Brett Harrison — FTX US former president speaks out

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

March 13, 2023

Duration

2h 37m

Channel

Dwarkesh Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

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

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Brett Harrison

  guest

• Dwarkesh Patel

  host

• Narrator

  other

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Dwarkesh Podcast, featuring Brett Harrison and Dwarkesh Patel, Brett Harrison — FTX US former president speaks out explores Inside FTX: Brett Harrison on Sam, dysfunction, and rebuilding crypto Brett Harrison, former president of FTX US and ex-Citadel/Jane Street executive, recounts how he joined FTX, what he observed internally, and why he ultimately resigned months before the collapse. He describes a technically strong but dangerously centralized codebase, an organization dominated by a tiny Bahamas-based inner circle, and a CEO increasingly consumed by PR and politics rather than management. Harrison details his attempts to push for governance, staffing, and structural reforms, the hostile response to his ultimatum letter, and how the subsequent fraud revelations blindsided him despite serious organizational red flags. He also explains his new company, Architect, which aims to provide unified, institution-grade infrastructure for trading across centralized and decentralized digital asset venues.

🔗 RELATED EPISODES

Eliezer Yudkowsky — Why AI will kill us, aligning LLMs, nature of intelligence, SciFi, & rationality

Ilya Sutskever (OpenAI Chief Scientist) — Why next-token prediction could surpass human intelligence

Nat Friedman (Github CEO) — Reading ancient scrolls, open source, & AI

Marc Andreessen — AI, crypto, 1000 Elon Musks, regrets, vulnerabilities, & managerial revolution

Garett Jones — Immigration, national IQ, & less democracy

Lars Doucet — Progress, poverty, Georgism, & why rent is too damn high