FTX with Sam Bankman-Fried & Mario Gabriele (Extended Cut)

Note: This episode was published on Dec 14, 2021, approximately a year before FTX’s subsequent meltdown. The apparent negligence, fraud and self-dealing at FTX has given us much to reflect on after we — and many others — gave Sam a platform to share his and FTX’s story with all of you. We’ve decided to leave this episode up in-full as a historical artifact of the industry’s view on FTX at the time. For a broader Acquired discussion on frauds, and specifically the similarities between FTX and Enron, see our November 2022 Enron episode. We tell the definitive (audio!) story behind FTX's "speed run" — how this upstart crypto exchange became the fastest company in history to reach a $25B valuation, just two years after founding. And to do so we're joined by not one but TWO of the very best people in the world to help: FTX's wunderkind CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, and special guest host Mario Gabriele from The Generalist, who Sam gave extensive access to FTX's internal data, employees, and investors for his canonical 36,000 word trilogy on the company this past summer. We cover it all — from the "$20m/day" trade that started everything, to Tom Brady & Gisele, to Sam testifying last week in front of Congress. Don't blink or you might miss it! Big news!! All back catalog LP Show episodes are now free and available to anyone!! You can follow our new public LP Show feed in the podcast player of your choice. It's already chock-full of 60+ great episodes like our VC Fundamentals series, interviews with founders of top early-stage startups, and master classes on pricing, marketplaces, SaaS investing and many more topics. Happy listening and happy holidays to everyone!! http://pod.link/acquiredlp Sponsors: - Thank you to our presenting sponsor for all of Season 9, Pilot.com! Pilot takes care of startups' bookkeeping, tax and CFO services so busy founders can focus on what matters. To paraphrase Jeff Bezos's AWS analogy: bookkeeping and tax don't make your product any better — so you should let Pilot handle them for you. Pilot is in fact backed by Bezos himself, along with other all-star investors including Sequoia, Index, and Stripe. They are truly the gold standard for startup bookkeeping, and many of the companies we work with run on them. You can get in touch with Pilot here: https://bit.ly/acquiredfmpilot , and Acquired listeners get 20% off their first 6 months! (use the link above) - Thank you as well to PitchBook and to Nord Security. You can learn more about them at: - https://bit.ly/acquiredpitchbook - https://bit.ly/acquirednord Links: - The Generalist's FTX Trilogy: https://www.readthegeneralist.com/briefing/ftx-1 - FTX: https://ftx.com - FTX US: https://ftx.us - Sam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX *Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.*

Mario GabrielehostBen GilberthostDavid RosenthalhostSam Bankman-Friedguest

Dec 15, 20211h 53mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: December 15, 2021
Duration: 1h 53m
Channel: Acquired
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Note: This episode was published on Dec 14, 2021, approximately a year before FTX’s subsequent meltdown. The apparent negligence, fraud and self-dealing at FTX has given us much to reflect on after we — and many others — gave Sam a platform to share his and FTX’s story with all of you. We’ve decided to leave this episode up in-full as a historical artifact of the industry’s view on FTX at the time. For a broader Acquired discussion on frauds, and specifically the similarities between FTX and Enron, see our November 2022 Enron episode. We tell the definitive (audio!) story behind FTX's "speed run" — how this upstart crypto exchange became the fastest company in history to reach a $25B valuation, just two years after founding. And to do so we're joined by not one but TWO of the very best people in the world to help: FTX's wunderkind CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, and special guest host Mario Gabriele from The Generalist, who Sam gave extensive access to FTX's internal data, employees, and investors for his canonical 36,000 word trilogy on the company this past summer. We cover it all — from the "$20m/day" trade that started everything, to Tom Brady & Gisele, to Sam testifying last week in front of Congress. Don't blink or you might miss it! Big news!! All back catalog LP Show episodes are now free and available to anyone!! You can follow our new public LP Show feed in the podcast player of your choice. It's already chock-full of 60+ great episodes like our VC Fundamentals series, interviews with founders of top early-stage startups, and master classes on pricing, marketplaces, SaaS investing and many more topics. Happy listening and happy holidays to everyone!! http://pod.link/acquiredlp Sponsors:
Thank you to our presenting sponsor for all of Season 9, Pilot.com! Pilot takes care of startups' bookkeeping, tax and CFO services so busy founders can focus on what matters. To paraphrase Jeff Bezos's AWS analogy: bookkeeping and tax don't make your product any better — so you should let Pilot handle them for you. Pilot is in fact backed by Bezos himself, along with other all-star investors including Sequoia, Index, and Stripe. They are truly the gold standard for startup bookkeeping, and many of the companies we work with run on them. You can get in touch with Pilot here: https://bit.ly/acquiredfmpilot , and Acquired listeners get 20% off their first 6 months! (use the link above)
Thank you as well to PitchBook and to Nord Security. You can learn more about them at:
https://bit.ly/acquiredpitchbook
https://bit.ly/acquirednord
Links:
The Generalist's FTX Trilogy: https://www.readthegeneralist.com/briefing/ftx-1
FTX: https://ftx.com
FTX US: https://ftx.us
Sam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX
*Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.*

SPEAKERS

Mario Gabriele
host
Ben Gilbert
host
David Rosenthal
host
Sam Bankman-Fried
guest

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Acquired, featuring Mario Gabriele and Ben Gilbert, FTX with Sam Bankman-Fried & Mario Gabriele (Extended Cut) explores fTX’s rapid rise: arbitrage roots, better risk engines, brand-building strategy The episode traces Sam Bankman-Fried’s entry into crypto via obvious 2017 cross-exchange price spreads, leading to Alameda Research and early “Japan arb” profits that exposed severe market structure and infrastructure gaps.

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