Introducing - Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
May 10, 2023·2 min
The trailer opens with a character sketch of Sam Bankman-Fried: 30 years old, dressed in t-shirts and sandals, playing online fantasy games, and publicly committed to doing good in the world. Multiple voices confirm there was a genuine belief that he would use his wealth to change the world, and that the speed of his wealth accumulation was historically unprecedented — only Mark Zuckerberg had gotten rich faster at that age. Then on December 12, 2022, the frame shatters: the U.S. government files charges describing what SBF called a screw-up as one of the largest frauds in American history, with very significant money lost and many people hurt. The trailer previews testimony from sources close to SBF: one describes the awe he generated walking into a room, another describes a behavioral pattern where he would flip a switch and delete a person from his reality when they were no longer useful to him. A third describes the FTX collapse as everyone racing for the same exit out of a burning building before realizing it was already a smoking crater. The trailer ends with a victim telling host Hannah Miller the only question worth putting to Bankman-Fried: where is my money? The series is produced by Bloomberg and Wondery, the same company behind The Shrink Next Door.
