes - Alameda, FTX, the Bahamas, policy recommendations - is part of a grand plan. He doesn't want to build a company, he wants to build a machine - a growing sphere of influence that can break free from the confines of the small Berkeley office and spread positive impact globally. It's not just a company, it's a monument to effective altruism.

As a new employee with a dream, it's hard not to be attracted by SBF's vision. Many of us joined this company because we want to do something good in this world. And this billionaire, who is not yet 30 years old, is using his wealth to support an unprecedented vision for the future.

Not to mention, his self-deprecating and clumsy behavior, I think many people can find similarities with ourselves from him (which can resonate with most people).

Over the next year and a half, my life underwent a transformation in a way that I never could have imagined.

I have experienced a level of luxury that I had only seen in movies before. I regularly fly back and forth between Berkeley, Hong Kong, and the Bahamas. I have had contact with celebrities, sports idols, and political figures.

However, at the same time, I also saw irresponsible behavior. A company that handles billions of dollars in funds has risk management that disregards risks. Technical debt makes any software engineer feel sad, millions of dollars wasted, and the arrogant attitude that thinks it is not important.

Of course, SBF did not ultimately build a vaccine factory or eliminate malaria. His most trusted clients, investors, and employees all fell into financial difficulties, and the unfinished FTX headquarters remained on the beach in Nasdaq, becoming a ruin.

SBF is currently serving time in MDC prison for violating his house arrest conditions. Despite going through all of this, he still seems unable to comply with the rules.

In the past few months, I have seen a lot of speculation online about FTX and Alameda. Unfortunately, not all of them are based on reality. What do Sam, Caroline, and others look like in reality? Is all of this just a scam? How is life in the Bahamas? People should know the truth.

Unfortunately, my experience at FTX/Alameda was too complex to be detailed in one article. If you are interested in the various things I experienced internally, please leave a message here to reply!

If this tweet receives enough attention, I will turn it into a regular series. His tweet: @aditya_baradwaj.