Time will tell on the matter of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. The view expressed in my new book The Money Confusion is that with any new commercial sector, there’s always lots of failure in the early stages. This was true with cars and the internet, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the crypto or private money rollout would be littered with mistakes.
That progress is messy explains the reluctance here to vilify Bankman-Fried, or FTX’s primary investor, venture capital firm Sequoia. While any new business that succeeds is a bit of a miracle in consideration of the dynamic nature of the U.S. economy, the ones bent on inventing an all-new future are particularly miraculous. In Bankman-Fried’s case, his desire to bring crypto or private money into the mainstream had him taking on the dollar; the latter easily the world’s most trusted and circulated currency.
While opinions expressed about Bankman-Fried will evolve more negatively if he in fact stole from his customers or investors, for now the view of him is a positive one. We need more intrepid producers bent on creating a different tomorrow, and we also need investors like Sequoia with the means and the willingness to lose enormous sums of money on frequently borderline crazy individuals out to try something different.
Sadly, the media analysis of Bankman-Fried and his investors has been all about heaping pejoratives on the “disgraced” FTX founder, in concert with expressions of wonderment that Sequoia and…
