We Were the Paragons of Running an Effective Company: SBF

• CEO of FTX exchange states that FTX was a valuable entity a month ago.
• “FTX was the darling of Silicon Valley. We got overconfident and careless,” said Bankman-Fried.
• Every major decision they have made is related to acquiring more leverage – via deceptive fundraises: Jason Choi.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of the bankrupt FTX exchange, tweeted that FTX was a valuable enterprise a month ago. And during this period, he stated that the heads of the exchange were considered the paragons of running an effective company.

Additionally, while reminiscing the glory days of FTX, Bankman-Fried in a follow-up tweet wrote that a portrait of him was always there on the cover of magazines. In his tweet, Bankman-Fried states:

I was on the cover of every magazine, and FTX was the darling of Silicon Valley. We got overconfident and careless.

Bankman-Fried accepted that the problems at FTX were brewing larger than he actually thought they were. In a tweet, he states that his estimates about the leverage were $5 billion, backed by ~$20 billion of assets.

However, it turns out the leverage was more than what he expected. In his tweet, Bankman-Fried states: “As it turned out, I was wrong: leverage wasn’t ~$5b, it was ~$13b. $13b leverage, total run on the bank, total collapse in asset value, all at once. Which is why you don’t want that leverage.”

Moreover, Bankman-Fried described his two goals in a tweet: “Clean up and focus on transparency and make customers whole.”

However, Jason Choi, an investor focused on Web 3.0 and the person who met Bankman-Fried before FTX started, said: “Alameda and FTX can best be summarized by SBF [Sam Bankman-Fried] FTX’s philosophy of betting big.”

Furthermore, he added that every major decision they have made is related to acquiring more leverage – via deceptive fundraises, financial engineering, and ultimately, outright fraud.