Crypto Critics' Corner

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Episode 142 – Sam Bankman-Fried Sent Himself to Prison (feat. Elizabeth Lopatto)

Sam Bankman-Fried Sent Himself to Prison (Feat. Elizabeth Lopatto) – Crypto Critics' Corner

Bennett and Cas are joined by Elizabeth Lopatto of the Verge to discuss Sam Bankman-Fried's conviction. Sam Bankman-Fried gambled on a trial and his parents lost Elizabeth Lopatto's Coverage at The Verge Cas' review of Going Infinite Protos coverage of the trial This video was recorded on November 6th, 2023.

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Elizabeth Lopatto of The Verge to discuss the conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried.

This episode was recorded on November 1st, 2023.

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English Transcript:

00:00:05:01 - 00:00:10:23
Cas Piancey
Welcome back, everyone. I am Cas Piancey. I'm joined, as usual, by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett Tomlin. How are you today?

00:00:10:23 - 00:00:12:09
Bennett Tomlin
I'm doing well. How are you, Cas?

00:00:12:09 - 00:00:22:07
Cas Piancey
I'm doing great. We're joined by a very special guest, someone we've been building up to over many, many podcasts now. Elizabeth Lopatto from The Verge. How are you today?

00:00:22:07 - 00:00:25:11
Elizabeth Lopatto
I'm doing well. How are you guys? I finally got some sleep.

00:00:25:11 - 00:00:29:01
Cas Piancey
yeah. You were in New York the whole time, so you just got back to the West Coast.

00:00:29:01 - 00:00:43:10
Cas Piancey
we haven't been struggling and waking up very early in the morning to cover this like you have, which according to some reports, you were out there like one in the morning or midnight sometimes to get ready to get into the courtroom.

00:00:43:10 - 00:00:44:18
Elizabeth Lopatto
It was an embarrassing hour.

00:00:44:18 - 00:00:53:23
Cas Piancey
we talked to Molly last time, and we hadn't gotten the verdict yet. I think everyone's probably aware that I'm not spoiling anything. He was guilty on all counts,

00:00:53:23 - 00:01:03:02
Cas Piancey
but can you walk us through kind of the pulse of the courtroom as they built up to the verdict in the in the day or so before that?

00:01:03:02 - 00:01:23:12
Elizabeth Lopatto
So this was actually part of the reason I was getting up so early. I really wanted to see what things were like in the courtroom. I think Sam Kessler talked about this a little bit on a previous episode, but things often played differently in the courtroom than they did in Overflow or on crypto. Twitter. You know, so there were there were these moments that felt different.

00:01:23:18 - 00:01:25:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
But I have to say,

00:01:25:05 - 00:01:42:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
sort of starting with the recording of Caroline and building up to the cross of Sam Bankman-Fried, it felt like the jury was pretty fed up with him. And, you know, there were moments during the cross where I could see the jurors like

00:01:42:17 - 00:01:50:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
making eye contact with each other. Like, you know, when you're on the subway and somebody is misbehaving and you just make eye contact with a stranger, like, do you see that shit?

00:01:50:10 - 00:01:51:13
Elizabeth Lopatto
It was very that.

00:01:51:13 - 00:02:09:06
Elizabeth Lopatto
that was that was kind of the mood building up to it. We had the charge conference, which was, you know, Judge Lewis Kaplan reading aloud 60 pages of how to think about these charges to the jury. And that was a little boring. But we did it. And then they were,

00:02:09:06 - 00:02:12:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
dismissed to go ponder their verdict.

00:02:12:07 - 00:02:18:15
Elizabeth Lopatto
And while they were deliberating, the overflow flow rooms were closed. And so everybody came into the main courtroom.

00:02:18:15 - 00:02:27:08
Elizabeth Lopatto
And then after about four and a half hours, we got a verdict. And so all the lawyers came in. Sam's parents came in

00:02:27:08 - 00:02:30:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, she gets real at the verdict.

00:02:30:02 - 00:02:31:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
it was very solemn

00:02:31:05 - 00:02:33:13
Elizabeth Lopatto
The forewoman stood and Sam stood

00:02:33:13 - 00:02:42:04
Elizabeth Lopatto
court clerk Andy, who is sort of a recurring character throughout this, I'm not sure anybody necessarily wrote about him, but he was a minor character that we all pretty fond of in the room.

00:02:42:04 - 00:02:54:11
Elizabeth Lopatto
You know, he went through and read the charges. How do you find it was guilty, Guilty, guilty, guilty. And after that, first or second guilty, Joseph Bankman-Fried, you know, doubled over

00:02:54:11 - 00:02:58:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
and Barbara Fried you know, she kind of like put her hands over her face.

00:02:58:17 - 00:03:03:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
And I saw the court sketch artist turn around and start sketching them.

00:03:03:09 - 00:03:04:18
Elizabeth Lopatto
And there was just something

00:03:04:18 - 00:03:05:18
Elizabeth Lopatto
really

00:03:05:18 - 00:03:10:16
Elizabeth Lopatto
primal, I guess, about watching that specific kind of parental pain,

00:03:10:16 - 00:03:14:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
which if you've ever witnessed it, you you know what I'm talking about.

00:03:14:05 - 00:03:16:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
It's not something that you forget easily.

00:03:16:02 - 00:03:18:11
Elizabeth Lopatto
You know, these people were anguished and

00:03:18:11 - 00:03:19:21
Elizabeth Lopatto
there was no privacy for them.

00:03:19:21 - 00:03:22:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
And I know

00:03:22:03 - 00:03:39:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
they benefited from Sam's fraud at FTX and may or may not have known what was going on, may or may not have been involved. There's certainly some indication that some of the campaign finance stuff Barbara Fried had been giving advice on.

00:03:39:19 - 00:03:47:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
And, you know, Joe Beckman sat in some of those signal chats. So, you know, that's possible. They may have known more,

00:03:47:09 - 00:03:54:07
Elizabeth Lopatto
but it was still like undeniable. These people were in a lot of pain and also that they were like totally surrounded by reporters

00:03:54:07 - 00:03:57:22
Elizabeth Lopatto
the judge thanked the jury and dismissed them.

00:03:57:22 - 00:04:03:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
And, you know, we took care of a couple of other matters about like when sentencing was going to be and so on.

00:04:03:05 - 00:04:18:22
Elizabeth Lopatto
And then he got off the bench and the parents came up and there was sort of a border, like a little wooden, like waist high border between the court itself and the gallery. And so they stood at the border waiting for Sam to turn around.

00:04:18:22 - 00:04:22:04
Elizabeth Lopatto
And he didn't he was talking to his his his lawyers,

00:04:22:04 - 00:04:24:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
maybe because he didn't want us to see him.

00:04:24:04 - 00:04:34:07
Elizabeth Lopatto
And then he started walking on us and he glanced back at his mother and she crumpled. And the two of them were like, holding each other up.

00:04:34:07 - 00:04:36:04
Elizabeth Lopatto
And that was sort of the end of the case.

00:04:36:04 - 00:04:38:06
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, there was a press conference afterwards.

00:04:38:06 - 00:04:38:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
But

00:04:38:17 - 00:04:41:08
Elizabeth Lopatto
for me, that was that was really the end of the thing.

00:04:41:08 - 00:04:44:08
Elizabeth Lopatto
And it felt like we had sort of gone from like,

00:04:44:08 - 00:04:48:21
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, circus clown music to like a funeral dirge really abruptly.

00:04:48:21 - 00:04:58:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
And so there was something like very solemn about it. And that was what I went home and wrote about because one of the things that

00:04:58:03 - 00:05:03:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
I've been thinking about throughout this trial is why are we here?

00:05:03:11 - 00:05:27:00
Elizabeth Lopatto
Like literally, why are we here? There's so much evidence and even even without the coconspirators talking about, you know, Sam giving them direction, there's so much of the money flowing specifically to benefit Sam that I don't know how you could come to any other conclusion. Like why would Caroline and Gary and Nishad just do this stuff? Because he's so nice?

00:05:27:00 - 00:05:27:18
Elizabeth Lopatto
Like, come on.

00:05:27:18 - 00:05:42:13
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, I just remember thinking, like, Bernie Madoff, just, like, turned himself in. It was like, Yeah, I'm guilty. You got me. And may have spared his family some, you know, public humiliation, and Sam certainly did not. And that really stuck with me.

00:05:42:13 - 00:05:42:23
Cas Piancey
You wrote

00:05:42:23 - 00:05:49:12
Cas Piancey
an article which we're obviously going to link to. Sam Bankman-Fried gambled on a trial and his parents lost is the title.

00:05:49:12 - 00:05:57:00
Cas Piancey
And I, I had tweeted about this today, just saying that I appreciated your take.

00:05:57:00 - 00:05:59:11
Cas Piancey
And I think part of why I appreciated it is because,

00:05:59:11 - 00:06:05:17
Cas Piancey
especially considering that Bennett and I like our own, like most of our beat is just fraud and bad

00:06:05:17 - 00:06:06:09
Cas Piancey
baddies

00:06:06:09 - 00:06:07:10
Cas Piancey
sometimes

00:06:07:10 - 00:06:33:14
Cas Piancey
I don't know you hear about this with like police officers and stuff where it's just they they lose the empathy. At some point they stop feeling bad about the people that they're putting into prison. But I think it's super important to remember that these are actually just people and speaking as somebody who's been to jail before and had to tell my parents I fucked up like someone else has said publicly,

00:06:33:14 - 00:06:39:14
Cas Piancey
I understand that it is a really tough moment for any parent

00:06:39:14 - 00:06:46:09
Cas Piancey
as you said, like regardless of whether they're involved, which I think Bennett and I have both kind of discussed that to us.

00:06:46:11 - 00:06:55:02
Cas Piancey
It certainly feels like they've played a pretty pivotal role in all of this and deserve to be scrutinized. But that doesn't take away from them being

00:06:55:02 - 00:07:08:11
Cas Piancey
parents and seeing their son do something undeniably horrible at this point, like it is pretty much undeniable now what happened and that he was at the heart of it and that

00:07:08:11 - 00:07:09:15
Cas Piancey
it's like, that's awful.

00:07:09:17 - 00:07:23:00
Cas Piancey
And I and I think it's it's just very reasonable to point that out. And I, I had to push back some people on this, but I do I actually do just really appreciate you bringing a little bit of.

00:07:23:00 - 00:07:31:09
Cas Piancey
Empathy to the court case because it's been so obvious, as you said from the very beginning, where it's like it's pretty clear cut that Sam Bankman-Fried did this.

00:07:31:09 - 00:07:37:14
Elizabeth Lopatto
I mean, for me, one of the things that's been really riveting about this trial is the absolute scale of destruction here.

00:07:37:16 - 00:07:46:23
Elizabeth Lopatto
So, you know, $8 billion is a lot of money. I don't think anybody was like, gee whiz, he put it in his other pair of pants. It's a mistake.

00:07:46:23 - 00:07:57:15
Elizabeth Lopatto
And, you know, all of those customers are now tied up in the bankruptcy proceedings. And that includes FTX employees who I think were especially betrayed here because they believed it was real.

00:07:57:19 - 00:08:03:06
Elizabeth Lopatto
They believed they were working on something good and they found out that was not the case. And I think that's pretty horrible.

00:08:03:06 - 00:08:12:21
Elizabeth Lopatto
the trial itself made it clear that this was unusual, because usually when you have something like Enron or you have a WorldCom or something,

00:08:12:21 - 00:08:17:21
Elizabeth Lopatto
it's not your closest friends in the world who are taking the stand against you.

00:08:17:21 - 00:08:19:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
You know what I mean? And you had

00:08:19:09 - 00:08:34:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
Adam Yedidia was not involved in the conspiracy, but who testified against Sam and was one of his closest friends from college and was his roommate for many years. You had Gary Wang, who was also a

00:08:34:09 - 00:08:39:19
Elizabeth Lopatto
friend from college roommate, Nishad Singh, who's known the family since high school.

00:08:39:19 - 00:08:48:22
Elizabeth Lopatto
But these are not casual acquaintances, like this is your inner circle. These are the people you know best in the world, and they're taking the stand against you. Like that is a level of like

00:08:48:22 - 00:08:57:08
Elizabeth Lopatto
Shakespearean personal destruction almost. So there was that. That to me was really something astonishing to watch.

00:08:57:08 - 00:09:20:05
Bennett Tomlin
What’s interesting to me is that, like in many senses, this trial shouldn't have happened. Almost anyone with white collar charges in SDNY going after them will find some kind of plea deal because they recognize even if the deal isn't great, the outcome after trial is likely to be worse, but through and through.

00:09:20:05 - 00:09:43:11
Bennett Tomlin
And I think we've re-emphasize this over and over. Cas, in almost every episode, has talked about how he expected that Sam was going to take the stand for the same reason he took this to trial because it was a gamble. There was still a chance. And even like the way you describe it, you go from like the happy clown music to suddenly the funeral dirge is like the story of gamblers all over.

00:09:43:13 - 00:10:11:01
Bennett Tomlin
You stay in the glitz and glam until like the very last moment when there is nothing left. There's no more chance You've got nothing left for one more roll. And so I think like the ending of this tragedy has been written for a long time. We've kind of seen where Sam Bankman-Fried has been going, but he has insisted until the very last time to keep stepping up and giving that wheel one more spin.

00:10:11:03 - 00:10:16:13
Bennett Tomlin
And that's what got us here and that's what's going to put him away for likely a very long time.

00:10:16:13 - 00:10:17:03
Cas Piancey
Yeah.

00:10:17:03 - 00:10:20:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
Yeah, I mean, there was definitely a quality of like,

00:10:20:03 - 00:10:27:20
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, when the gambler has lost everything and he takes his wedding ring off and he's like, I'm going to win it back and it doesn't happen.

00:10:27:20 - 00:10:30:06
Elizabeth Lopatto
It was there was that kind of quality to it.

00:10:30:06 - 00:10:41:00
Elizabeth Lopatto
But one of the things that I think is maybe underappreciated about how disastrous that cross-examination was is that Louis Kaplan is the sentencing judge.

00:10:41:04 - 00:10:55:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
And there were a couple of points where it felt like Sam was lying directly to the judge. And again, you know, forget making a deal, assume no deal is on the table. Just assume it. Right. Let's assume he's not offered a deal.

00:10:55:05 - 00:10:56:22
Elizabeth Lopatto
Just pleading guilty

00:10:56:22 - 00:11:03:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
and saying you're sorry is going to help in terms of sentencing. You show repentance.

00:11:03:10 - 00:11:24:04
Elizabeth Lopatto
You know, you you make it clear that you're taking responsibility for your actions. Those are things that judges take into account when they think about sentencing. And so if you're up on the stand and not only saying, I didn't do it, and if I did it, it was fine and I didn't mean it. And also, I don't recall anything I said in the last year and a half.

00:11:24:06 - 00:11:45:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
And I am going to try to weasel my way out of all of these questions and I'm going to answer the questions that I feel like answering and not the questions are being asked, like this sort of thing. You know, it doesn't win over a judge. It doesn't suggest that you're really taking responsibility for your actions and it suggests a worse sentence and that I think

00:11:45:10 - 00:11:49:16
Elizabeth Lopatto
I who you know, I'm going to be back in New York for the sentencing.

00:11:49:16 - 00:11:55:14
Elizabeth Lopatto
So we'll see what it is. But that, I think, is an underappreciated aspect of why this was such a bad gamble.

00:11:55:16 - 00:12:18:05
Cas Piancey
Well, in his so to be fair, I. Okay, well, I mean, yes, I agree. But to be fair, I, I, I think part of why Sam would argue the gamble isn't over yet, right? Like, he's still going to appeal. He's still going to try to do a bunch of who knows what to try to figure a way out of this.

00:12:18:05 - 00:12:21:01
Cas Piancey
first we should talk about sentencing, which is supposed to happen in March.

00:12:21:01 - 00:12:28:08
Cas Piancey
odds for everyone are at least 20 years. That's what I'm hearing. I'm not a lawyer. None of us are lawyers here,

00:12:28:08 - 00:12:29:14
Bennett Tomlin
What’s the Vegas line?

00:12:29:14 - 00:12:31:03
Cas Piancey
what are we thinking is going to happen here?

00:12:31:03 - 00:12:38:04
Cas Piancey
As you said, he basically lied to the judges face and he's shown no remorse is how it how it certainly feels,

00:12:38:04 - 00:12:45:03
Cas Piancey
I guess, remorse in so far as like a teenage boy sulking and saying like, I didn't mean to do that or whatever.

00:12:45:03 - 00:12:54:00
Cas Piancey
But no, real like, I'm actually genuinely sorry for my transgressions kind of stuff. Do you do you expect that to play a role in the sentencing?

00:12:54:00 - 00:12:57:04
Cas Piancey
He's also a 31 year old who has never committed a crime.

00:12:57:04 - 00:13:02:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
$8 billion is a lot of money. I mean, it's a lot of money.

00:13:02:03 - 00:13:06:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
This is one of the biggest financial crimes of all time, straight up.

00:13:06:05 - 00:13:08:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
And then again, there's this lack of remorse.

00:13:08:05 - 00:13:11:16
Elizabeth Lopatto
So I think Kaplan is going to throw the book.

00:13:11:16 - 00:13:18:13
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, maybe one thing to keep in mind is that Kaplan is not often overturned on appeal. That's pretty rare, actually. This is this is

00:13:18:13 - 00:13:22:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
as far as picks of judges go, this is like maybe one of the worst picks you can get.

00:13:22:09 - 00:13:28:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
I would be very surprised if he gets less than 20

00:13:28:02 - 00:13:34:12
Elizabeth Lopatto
and I would not be entirely surprised if he got more than 20, whether that's an appropriate sentence, I think is a separate question.

00:13:34:12 - 00:13:35:00
Elizabeth Lopatto
I think

00:13:35:00 - 00:13:39:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
most nonviolent criminals in America get sentences that are way too long. But

00:13:39:17 - 00:13:45:13
Elizabeth Lopatto
I can't imagine this is going to be something where Kaplan's like, yeah, two years home confinement, That's enough.

00:13:45:13 - 00:13:59:05
Cas Piancey
sure. I also, to be fair, I don't think two years home confinement would be fair. Like I do think there should be an actual level of punishment here. I think we're all probably on the same side where we go like life sentence

00:13:59:05 - 00:14:00:19
Cas Piancey
wouldn't be right

00:14:00:19 - 00:14:04:17
Cas Piancey
and wouldn't feel fair. It's poss it's certainly possible.

00:14:04:17 - 00:14:08:15
Cas Piancey
as you said, over 20 also seems very possible right now.

00:14:08:15 - 00:14:09:14
Cas Piancey
And if you think about it

00:14:09:14 - 00:14:15:10
Cas Piancey
as a 31 year old man, he has to go to federal prison for 25 years. I mean that is

00:14:15:10 - 00:14:18:23
Cas Piancey
what you what are you going to do after that? I don't know Like that's that's pretty much it.

00:14:18:23 - 00:14:21:09
Cas Piancey
there's better ways to try to get some sort of

00:14:21:09 - 00:14:30:02
Cas Piancey
retribution out of this as opposed to, like straight up revenge, though it seems like people are pretty bloodthirsty on this one.

00:14:30:02 - 00:14:42:19
Cas Piancey
Which brings me to another point. Jesse Eisinger specifically had said that he would prefer that these these sentences be lighter for criminals like this. I think it makes sense for someone like Bernie Madoff, like

00:14:42:19 - 00:14:46:05
Cas Piancey
him not never getting out of prison kind of makes sense to me

00:14:46:05 - 00:14:58:04
Cas Piancey
just based on the scale and his age versus this is a 31 year old who even if he just gets a minimum wage job or something when he's 45,

00:14:58:04 - 00:14:59:19
Cas Piancey
and also people have said recidivism.

00:14:59:20 - 00:15:02:17
Cas Piancey
Recidivism rates are like high for fraud.

00:15:02:17 - 00:15:03:04
Cas Piancey
Like

00:15:03:04 - 00:15:09:03
Cas Piancey
how is Sam Bankman-Fried going to commit more fraud when he gets out of prison? I, I don't know how

00:15:09:11 - 00:15:10:20
Elizabeth Lopatto
Is that a challenge?

00:15:10:20 - 00:15:13:05
Cas Piancey
will. I guess we'll see. We'll find out.

00:15:13:05 - 00:15:18:00
Elizabeth Lopatto
I don't claim to be an expert in the American prison system or in sentencing.

00:15:18:02 - 00:15:21:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
I just. I think for most nonviolent crimes,

00:15:21:05 - 00:15:23:11
Elizabeth Lopatto
you don't need to put people in for very long.

00:15:23:11 - 00:15:38:20
Elizabeth Lopatto
As for recidivism. Yeah, I mean, maybe he'll do another one. And I imagine there are going to be a lot of people very closely watching every single one of his moves because this was such an enormous scandal, really.

00:15:38:20 - 00:15:48:22
Elizabeth Lopatto
one of the things that I keep thinking about separately from whatever the criminal justice system will provide is I keep going back to how thoroughly this guy has exploded his entire life.

00:15:48:22 - 00:16:00:16
Elizabeth Lopatto
All of his friends have testified against him, like imagine like hold together those people, the equivalent of those people in your mind. Because after Adam, you did his testimony, I texted my best friend who I've known since college.

00:16:00:18 - 00:16:05:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
I was just like, Dude, if you're ever testifying against me, I am so fucked.

00:16:05:10 - 00:16:11:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, this is these are this is his is inner circle. These are the people he he knows best in the world. Like

00:16:11:02 - 00:16:16:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
separately from whatever job he's going to get next. Like who? Who is going to want to

00:16:16:03 - 00:16:17:12
Elizabeth Lopatto
spend time with him?

00:16:17:12 - 00:16:18:16
Cas Piancey
here's a question for you

00:16:18:16 - 00:16:24:01
Cas Piancey
pretrial. I think the way most people were beginning to think about

00:16:24:01 - 00:16:32:06
Cas Piancey
Sam Bankman-Fried was that he was kind of a narcissistic sociopath. Do you think he still gave off that energy during the trial,

00:16:32:06 - 00:16:34:20
Elizabeth Lopatto
not qualified to diagnose anything,

00:16:34:20 - 00:17:04:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
But I do think arrogance was a huge part of this. You know, I think he thought he knew better than everybody at every single stage of this this business, you know, starting with Alameda and like the big schism that happened where half the company left because they didn't trust him and continuing on throughout FTX and continuing on throughout the post collapse media tour where just if your lawyer ever tells you to shut up shut up

00:17:04:17 - 00:17:10:20
Cas Piancey
that Tiffany Fong clip is crazy where he's like, I told them to go fuck themselves.

00:17:10:22 - 00:17:20:05
Cas Piancey
Never tell your lawyer to go fuck themselves like that seems pretty obvious. And he comes from a law family. The whole thing is wild when it comes to that.

00:17:20:05 - 00:17:23:23
Cas Piancey
I guess I ask that question because I'm like, okay, you're talking about your friend.

00:17:23:23 - 00:17:29:09
Cas Piancey
If they ever, like, testify against you, you'd be screwed. And sure, me too.

00:17:29:09 - 00:17:45:11
Cas Piancey
And Bennett probably also like all of us. Right? But is is that the case for, like, Sam Bankman-Fried from the testimony? I'm just like, how many friends does this guy actually have? Like, at least Bernie Madoff

00:17:45:11 - 00:17:58:01
Cas Piancey
came across his kind of charismatic, like, say what you will about the guy and how horrible he was. But during interviews and stuff, he at least comes off like a human being and a man who's accepting his responsibility and stuff.

00:17:58:06 - 00:18:02:05
Cas Piancey
Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't give off any of that energy whatsoever. And I'm just

00:18:02:05 - 00:18:08:04
Cas Piancey
again, it goes back to this like gambling thing where I just go like it seems like the whole world is a game

00:18:08:04 - 00:18:11:02
Cas Piancey
next move he's trying to think about as opposed to

00:18:11:02 - 00:18:15:00
Cas Piancey
thinking about what he's losing right now, like his family and his friends and his

00:18:15:00 - 00:18:16:17
Cas Piancey
job and everything.

00:18:16:17 - 00:18:24:06
Elizabeth Lopatto
I think that Sam Bankman-Fried has been pretty delusional for a pretty long time, and this is an ugly way to wake up from that kind of delusion.

00:18:24:06 - 00:18:25:07
Elizabeth Lopatto
But I think that that

00:18:25:07 - 00:18:27:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
is part of what we were seeing in court.

00:18:27:09 - 00:18:36:06
Elizabeth Lopatto
know, there was there were moments of the old charming Sam that we saw on direct, but that didn't really help him because he pivoted so quickly into just being

00:18:36:06 - 00:18:41:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
the sullen child on cross that it came off as being fake.

00:18:41:14 - 00:18:44:14
Elizabeth Lopatto
And the thing is, he can be charming

00:18:44:14 - 00:18:46:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
in the sort of nerdy way

00:18:46:03 - 00:18:52:07
Elizabeth Lopatto
that I can certainly see why people might, for instance, have warmed to him. I could see why Michael Lewis could have warmed to him

00:18:52:07 - 00:18:54:18
Elizabeth Lopatto
if he's able to keep that up. But

00:18:54:18 - 00:18:58:13
Elizabeth Lopatto
didn't feel real when we got to the cross and he couldn't remember anything.

00:18:58:13 - 00:19:05:23
Elizabeth Lopatto
And he was sullen and sort of seemed to be pretty resentful of Danielle Sassoon's entire existence.

00:19:05:23 - 00:19:07:23
Elizabeth Lopatto
it was really something to watch. And like,

00:19:07:23 - 00:19:09:19
Elizabeth Lopatto
I couldn't help but notice

00:19:09:19 - 00:19:17:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
that he and the other coconspirators seemed really young for their age. And I say this because, like,

00:19:17:09 - 00:19:22:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, a number of the CoinDesk folks who are doing really excellent work during this trial

00:19:22:09 - 00:19:26:21
Elizabeth Lopatto
are younger than they are and definitely seemed older and more mature in comparison.

00:19:26:21 - 00:19:51:18
Elizabeth Lopatto
You know, these were adults who were like still younger than the coconspirators who were, for whatever reason, sort of giving off like math camp forever vibes. So I just you know, I do wonder how much he's actually encountered reality and how aware he is of reality. And, you know, there is there are moments like I was a philosophy major.

00:19:51:18 - 00:19:56:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
I'm sorry, I know we're annoying, but there were moments where he was like

00:19:56:17 - 00:20:06:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
kind of like trying to rephrase questions or, you know, play play with the rules a little. And I've been in rooms where that plays like, obviously,

00:20:06:05 - 00:20:12:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
But this is not something that you can really do in normal conversation and have people be sympathetic to you.

00:20:12:18 - 00:20:29:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
This is this is not how people talk. This is not something that's going to make the jury like you. And I don't know that he knew that, like he was just trying to win the argument by like redefining the terms. And it turns out there are situations in which you cannot do that.

00:20:29:03 - 00:20:50:12
Bennett Tomlin
what's interesting to me is, for better or worse, the first four chapters of Michael Lewis's book are basically a telling of Sam Bankman-Fried regularly being kind of disconnected from reality, like in terms of understanding the importance of various things that everyone around him seemed to understand.

00:20:50:14 - 00:21:10:18
Bennett Tomlin
And in terms of you mentioned like we get to the point early in Alameda history where a huge amount of their money is missing, a huge portion of their loans have been called in and the rest of the executives are leaving the firm because they recognize that Sam Bankman-Fried is not this trust worthy person. And still in like

00:21:10:18 - 00:21:12:20
Bennett Tomlin
Sam Bankman-Fried.

00:21:12:22 - 00:21:49:20
Bennett Tomlin
He doesn't seem to note that any of these things are occurring like not at a level where he perceives it as a serious consequence or issue. And he goes out and recruits Caroline. And even Caroline says she didn't really have a full picture of like the extent of that when she agreed to join. And so like there is just year after year from early on until the seven verdicts were read, he has kind of existed in this state where he's been so divorced from that reality that like this was some kind of

00:21:49:20 - 00:21:54:20
Bennett Tomlin
fantastic conclusion was inevitable in his story.

00:21:55:02 - 00:22:06:00
Bennett Tomlin
And maybe the coin flips came up in there, ended up being like 10,000 Earths, all with perfect effective altruism on them or something. But this time that did not happen.

00:22:06:00 - 00:22:07:01
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, it's funny,

00:22:07:01 - 00:22:09:06
Elizabeth Lopatto
know the Michael Lewis book is really divisive.

00:22:09:06 - 00:22:27:22
Elizabeth Lopatto
I understand Cass did not care for it. I really loved it. I really thoroughly enjoyed that book. It was not at all the book that Michael Lewis thought he wrote. And like I have been thinking about it ever since I read it. Like the difference between the book that I read and the book that Michael Lewis things he wrote, like, I'm going to be thinking about this for a long time

00:22:27:22 - 00:22:36:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
because the portrait you get of Sam in this book is like this guy who, like, sucks.

00:22:36:05 - 00:22:55:18
Elizabeth Lopatto
You know, there are these all these moments, whether whether it's, you know, the bet with Asher where he's, like, humiliating his fellow intern at Jane Street or later on I think it was serum where like they had he he reneged reneged on some deal and like locked serum because he was worried his executives wouldn't

00:22:55:18 - 00:22:59:00
Elizabeth Lopatto
work hard enough if he actually rewarded them.

00:22:59:02 - 00:23:07:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
Like there are all these moments where he's just like, Yeah, fuck you. And like, Michael Lewis is like, But he's going to do wonderful things for the world. And I'm like,

00:23:07:10 - 00:23:08:13
Elizabeth Lopatto
How?

00:23:08:13 - 00:23:12:02
Cas Piancey
be fair, I think part of why I really didn't like it

00:23:12:02 - 00:23:30:22
Cas Piancey
perhaps part of why you enjoyed it so much is I had seen over and over again for years and years on cryptocurrency Twitter. What an enormous asshole Sam Bankman-Fried was to everyone. So like these revelations that Sam Bankman-Fried is an enormous asshole was like,

00:23:31:00 - 00:23:51:00
Cas Piancey
And, but like, yes, of course there's like the Jane Street stories and these little things that give you insight into who he is. But I still think like for most people who were witnessing it, for, for most people, the book is probably fantastic and Michael Lewis is a fun writer. But yeah, for me that was certainly not the case.

00:23:51:00 - 00:24:10:08
Bennett Tomlin
It does make it kind of interesting how effective being like this disaffected, delusional asshole worked for Sam Bankman-Fried, right? Like he humiliated his coworkers at Jane Street, but that didn't stop them from letting him put on a bet that ended up losing them $300 million right.

00:24:10:10 - 00:24:35:12
Bennett Tomlin
And like, even in his pitch meetings with Sequoia and stuff you've talked about this before, Cas. He's not paying attention to the meeting. He's not paying attention to the people offering him millions of dollars. He's playing storybook bro or whatever, and not actually engaging with it like him, maintaining that has at some level, I think he started to believe that, like his own delusion was part of the secret to his success.

00:24:37:08 - 00:24:47:14
Elizabeth Lopatto
I have to say, one of the things that I was thinking about as a member of the press corps is he had talked a lot about in the book and elsewhere about, you know, Shakespeare.

00:24:47:14 - 00:24:50:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
How could Shakespeare be the best writer of all time?

00:24:50:05 - 00:25:00:19
Elizabeth Lopatto
Like, that's really stuck with me. And I just want to I want to unpack it for a second because first of all, I really like Shakespeare. But second of all, I think it shows you a little bit about how this guy thinks,

00:25:00:19 - 00:25:03:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, leave aside the Bayesian whatever.

00:25:03:05 - 00:25:20:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
You don't need to know what that means. And, you know, leave aside also that we quote Shakespeare quite unknowingly all the time because he's provided so much language and so many sort of images that we use in the day on a day to day basis. So many things that are now cliche, like forget that

00:25:20:10 - 00:25:25:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
people don't read Shakespeare, people see Shakespeare performed.

00:25:25:09 - 00:25:53:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
You did not have to be literate to see Shakespeare. That is never been the case. It has literally never been the case. Like I like Grant you like granted, like I went to school for rural Iowa public School. So maybe, like, I didn't get the best instruction, but my first encounter with Romeo and Juliet was a movie played by my teacher who put like a manila folder over the racy parts.

00:25:53:20 - 00:26:11:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
it's not like you read Shakespeare. That's not how you encounter him. And so the whole premise of this argument that, like, how could Shakespeare be the best writer of all time when people can't read it was like, ridiculous. And if you think about it for even a second, outside of the premises that he set up, it's obviously ridiculous.

00:26:11:06 - 00:26:13:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
But there's like this inability to sort of

00:26:13:10 - 00:26:37:06
Elizabeth Lopatto
step outside and see these other sort of contextual things. And I kept thinking like all of these people in the press corps were like, We are the people that he holds in contempt because we are like, you know, the people who are like, who care about these things, who who like Shakespeare and who who, you know, think about things like food and sweaters and whatever else.

00:26:37:06 - 00:26:43:20
Elizabeth Lopatto
There's there's a certain irony there that, like, we're the peanut gallery, like witnessing this.

00:26:43:20 - 00:27:08:07
Bennett Tomlin
I think that like one of the most interesting things for me was the DMs between Sam Bankman-Fried and Kelsey Piper, because it was him kind of going completely mask off and talking about how many of these things he just truly doesn't care about, right? He doesn't care about the regulators. He doesn't even really care about, like most of the effective altruists or a lot of that things.

00:27:08:13 - 00:27:34:08
Bennett Tomlin
He doesn't care about the rules. He doesn't really care about the philanthropy. He doesn't care about the politicians. And like in this example with the Shakespeare that you're talking about, he doesn't care about art. He doesn't want to engage with any of these things on any level. It is an abstraction. Shakespeare exists as a number on a timeline, and he can and he knows numerically people have written a lot of something since then, and surely something must be better than that thing.

00:27:34:14 - 00:27:35:04
Bennett Tomlin
And like,

00:27:35:04 - 00:27:56:15
Bennett Tomlin
I don't think many people who seriously think about art are regularly going around contending. William Shakespeare is the greatest writer who ever lived or will ever live. I think most people who are seriously engaging with it want to look at like Shakespeare's position in influence and like what his writing meant in its time and how it's affected our time and all these other things.

00:27:56:21 - 00:27:59:10
Bennett Tomlin
But for him, it's just is it the best?

00:27:59:10 - 00:28:19:01
Cas Piancey
Well, it's a game. It's gamified, right? I mean, this is the perfect of him turning literally everything into gambling, where it's, like, numerically, you can't suggest that he's the best. Just based on how many sheer numbers of writers there have been. And there will be.

00:28:19:01 - 00:28:23:17
Cas Piancey
sure, I get like, I don't even know how to address that, but it's the same as you.

00:28:23:17 - 00:28:39:23
Cas Piancey
You mentioned the we're talking about the Shakespeare thing, but remember, he literally said when they were like getting into Nfts that he was like, I don't understand. Like, I literally do not understand art at all. It is not something I have any way to conceptualize, which is like,

00:28:39:23 - 00:28:55:17
Cas Piancey
what does that even mean? Like I, I might not be an art expert, but I can look at a painting and know whether I like it or not. So it's pretty hard for me to imagine being like I look at every painting and they all look exactly the same, But that's what this guy was doing.

00:28:55:17 - 00:29:11:15
Cas Piancey
And then figuring out numbers about, which then therefore is the greatest artist or writer or whatever. But that all goes back into how he ran and operated a multibillion dollar business, which seems to all be on a coin flip.

00:29:11:15 - 00:29:23:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
there is one other thing that I just want to think about here. And again, this is so Michael Lewis's book, which I have just like I cannot stop thinking about this book. It is one of the most interesting failures I think I've ever read.

00:29:23:02 - 00:29:31:12
Elizabeth Lopatto
But there's this thing where he he brings forward the idea of Bob, right? Your friend Bob has been at a dinner party and somebody has turned up dead.

00:29:31:12 - 00:29:45:18
Elizabeth Lopatto
And what is the probability that your friend Bob is a murderer and he just sort of like works it out Like, you know, if there are 100 people at the dinner party than one and one and a hundred and like, that's not at all how I think about friendship.

00:29:45:20 - 00:30:02:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
I think because first of all, if that's my friend Bob, that's my friend Bob. And if I am a loyal friend, I am probably going to stick with Bob, even if Bob has done something terrible. And furthermore,

00:30:02:02 - 00:30:04:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
even if Bob is a murderer

00:30:04:02 - 00:30:05:16
Elizabeth Lopatto
and let's say he is,

00:30:05:16 - 00:30:11:08
Elizabeth Lopatto
it is unlikely that he's going to murder like, let's say me, because people are selective about who they kill.

00:30:11:08 - 00:30:22:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
Like there's just like a whole bunch of, like psychology that goes into this rather than statistics. And while statistics are an important part of psychology, as any psych professor can tell you,

00:30:22:17 - 00:30:24:22
Elizabeth Lopatto
just it suggests

00:30:24:22 - 00:30:29:08
Elizabeth Lopatto
an incomplete grasp on human behavior. This particular anecdote.

00:30:29:08 - 00:30:52:10
Bennett Tomlin
He's a gambler. At the end of the day, that's like we can go into all these other things. But he saw each and every interaction, every transaction, every single thing he did is a gamble in which he was trying to maximize some value. Either financial value for himself or perhaps maybe if we want to give him the benefit of the doubt, some moral value in some hypothetical weighing machine.

00:30:52:10 - 00:31:06:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
Yeah, I mean, this is, I think one of the things that is a problem with utilitarianism because you wind up starting to view people as a means to an end.

00:31:06:05 - 00:31:16:22
Elizabeth Lopatto
And I find that morally repugnant. And, you know, it seems like Sam's going to have an awful lot of free time on his hands to look into virtue ethics. And I suggest you do that

00:31:16:22 - 00:31:39:09
Bennett Tomlin
We didn't episode an effective altruism. And William MacAskill, after this all came down, of course, had come out with a statement and part of it was like we, in the effect of altruism have always been against ends, justify the means morality. And just like have you, though, is that I know how you're technically going to justify that stance.

00:31:39:09 - 00:31:40:18
Bennett Tomlin
Will, But I mean,

00:31:40:18 - 00:31:46:12
Elizabeth Lopatto
again. There's a difference between like, well, technically and like the reality of what people can perceive.

00:31:46:12 - 00:31:53:21
Cas Piancey
you also, I figure while we're here, we can bring this up because last time we had you on, we discussed Elizabeth Holmes,

00:31:53:21 - 00:31:57:11
Cas Piancey
which you were also present for the trial of. And

00:31:57:11 - 00:32:01:12
Cas Piancey
one of the things I was thinking about as this trial came to an end was

00:32:01:12 - 00:32:02:10
Cas Piancey
how

00:32:02:10 - 00:32:05:00
Cas Piancey
I brought this trial up as well a few times.

00:32:05:00 - 00:32:21:05
Cas Piancey
But I was alive for the O.J. Simpson trial. My mom listened to it every single day. And I still remember I still remember those radio segments. I still remember hearing about O.J. Simpson every single day, the Holmes trial. I have some

00:32:21:05 - 00:32:33:00
Cas Piancey
memories of as well. And also the build up to that. You know, I the stories coming out were so important and John Carreyou and and all of that was such a big, important part of the actual story itself.

00:32:33:00 - 00:32:58:06
Cas Piancey
to me I guess I'm coming in with the bias of to me, it kind of feels like this one isn't that important compared to Holmes, O.J., these other massive trials that we've seen in the past years, even Madoff, you know, simply admitting to being guilty. Do you disagree with me there? Do you think that this is a very important trial and will be remembered that way?

00:32:58:06 - 00:33:09:07
Elizabeth Lopatto
I don't know how people are going to remember this. I do know that there was a surprising amount of interest in it among our readers, at least more than I thought there would be.

00:33:09:07 - 00:33:20:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
I think that to the degree that there was, it was sort of more muted then Holmes or O.J., I think that kind of has to do with how obviously guilty he was.

00:33:20:04 - 00:33:25:20
Elizabeth Lopatto
You know, like, I think we all kind of figured out what was going on a year ago.

00:33:25:20 - 00:33:33:12
Elizabeth Lopatto
So I think that there is some degree of that happening. But the other thing that I think is maybe worth mentioning

00:33:33:12 - 00:33:37:20
Elizabeth Lopatto
this was a very quick rise and fall, and it was also not a very like

00:33:37:20 - 00:33:39:15
Elizabeth Lopatto
visual rise and fall.

00:33:39:15 - 00:33:51:11
Elizabeth Lopatto
Like, if you think about like making a documentary about cryptocurrency, you have to think about like, what are you going to show visibly? Because watching people like click on things on a computer is like not all that interesting.

00:33:51:11 - 00:34:03:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
And so in terms of like broadcast media, the I don't I don't know how much you can really make this into a visual story.

00:34:03:11 - 00:34:06:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
So I think that that that was also a part of it. But

00:34:06:10 - 00:34:26:18
Elizabeth Lopatto
I don't know I mean, I don't know how people are going to remember this. This is an obviously an enormous scale of fraud. And I think for that reason alone, they're going to people be who remember it. And also just like the absolute clown shoes aspect of how they were doing the fraud, because for me, like I would come into the courtroom every day

00:34:26:18 - 00:34:28:08
Elizabeth Lopatto
and there would be a new crime.

00:34:28:08 - 00:34:31:21
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, like there were there are days where we casually talked about, like

00:34:31:21 - 00:34:44:00
Elizabeth Lopatto
China, the Chinese bribe, or like the Thai prostitutes, which were like, brought up for like a split second and like never again. And I, like, maybe almost died of curiosity about that.

00:34:44:00 - 00:34:49:22
Elizabeth Lopatto
But there are all of these moments where it was like, yeah, And we were backdating transactions to get to $1,000,000,000.

00:34:50:03 - 00:34:57:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
yeah. And we were backdating our stock options. yeah. And we were just doing some classic old embezzlement. Like there was just like there was so much there.

00:34:57:17 - 00:34:59:03
Cas Piancey
kind of fascinating to me that

00:34:59:03 - 00:35:02:20
Cas Piancey
when we reflect on history, like when we when we look back at the biggest frauds, Right.

00:35:03:00 - 00:35:10:01
Cas Piancey
Bernie Madoff has gone down because he was and continues to be the largest fraud in history.

00:35:10:01 - 00:35:36:18
Cas Piancey
And then there's other massive fraud. So like Enron, pretty well-remembered. I think people much younger than us don't really know what Enron Enron is. But I think WorldCom even less so. And then things like long term capital management or, you know, these other Ponzi schemes that were enormous at the time, whether it be like the eighties, early nineties, whatever, they're completely forgotten.

00:35:36:20 - 00:35:39:22
Cas Piancey
And I think that's like fascinating to me.

00:35:39:22 - 00:36:03:14
Cas Piancey
I don't know what makes a compelling fraud, but I know that this one doesn't feel like it has all the ingredients necessary. Whereas I look at the Elizabeth Holmes fraud and you go like, okay, you have a young, brilliant, attractive woman who lied about health care related blood stuff like, that's crazy.

00:36:03:14 - 00:36:24:02
Cas Piancey
That has all the perfect ingredients for people to be obsessed with that forever. Bernie Madoff Insider. Everyone knew him. You know, New York like smart ass and brash and well-known all the all the all the right stuff for a crazy story.

00:36:24:02 - 00:36:40:10
Cas Piancey
Then you look at WorldCom and it's like an overweight ed teacher accidentally stumbles into telecom and a brilliant auditor catches him red handed. That doesn't have the same you know, there's no like, this is crazy.

00:36:40:14 - 00:37:01:00
Cas Piancey
It's just like, they had a big fraud and everyone forgets it. And I'm just like, I can't help but think I don't I'm not sure in 30 years if anyone will really remember FTX that much, it'll be a footnote, you know, And it's crazy to me because there's such a massive, massive fraud. And obviously, like you said.

00:37:01:00 - 00:37:14:13
Elizabeth Lopatto
definitely think there's just such a clown shoes aspect to it. I mean, it's. It's the further You get into this, the funnier it gets in a way. Like it's very dark, but it's also like

00:37:14:13 - 00:37:24:13
Elizabeth Lopatto
this was like a very obvious fraud. This was not like, you know, you think about like WorldCom or Enron, there was like actually kind of some sophisticated stuff going on in terms of balance sheets or whatever.

00:37:24:13 - 00:37:39:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
And this was like seven alternate Excel spreadsheets. And you can pick your favorite. Like, I think that in and of itself is just like crazy enough.

00:37:39:09 - 00:37:41:00
Cas Piancey
it also hurts the SBF case

00:37:41:00 - 00:37:41:14
Cas Piancey
in that,

00:37:41:14 - 00:37:42:08
Cas Piancey
to me,

00:37:42:08 - 00:37:58:10
Cas Piancey
the people involved in and Alameda research generalizing here, but 25 year old dudes who think they're good at trading versus when we reflect on Bernie Madoff or Enron, it's like there were pension funds involved.

00:37:58:10 - 00:38:08:23
Cas Piancey
There are old people who had their money in these in in these funds hoping that they could retire on it like it's not the same.

00:38:08:23 - 00:38:15:17
Elizabeth Lopatto
I think there was a pension involved, fund involved. It was like the Ontario teacher, something or other who were investors.

00:38:15:17 - 00:38:17:01
Cas Piancey
That was Celsius, wasn't it?

00:38:17:01 - 00:38:24:08
Bennett Tomlin
Ontario, Ontario was involved in FTX. They invested in the for 2069 round. Believe it or not.

00:38:24:08 - 00:38:30:00
Cas Piancey
Quebec was involved in in Celsius and Ontario is involved. I

00:38:30:00 - 00:38:47:05
Elizabeth Lopatto
you know, And like, just to be clear, like the people who like the this is are middlemen, You know, the people whose money they're managing are like family offices and pension funds and endowments and all of that. So like, you know, yeah, it's embarrassing for Sequoia, but who are their clientele?

00:38:47:05 - 00:38:50:13
Bennett Tomlin
well, they won't tell you that.

00:38:50:13 - 00:38:57:00
Bennett Tomlin
I think that this is going to be memorable because it was the first like

00:38:57:00 - 00:39:18:15
Bennett Tomlin
crypto fraud to really fully pierce the public consciousness. And I think all of them Bankman-Fried efforts to attract attention leading up to the public, becoming aware of his crimes are going to amplify that right? Like it's easy for documentaries to allude to the Super Bowl, point to the stadium, run those kind of pictures.

00:39:18:15 - 00:39:40:05
Bennett Tomlin
And like in the screenplays, it's easy to run it, like run shots of them in their apartment, whatever, trying to build this up in all the drama and like the secret messages between them. And I think there's enough like catch there that it's going to become kind of a touchstone as the way many people remember crypto. I think for many people.

00:39:40:05 - 00:40:03:08
Bennett Tomlin
Sam Bankman-Fried will serve as kind of one of the last times they think about cryptocurrency, and maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe I'll be embarrassed in two years when Bitcoin is $500,000 or whatever Plan B says it's supposed to be. But like I think that the increasing regulatory pressure with this many like large scale failures, has burned a lot of people.

00:40:03:11 - 00:40:07:01
Bennett Tomlin
And so this will kind of be the moment that people point to for that,

00:40:07:01 - 00:40:42:01
Elizabeth Lopatto
I think that's right. And, you know, again, like, it's listen, it's totally possible that there will be some big crypto run like 2 to 5 years from now. And I'll look stupid just fine. It wouldn't be the first time I look stupid. But, you know, talking to normal people and like, I, I mean, just like people who are not online all day, people who are not necessarily involved in finance, you know, like the people I run into my yoga classes, my friends who are schoolteachers, like normal people like they're all aware of FTX.

00:40:42:03 - 00:41:11:07
Elizabeth Lopatto
And there is going to be, I think, the sort of lingering pall from it, because if you think about what Sam was saying publicly, he was saying all of the right things. He was saying we want regulation. We want to do it the right way. We want to be the good guys. And so how much can you trust the next time somebody comes forward and says, hey, we want regulation, we want to do it the right way, we want to be the good guys and like, great, you you know, there are varying levels of how much you can trust people in this industry.

00:41:11:07 - 00:41:24:03
Elizabeth Lopatto
And there are certainly people who do, you know, public audits of their work or who are disclosing what wallets they're using there. There are more and less trustworthy people in the crypto space.

00:41:24:03 - 00:41:35:06
Elizabeth Lopatto
But for the average person who doesn't actually know any of that, I think this is a very big moment. I think this is the sort of thing that can be really defining for people.

00:41:35:06 - 00:41:38:19
Elizabeth Lopatto
And if you think about like the the commercials

00:41:38:19 - 00:41:52:21
Elizabeth Lopatto
you have, I think it was the Steph Curry commercial where he's like, I don't know anything about crypto, but I don't have to because I have FTX And like, if that's who got on FTX and this was the experience they had, they're probably not coming back to this asset class.

00:41:52:21 - 00:42:00:12
Bennett Tomlin
Especially since now Steph Curry fans can, you know, just do all their gambling and FanDuel and the, you know, legalized sports gambling sites

00:42:00:12 - 00:42:10:06
Cas Piancey
I know that the end of this trial was a bit of a somber affair, and I know it probably was pretty lame for you to end up having to part ways with so many of these

00:42:10:06 - 00:42:14:18
Cas Piancey
different journalists that you were able to spend time with over there in New York City.

00:42:14:18 - 00:42:27:14
Cas Piancey
the part I'm going to miss about this trial is basically reading all of the different perspectives that I've been able to get constantly and consistently, oftentimes from people who aren't necessarily covering cryptocurrency, which has been really nice as well.

00:42:27:14 - 00:42:39:07
Cas Piancey
But I think the main sense that I got the day that the trial ended was overwhelming relief like we were we're done with this now.

00:42:39:09 - 00:42:48:06
Cas Piancey
Did you feel that at all at the end of this trial or was it was it pretty much just somber and sad to be parting ways with the other journalists?

00:42:48:06 - 00:43:09:02
Elizabeth Lopatto
I was pretty excited to sleep is the the main emotion I was experiencing was like I was like, yes, I'm going to I'm going to get some sleep. No, You know, I met a lot of people whose work I really admire, you know, from a wide variety of outlets. And that was a pleasure. And one of the things that I like about

00:43:09:02 - 00:43:14:07
Elizabeth Lopatto
stuff like this is because there are so many of us covering the same thing.

00:43:14:12 - 00:43:27:19
Elizabeth Lopatto
If you are reading the other coverage, you can actually really improve your craft by seeing how other people are approaching it. And so that, you know, from a creative perspective was pretty great.

00:43:27:19 - 00:43:31:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
And then there was also, I think Katie Baker talked about this,

00:43:31:10 - 00:43:43:19
Elizabeth Lopatto
watching the way that the prosecution used storytelling and the way that they paced their witnesses and thought about, you know, how to sort of create these narrative peaks and valleys, that was really interesting, too.

00:43:43:19 - 00:44:03:01
Elizabeth Lopatto
So there were, you know, on that level, there were a lot of really interesting things that I'm probably going to be sorting through for a while, not least because it was just a really intense experience. Like I kind of got shot out of a cannon. You know, I didn't do anything other than this for a month of my life.

00:44:03:03 - 00:44:14:09
Elizabeth Lopatto
I would, you know, go stand outside the courtroom. And then I would sit in court all day, and then I would go home and write and edit and put things in layout and put it up on the site and then immediately go to bed.

00:44:14:09 - 00:44:15:01
Elizabeth Lopatto
there is

00:44:15:01 - 00:44:17:10
Elizabeth Lopatto
kind of relief, too, to have a life again.

00:44:17:10 - 00:44:26:07
Elizabeth Lopatto
very excited to, you know, go back to be home, first of all, and have a kitchen that is not the size of a postage stamp.

00:44:26:07 - 00:44:26:21
Elizabeth Lopatto
it was just

00:44:26:21 - 00:44:28:16
Elizabeth Lopatto
a lot of emotions at once.

00:44:28:16 - 00:44:31:21
Elizabeth Lopatto
in a very intense way that I probably will be thinking about for a while.

00:44:32:05 - 00:44:34:13
Cas Piancey
Bennett, you done you good. No more questions.

00:44:34:13 - 00:44:42:18
Bennett Tomlin
I've got no more questions. I did find out Better mind that A.G. has the over under for Sam Bankman-Fried sentence at 80.5.

00:44:42:18 - 00:44:46:05
Cas Piancey
they think he's going to get they think he's going to get 80 years.

00:44:46:05 - 00:44:51:14
Bennett Tomlin
I think it's a very poorly set line. But hey, I'm not offering gambling advice on this podcast.

00:44:51:14 - 00:44:54:20
Cas Piancey
Holy shit. We got to start gambling in these markets. Bennett What the hell?

00:44:54:20 - 00:44:56:21
Cas Piancey
Anyway, Cass Coyne is fine,
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