Sam Bankman-Fried

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Sam Bankman-Fried
Born (1992-03-06) March 6, 1992 (age 29)
Stanford, California, U.S.
EducationMassachusetts Institute of Technology (BS)
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forCEO of FTX
Political partyDemocratic[1]

Samuel Bankman-Fried[2] (born March 6, 1992[3]), also known by his initials SBF,[4] is an American entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange.[5][6] He also manages assets through Alameda Research, a quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm he founded in October 2017.[7] He is ranked 32nd on the 2021 Forbes 400 list with a net worth of US$22.5 billion.[8]

Biography[edit]

Early life and education[edit]

Bankman-Fried was born in 1992 on the campus of Stanford University, the son of Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, both law professors from Stanford Law School.[3] When he was about 14 years old, his mother noticed that he had spontaneously developed an interest in utilitarianism.[3] Later, he attended Canada/USA Mathcamp, a summer program for mathematically talented high school students.[3]

From 2010 to 2014, Bankman-Fried attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[3] There, he lived in a coeducational group house called Epsilon Theta.[3] In 2012, he blogged about utilitarianism, baseball, and politics.[6][3] In 2014, he graduated with a degree in physics and a minor in mathematics.[3][9][10]

Career[edit]

In the summer of 2013, Bankman-Fried began working at Jane Street Capital, a proprietary trading firm,[3] trading international ETFs.[11] Initially an intern, he returned there full-time after graduating.[3]

In September 2017, Bankman-Fried quit Jane Street and moved to Berkeley, where he worked briefly at the Centre for Effective Altruism as director of development from October to November 2017.[3][12] In November 2017, he founded Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm.[3] (As of 2021, Bankman-Fried owns approximately 90% of Alameda Research[3].)

In January 2018, Bankman-Fried organized an arbitrage trade, moving up to $25M per day, to take advantage of the higher price of bitcoin in Japan compared to in America.[3][12] After attending a late 2018 cryptocurrency conference in Macau, and while also inspired by the concurrent fork of Bitcoin Cash, he moved to Hong Kong.[3][13] He founded FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, in April 2019, and it then launched the following month.[3]

On December 8, 2021, Bankman-Fried, along with other industry executives, testified before the Committee on Financial Services in relation to regulating the cryptocurrency industry.[14][15]

Philanthropy[edit]

Bankman-Fried is a supporter of effective altruism and pursues earning to give as an altruistic career.[16] He is a member of Giving What We Can and plans to donate the great majority of his wealth to effective charities over the course of his life.[5]

His company FTX has a policy of donating 1% of its revenue to charity.[16][17] He was one of the largest CEO donors to Joe Biden in the 2020 election cycle, personally donating $5.2 million, second to only Michael Bloomberg.[16][18]

Personal life[edit]

Bankman-Fried is a vegan.[19][20][21] He sleeps four hours per night[22],[dubious – discuss] when he has no meetings, on a bean bag chair in his office next to his computer.[20][23] He ensures that every room in his office has bean bag chairs to sleep on.[21] He shares an apartment with roommates.[21] He lives in the Bahamas. He almost never drinks or goes on vacation.[21]

Bankman-Fried describes himself morally as a "Benthamite" and "a total, act, hedonistic/one level (as opposed to high and low pleasure), classical (as opposed to negative) utilitarian".[20]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Anthony Adragna. "A new Democratic super PAC has entered the chat: Protect Our Future will invest $10 million in Democratic primaries for lawmakers who take "a long term view on policy planning."".
  2. ^ "December 8, 2021, "Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States"" (PDF). financialservices.house.gov. December 3, 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Parloff, Roger (August 12, 2021). "Portrait of a 29-year-old billionaire: Can Sam Bankman-Fried make his risky crypto business work?". finance.yahoo.com. Retrieved September 6, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ Turner, Matt; Rosen, Phil; Erb, Jordan Parker (December 19, 2021). "Sam Bankman-Fried went from relative obscurity to crypto billionaire in just 4 years. Insiders explain how he did it, and what's next". Business Insider. Retrieved December 27, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ a b Schleifer, Theodore (March 20, 2021). "How a crypto billionaire decided to become one of Biden's biggest donors". Vox.
  6. ^ a b Wallace, Benjamin (February 2, 2021). "The Mysterious Cryptocurrency Magnate Who Became One of Biden's Biggest Donors". Intelligencer.
  7. ^ "Sam Bankman-Fried". Forbes. Retrieved April 30, 2021.
  8. ^ Steven Ehrlich; Chase Peterson-Withorn (October 6, 2021). "Meet The World's Richest 29-Year-Old: How Sam Bankman-Fried Made A Record Fortune In The Crypto Frenzy". Forbes. Retrieved December 25, 2021.
  9. ^ "The Team". Alameda Research. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
  10. ^ Chan, Michelle (June 25, 2021). "Hong Kong's 29-year-old crypto billionaire: FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved September 6, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ^ "The Ex-Trader Building a Multi-Billion Crypto Empire (Podcast)". Bloomberg.com. March 31, 2021. Retrieved October 1, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ a b Wallace, Benjamin (February 2, 2021). "The Mysterious Cryptocurrency Magnate Who Became One of Biden's Biggest Donors". Intelligencer. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  13. ^ Lipton, Eric; Livni, Ephrat (August 19, 2021). "Crypto Nomads: Surfing the World for Risk and Profit". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  14. ^ Livni, Ephrat (December 8, 2021). "Congress gets a crash course on cryptocurrency". The New York Times. Retrieved December 25, 2021.
  15. ^ Kiernan, Paul (December 9, 2021). "Crypto Executives Defend Industry as Congress Considers Oversight". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 25, 2021.
  16. ^ a b c Osipovich, Alexander (April 16, 2021). "This Vegan Billionaire Disrupted the Crypto Markets. Stocks May Be Next". Wall Street Journal.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ "FTX". ftx.com. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
  18. ^ "Crypto firm ropes in Gisele, Tom Brady to burnish green credentials". South China Morning Post. July 1, 2021. Retrieved July 28, 2021.
  19. ^ Wallace, Benjamin (February 2, 2021). "The Mysterious Cryptocurrency Magnate Who Became One of Biden's Biggest Donors". Intelligencer.
  20. ^ a b c Parloff, Roger (August 12, 2021). "Portrait of a 29-year-old billionaire: Can Sam Bankman-Fried make his risky crypto business work?". finance.yahoo.com. Retrieved September 6, 2021. ...he is a classically driven businessman who sleeps four-hour nights, famously catnapping in a beanbag chair at the office so subordinates can wake him at any hour for guidance.... He is... a self-described “Benthamite,”.... In one of his first entries, he identified himself as “a total, act, hedonistic/one level (as opposed to high and low pleasure), classical (as opposed to negative) utilitarian,” while furnishing explanatory hyperlinks for the words “total,” “act,” “hedonistic” and “classical.”{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  21. ^ a b c d Chan, Michelle (June 25, 2021). "Hong Kong's 29-year-old crypto billionaire: FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved September 6, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  22. ^ "Will the craze for crypto startups ever produce the next tech giant?". The Economist. November 13, 2021. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  23. ^ Lipton, Eric; Livni, Ephrat (August 19, 2021). "Crypto Nomads: Surfing the World for Risk and Profit". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 6, 2021.

External links[edit]

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