Brett Harrison — FTX US former president speaks out

I flew out to Chicago to interview Brett Harrison, who is the former President of FTX US President and founder of Architect. In his first longform interview since the fall of FTX, he speak in great detail about his entire tenure there and about SBF’s dysfunctional leadership. He details how the inner circle of Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, and SBF controlled the codebase, mismanaged the company, got distracted by media, and even threatened him for his letter of resignation. In what was my favorite part of the interview, we also discuss his insights about the financial system from his decades of experience in the world's largest HFT firms. And we talk about Brett's new startup, Architect, as well as the general state of crypto post-FTX. After talking with Brett for 3 hours, I found him to be extremely intelligent, thoughtful, and ethical. 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 * Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/brett-harrison * Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3yxvnsD * Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3FmPa1I 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 - Passive investing & HFT hacks 00:08:30 - Is Finance Zero-Sum? 00:18:38 - Interstellar Markets & Periodic Auctions 00:23:10 - Hiring & Programming at Jane Street 00:32:09 - Quant Culture 00:42:10 - FTX - Meeting Sam, Joining FTX US 00:58:20 - FTX - Accomplishments, Beginnings of Trouble 01:08:11 - FTX - SBF's Dysfunctional Leadership 01:26:53 - FTX - Alameda 01:33:50 - FTX - Leaving FTX, SBF"s Threats 01:45:45 - FTX - Collapse 01:53:10 - FTX - Lessons 02:04:34 - FTX - Regulators, & FTX Mafia 02:15:42 - Architect.xyz 02:30:10 - Institutional Interest & Uses of Crypto