Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried · Audible | Bloomberg

The Smartest Person I Know

June 5, 2023·26 min·2 clips

At the exclusive Crypto Bahamas event, Katy Perry apologizes for being late to a dinner where Sam Bankman-Fried is the real celebrity.

The episode opens at the Baja Mar Resort in the Bahamas in April 2022, where crypto entrepreneur and influencer Tegan Klein attended the invite-only Crypto Bahamas conference. The star of the event was Sam Bankman-Fried, who shared stages with former President Bill Clinton, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Tom Brady, and Gisele Bundchen. Michael Lewis, who wrote Moneyball and The Big Short, interviewed SBF on stage and described him as breaking land speed records for wealth. SBF had $26 billion in wealth and had publicly committed to giving all of it away. His awkward social manner — bouncing leg, darting eyes, shorts and t-shirts — came across as charm to his audience. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reporter Hannah Miller was preparing for a friend's bachelorette party in upstate New York, crammed in a car with bridesmaids including Caroline Ellison, co-CEO of Alameda Research. Miller knew Ellison by reputation as part of SBF's crypto empire. On the drive, she overheard Ellison describe her recent breakup with SBF as going through a divorce, including dividing pieces of his business. This raised a conflict of interest question: FTX was supposed to have a completely separate leadership from Alameda, but its CEO was in a serious relationship with FTX's CEO. After the bachelorette party, Miller secured a formal on-the-record interview with Ellison, who maintained there was a Chinese wall between the two companies on information, but also revealed they shared office space, food delivery, and that Alameda's VC operations had been moved to FTX. Miller confirmed the story and published it. SBF immediately attacked the article on Twitter as a misrepresentation, and the next day Miller and colleagues interviewed him on Zoom. He appeared casual, eating off-camera, and gave a notoriously evasive answer about where he lived: he technically lived alone but mostly slept on couches and beanbags in the apartment with ten coworkers from both companies. The reporters' DMs during the call were filled with question marks. The story published without much reaction from the crypto world. Months later, a leaked Excel spreadsheet began unraveling the empire, revealing financial architecture that looked barely more complex than a household budget. By year's end FTX was bankrupt with $8 billion missing and SBF in handcuffs.

As heard by us

A glossy crypto weekend becomes a quiet, unsettling study of power and separation.

Spellcaster uses the Crypto Bahamas setting to turn a resort weekend into a sharp look at power, intimacy, and distance inside the FTX-Alameda world.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want the gilded surface before the collapse underneath.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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