<story><title>Sam Bankman-Fried vs. the Match King</title><url>https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2022/11/sam-bankman-fried-vs-the-match-king/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Cymrukicks</author><text>People will keep focusing on the individual here but surely they should be questioning the system? In particular the VC&amp;#x27;s as most of this was actually institutional money.
How on earth did he get £16Billion? Well turns out he went to Stanford same class as Theranos and his Girlfriend whom he made head of the trading arm also went there. She&amp;#x27;s the daughter of an MIT Econ Professor. It&amp;#x27;s quite clear FTX only got started because of political connections and back door deals. Sadly this won&amp;#x27;t be the wake up call that we need to bring back some sort of meritocracy to American society.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ldjkfkdsjnv</author><text>A lot of very wealthy people put money into the FTX financing. If there wasn&amp;#x27;t a major downturn, probably FTX never would have gone under. Us plebeians get a rare view into how business success commonly happens (a network of people force it to happen). Its similar to the epstein scandal, a rare view into another world far removed from the common worker.&lt;p&gt;Meritocracy isn&amp;#x27;t a full on illusion, but we also don&amp;#x27;t have enough data and transparency into modern power structures.</text></comment>
<story><title>Sam Bankman-Fried vs. the Match King</title><url>https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2022/11/sam-bankman-fried-vs-the-match-king/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Cymrukicks</author><text>People will keep focusing on the individual here but surely they should be questioning the system? In particular the VC&amp;#x27;s as most of this was actually institutional money.
How on earth did he get £16Billion? Well turns out he went to Stanford same class as Theranos and his Girlfriend whom he made head of the trading arm also went there. She&amp;#x27;s the daughter of an MIT Econ Professor. It&amp;#x27;s quite clear FTX only got started because of political connections and back door deals. Sadly this won&amp;#x27;t be the wake up call that we need to bring back some sort of meritocracy to American society.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>akudha</author><text>In a financial services firm I worked for, I had to help this intern (maybe 19, 20 years old). She was well dressed, well spoken etc, but didn&amp;#x27;t seem too keen on doing any &lt;i&gt;actual&lt;/i&gt; work.&lt;p&gt;Later I found out that she was the kid of a VP who also worked there. Must be nice to have well-connected parents</text></comment>