Bankman-Fried's apology tour

FTX's Bankman-Fried's apology tour [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey y’all, it’s Austin Carr in Boston. Sam Bankman-Fried is ramping up his apology tour from a humble $30 million penthouse in the Bahamas, but first… Today’s must-reads: • Twitter risks [more fines]( after gutting compliance teams • Amazon’s media chief [retires](in shake-up • Protesters [breach]( China’s Great Firewall Calculated self-flagellation Last week, in a [series of interviews following the collapse of FTX](, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and now-former chief executive officer of the Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, attempted to engender sympathy and compassion in explaining why his company so spectacularly flamed out in November. Bankman-Fried’s public and seemingly calculated self-flagellation had all the hallmarks of the classic corporate apology: repeated mea culpas, dour-looking expressions, and, as has become too common in the tech world, dense and indecipherable industry jargon. When I watched his interviews with journalists [Andrew Ross Sorkin]( and [George Stephanopoulos](, I struggled to process Bankman-Fried’s incessant use of [Web3]( mumbo jumbo. And very likely, that was the point: Faced with nearly impossible-to-answer questions, lawyerly pressures, and the [potential for self-incrimination](, Bankman-Fried mostly spewed laser-eyed patois, citing complex terms like “borrow/lending facility” and “futures contracts” to parry his way out of a straight answer without, figuratively speaking, having to plead the Fifth. Is it just a coincidence that Bankman-Fried suddenly became so unskilled at translating crypto concepts for the masses? (Important disclosure: My wife works for a blockchain organization called the Algorand Foundation, which has said it has [limited ties to FTX](.) Funny enough, this was the very thing that seemed to set Bankman-Fried apart. In interviews with Bloomberg’s Matt Levine during FTX’s Bruce Springsteen-buoyant glory days, Bankman-Fried was often incredibly lucid, to the point where he [inadvertently once described his firm’s business model as a Ponzi scheme](. Though Bankman-Fried has claimed he never intended to market to Web3 plebes, his beach-shorts accessibility was part of his exchange’s sell: FTX made buying and selling crypto so easy that even a layman could play with DeFi just like a specialized hedge fund. Big-name celebrities, from [Larry David]( to [Steph Curry](, added juice to the pitch. Around where I work in Boston, FTX street posters hang showing beloved former New England Patriots quarterback-legend Tom Brady and even Bankman-Fried himself under the intriguing prompt: “Crypto with FTX. You in?” Yet, pressed by experienced interviewers lately, Bankman-Fried has effectively started speaking another language. When asked when FTX and Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firm Alameda Research started co-mingling funds, he initially responded, “Lots of traders had open margin positions on FTX where they would have borrows of assets or they would be short some asset against, you know, against other assets as collateral.” Stephanopoulos, who wisely (and disarmingly) [pointed out that his own lack of crypto expertise]( may be allowing Bankman-Fried to skirt his inquiries, asked about a similar issue, and Bankman-Fried again noted, vaguely, that “a lot of the customers on FTX did have borrows, either in dollars or Bitcoin or euros…” As a Bloomberg employee who ostensibly should understand this financial gobbledygook, I was generally miffed at what was slipping out of his mouth. And sadly it has become the go-to PR strategy for many an embattled tech entrepreneur. Back in 2015, for example, when the then-not-quite-disgraced founder of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, [took part in a Wall Street Journal conference]( following a devastating article about the blood-testing startup, she filibustered with condescending jargon like “nanotainers” and “chemistries” that helped her avoid saying the inevitable truth: that she was full of it. So, next time a big tech exec is hauled before Congress about alleged wrongdoing, expect a similarly technical performance. This is theater, a scripted tail-between-the-legs shtick. Regardless of Bankman-Fried’s intentions and guilt or innocence in this matter, the complexity may be [winning over even some smart folks](. But under oath at a government hearing or inside a courtroom, he’ll have less room for verbal riposting. — [Austin Carr](mailto:acarr54@bloomberg.net) The big story A Bloomberg reporter visits Bankman-Fried at the Bahamas penthouse where the [fallen crypto titan]( has been holed up since his cryptocurrency exchange imploded last month. Get fully charged Uber says it won’t [cut jobs]( amid mounting tech layoffs. Musk [boots Ye]( off Twitter after offensive post. FBI still determining how to address TikTok’s potential US [security risk](. Follow Us More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: - [Power On]( for Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more, every Sunday - [Game On]( for reporting on the video game business, delivered on Friday - [Cyber Bulletin]( for exclusive coverage on the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage, sent every Wednesday Like getting this newsletter? 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