> “I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that,” explains SBF. “I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.“
It's something people that don't read books tell themselves. Same with the appearance of book-summary services or even speed reading.
The power of a book is how long you sit down thinking about the topics as much as the words on it. Anything that reduces the reading time will also reduce the thinking time which reduces the value.
Sure many modern books could've been shorter, specially the kind of pop-sci books most people read, but still I never heard this argument made by someone who's read any sensible number of books in their life. And if you're under, say 50-100 books, you haven't read enough for me to believe you understand how other people think.
This right here. When I read for recreation or work I read slowly. I like to take each sentence and paragraph in context of the whole piece. Sometimes I re-read sentences, paragraphs or pages when I think there is a significant enough idea there. I used to think I was a slow reader, but then I realized I am a careful reader. You definitely get a deeper understanding out of a piece of work when you read carefully than when you just process the words. I don't think it's possible to distill most books into a few paragraphs. It's as stark as the difference between knowing about something and living through something.
I mean, I've definitely read books where, after finishing them, I thought, 'if I'd read a one-page summary of this book instead, I don't think I would have gotten less out of it.'
But that isn't most of the books I've read.
To me, that quote just smacks of "I'm VERY SMART and have little to learn from others. Please summarize your ideas concisely so I may efficiently judge them."
"I am very skeptical of depth. I don't want to say that nothing is complex enough to require time to explain or understand... but I've never taken the time to really understand anything and look how rich I am. The fact that I'm so rich proves that there is nothing below the surface, and anyone doing real work or research is just wasting their time and deluding themselves."
My guess is that we find the rationale behind that quote if we get a list of books he has read. My guess is that it is heavy on light self-help books, in which case he might just be right about that segment. Of course if that is the case then it also says something about him if his reaction is to dismiss reading and writing books rather than seeking out a broader selection.
Particularly among self-help books, there are a lot of books that are about two pages of content, surrounded by 100 pages of pointless fluff and examples. People just aren't willing to pay for 5-page books, but if what you're saying is good enough they are willing to tolerate incredible amounts of filler and still rave about your book.
I guess that's what he's talking about, even if there are a lot of books where the length is more than justified.
I don't claim to be in SBF's head, but the gist of the rationale for this type of thought is a hypercritical focus on effective usage of the limiting resource of time. Learning facts about reality is the only reason to consume text content; any purposeful reduction of signal-to-noise ratio is folly. Books should be blogposts. Blogposts should be bulleted digests. Maximize information density to minimize wasted time. Fiction is pure waste.
I feel like most people who have ever had that mental model of reading evolve past that type of thinking and settle into the "time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time" mode of thinking by the time they reach high school (yours truly included). Not to mention one often needs to take a moment for newly acquired information to "settle", and language that's (loosely) bridgework between facts is what grants that moment.
People who don't read books might think that all you need to know can be summarized into blog posts. Unfortunately this mentality will prevent you from the cure: reading a book about a big idea that would definitely not compress down into book form.
This has got to be the all-time best. The visualization of VCs noticing SBF is playing video games during an investment pitch, and the VCs LOVING IT, must be a manifestation of the same impulses that make CEOs hire dominatrixes to abuse them.
My favourite silly conspiracy theory was that SBF was not playing the game but just using the in game chat function when in the meetings to communicate with advisors and consultants. "What should I say now, they said I need to produce a turn sheet? What's that?"
Part of the theory goes that the chat is kind of untraceable and not logged (and not stuff that LEO could find). It's a reasonably common trope found in modern spy shows.
This resembling that scene from The Social Network in which Zuckerberg rolls in to a meeting (with Sequoia) late, in pajamas, and tells the VCs to get bent is pretty ironic.
I imagine they thought they were witnessing a moment of myth-making, like seeing a certain social media iconoclast blowing away the VC stiffs in 2004 by walking in wearing a hoodie.
> On September 22, 2022, we published a profile story on FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. The week of November 7th, we learned of the company’s liquidity crunch. On November 9th we sent a letter to our LPs with our updated outlook on FTX, and we removed our profile story on SBF the next morning.
HN appears to be severly penalizing this submission compared to other less-upvoted submissions of similar age. Perhaps a duplicate-topic penalty, or `archive.org` domain penalty?
Given recent developments, it plausibly deserves a fresh look & discussion without display penalties.
He was one of a few well-known EA whales which people in the community would panhandle from whenever they had an idea for a pet project which they could spin as 'high-impact'. Things like 'an $800,000 foundation to supply free Popsicles for everyone working on AI safety, whenever the temperature gets over 31 C'.
> But then I hear the tap-tap-tapping from his fingers start to accelerate, and I realize he’s not slowing down under the load at all. Just the opposite, in fact: This guy is in the Storybook Brawl equivalent of a gank!
wow, allow me to be vulgar for a moment, this s***s sam off so hard I'm getting a contact high
My favorite FTX fact is in the Going Infinite book, on the informal org chart drawn up by the psychiatrist to help him keep straight who worked with who.
There’s a biggish department of game devs that takes up almost the same amount of vertical space as the actual dev team of FTX. It’s the game studio behind Storybook Brawl. SBF purchased the studio because he liked the game, and it was rolled into FTX.
"He was giving away 50 percent of his income to his preferred charities, with the biggest donations going to the Centre for Effective Altruism and 80,000 Hours. Both charities focus on building the earn-to-give idea into a movement."
It seems Michael Lewis still maintains to this day that SBF's engagement with EA was sincere. Also his parents like to pretend they are do-gooders, advancing good political causes, helping the poor with taxes and whatnot.
But if any of this was true, the three of them could very easily have donated the millions they spent in his defense, and will probably keep on spending for an appeal. Not that it would have made much of a difference.
Yet in this soft family profile in The New Yorker[0] we find this:
> When I asked what his son’s defense would cost, Bankman said, “Substantially everything we have.” But, he added, sounding melancholic, “that’s what money is for.”
Really? Money is for trying to keep fraudsters out of jail? I thought money was for making the world a better place. My bad.
> Really? Money is for trying to keep fraudsters out of jail? I thought money was for making the world a better place. My bad.
I in no way support or even care about SBF, but back up a second and realize that it's pretty damned callous to expect a parent of means not to at least consider paying for their child's legal defense, barring them like shooting up a school or something.
You're right, but these two have apparently been spending their whole life with a holier than thou attitude. Conferences about morals are still online with either of them lecturing the world about the right thing do do.
Yet when SBF was riding high they were happy to 1/ take his millions for their own enjoyment, 2/ advise him on how to dodge taxes and 3/ help him get around regulations about political donations.
And when the whole thing collapsed they entirely supported him going to trial and pleading not guilty, even if it meant throwing under the bus everyone he ever knew or worked with, spending millions for a defense that didn't have anything to stand on (anything!) and wasting everybody's time for a sorry spectacle of greed and lies.
Giving to "effective altruism" organizations as part of their effective "altruism" is so funny. Empowering "effective altruism" organizations because they think it's the most altruistic thing to do perfectly mirrors their fears of AI seeking world domination to produce more paper clips.
$3.5 million of the FTX EA donation money was used to buy a Czech castle. Because that was more effective and altruistic than renting a hotel once a year for their meeting.
I understand you're not the person who was asked but this seems like an odd take regardless. Assuming it's being executed appropriately, "earn to give" seems like its effectiveness is determined primarily by which charities receive donations. It's surely not as effective as finding the highest-impact ways to donate personal time and attention but this opinion is essentially that monetary donations are ineffective for charity.
I have no idea what an "earn to give" charity even does[0]; I assume they just donate to other charities? I'd probably not bother donating to one because I can just donate to a specific charity directly, because it seems like I'm just skipping the middle-man there. Anyway, regardless of the effectiveness of earn-to-give charities, "earning to give" as a personal lifestyle choice seems reasonable, depending on the implementation.
(Alternatively, make a habit of donating time at a local soup kitchen or similar.)
0: Until I read the comment above, of course: "Both charities focus on building the earn-to-give idea into a movement." I would not personally donate to this charity, presuming its ineffectiveness, for what it's worth.
> "earning to give" as a personal lifestyle choice seems reasonable
Among Effective Altruists, we have seen that it’s a rationalization they use to justify greed. That’s the context. So parent is saying that this rationalization isn’t helping anyone.
Another way of thinking about it is, do you think the honest people living the lifestyle choice you describe, would they be out there telling people how great they are for doing it? No, they’d be focused on their work, to earn, and to give.
But here they need a “movement” to validate themselves, because at some level they know they are just selfish people.
(See related rationalization where highly successful founders and investors that decline to give to charity because they are “investing in their next venture that’s going to make far more money and then they’ll give more to charity” when they have more money than anyone needs and the world needs help NOW)
The biggest EA charity I know of is GiveWell and they have a program expense ratio of 97.6%. If there's a charity you like you can do comparables. Some big ones are:
- Red Cross: 90%
- Make a Wish America: 70%
- St Jude's: 97%
- UNICEF USA: 87%
I think part of having the movement thing is to make other people aware of things. I, for one, arrived at the concept myself, but I don't think I would have correctly selected the right item without GiveWell's research.
> Do you mean those charities aren’t helping anyone? Or do you mean earning to give isn’t helping anyone?
> Yes.
Doesn't the "yes" mean that the person believes that "earning to give", separate from any specific charity, isn't helping anyone? The question explicitly separates the "movement" from the practice. It sounds to me like the practice is just... donating money?
> See related rationalization where highly successful founders and investors that decline to give to charity because they are “investing in their next venture that’s going to make far more money and then they’ll give more to charity” when they have more money than anyone needs and the world needs help NOW
Some people do a shit job of actually donating their money and perhaps some of those people say they "earn to give" but that doesn't mean that everybody who might claim to "earn to give" does a shit job of donating their money.
But I can see that I encountered a term that carries certain baggage so I'll clarify my understanding. This is how I read the above question, and why "Yes." seems like such a strange reply.
> Do you mean earn-to-give charities aren't helping anyone? Or do you mean that charitable donations aren't helping anyone?
The anti-"earn to give" sentiment seems to be against certain "charity theater" (which is perfectly agreeable!) but it came off to me in this case as being against charity.
All I can think to reply is to focus on the context here: SBF, EA, and charities with no specific purpose other than promoting EA. In that context the glib “Yes” answer would not be interpreted as discouraging people from a genuine earning and giving lifestyle.
As described, the EA and EtG are self-indulging "charities". They promote the idea that their idea is the best. What I've gleaned from past HN conversations is that they spend their take on lavish parties for their donors. I seem to recall they bought a hoity-toity mansion for said parties.
> That’s when SBF told Sequoia about the so-called super-app: “I want FTX to be a place where you can do anything you want with your next dollar. You can buy bitcoin. You can send money in whatever currency to any friend anywhere in the world. You can buy a banana. You can do anything you want with your money from inside FTX.”
> Suddenly, the chat window on Sequoia’s side of the Zoom lights up with partners freaking out.
What I think's fascinating about this quote is we've US VC back multiple attempts to create WeChat in the US. (Specifically an "Everything app + payments + chat + universal login.")
Both the Sequioa response to this pitch. And basically the same pitch/goal that Elon raised money on for the Twitter/X deal - and what he's trying to build.
I'm very curious to see if Apple/Meta rotate out of an attempt to have separate apps for different functions (e.g. Messenger separate from Facebook, or Apple Pay separate from iMessage) and rotate back toward building an integrated "SuperApp."
Certainly the "WeChat of the US" would be infinitely valuable.
Having been in the room during and after investment committee meetings at a much smaller VC, the thing to realise is that most VC's are inundated by founders who do not understand the economics of the VC business.
If you go in to a VC and tell them that you can likely do a $50m trade sale in 3 years time, you're telling them you're a waste of time, because odds are still that you will fail before that, and you're not betting on a big enough outcome that if you're successful their return will offset enough of the failures.
When I worked for a VC, if you weren't pitching 100m+ revenue within 5-10 years, it was a near instant no. Not because we believed you'd achieve that, because most likely you wouldn't just fail to achieve that but you'd be bankrupt before then. But because if you're not even setting your sights high enough, you're not even in the game, and we needed founders to set their sights high enough that the few companies who survive has a shot at high enough exits.
But most founders who pitch do not understand that. Their pitch decks are defensive, and full of worst case estimates. The VC's worst case is that you'll be bankrupt; the proportion of companies who survive and live on as "zombies" that eventually produce a low trade sale produce returns way too low to offset the bankruptcies - founders that aim that low are wasted opportunities for VCs.
That goes a long way to explain why they'd be excited about someone who is selling an idea of some crazy expansive plan: Whether or not they though it realistic, they were seeing someone unusual enough to dare voice a crazy level of ambition. He only really needed to convince them he'd try, and make them think that the potential returns outweighed whatever increased risk they saw.
After the umpteenth founder telling you how they're minimising risk and showing your forecasts of a worst case scenario that are irrelevant to the VC fund, I can see that being exciting.
I've lost count of the number of founders we had to explain to that while their defensive plans probably increased their chance of their company surviving, if you go for VC investment, being conservative and defensive is not going to convince anyone, or they'd be retail bankers instead. You're effectively pitching a guaranteed loss rather than a likely loss but a chance at a big prize. Even a totally crazy pitch where it looks like they're some chance at a big prize is going to be more exciting than a pitch where the founder is telling you how best case he'll still not earn you enough.
Of course the problem with this is that it also plays straight into the hands of delusional or crooked people willing to just make shit up to try to sell an idea they have no idea how to make work, and punishes a lot of otherwise brilliant founders who just don't understand what is expected by a VC.
Exactly. But far too many founders don't get this, I guess in large parts because it is VC's that get talked about as the most prominent funding option and most founders might fantasise about making it big even though if they really think it through it's not where their heart is. So many founders should be talking to angel investors first, and may never be right for VCs. There's nothing wrong with never being right for a VC investment.
But there are also quite a few founders who wants to make rockets, but don't get that VC's are perfectly fine with the risks and are more interested in hearing about your vision for making the best rockets ever than how you're going to make them lose slightly less of their money if you fail.
Throw this in on the funeral pyre of VC thought leadership propaganda. Next should be A16Z's Covid-era missive, hilariously titled "It's time to build".
It's an undeniable historical fact that some of the shadiest, most corrupt individuals in history used the appearance of beneficent motivations and altruistic ideals to more easily get away with all kinds of criminal behavior. Some describe this personality type as 'Covert Narcissist'.
It's also sometimes called the "savior complex" or the "exceptional man myth".
The idea is that some of us are so superior, morality doesn't apply to them. They can see the "greater good", so it's okay to stamp on "common" morality. I'm guessing SBF never got around to dostoyevsky at MIT.
Yes! He was building hospitals and helping children "achieve their dreams".
And he was also molesting them, but that was only established after his death. He got to live the life of a rich, admired and excentric benefactor. Future king Charles was a big fan.
There's a good documentary about his life on Netflix.
> And he was also molesting them, but that was only established after his death.
It certainly wasn't unknown before his death, but he was so untouchable that even other celebrities got 'canceled' or ignored when they tried to talk about it.
Police departments had covered it up. Hospitals, too.
The Sex Pistols' John Lydon on BBC radio: "locking him up and stopping him assaulting young children... I'm disgusted at the media pretending they weren't aware."
Jerry Sadowitz (comedian) had one of his albums withdrawn from sale because he called him a pedophile.
A BBC Governor (essentially, C-suite) had banned him from involvement with a BBC children's charity event.
A Royal Family Press Secretary raised "concerns and suspicions".
It's also entirely possible that he was a practicing necrophiliac, according to reports from nurses at one hospital where, mindblowingly, he had keys to the hospital morgue.
This was such an instant, overwrought classic of the "journo falls in love with wunderkind subject" genre! It ran just ~7 weeks before the bankruptcy filing!
In retrospect, I have to wonder if the author, Adam Fisher, wasn't himself consciously choosing to play a credulous, campy character who's putty in the hands of his subject – uncritically cheerleading exactly what those who commissioned the work, Seqouia, wanted to read & advertise to others.
I kid you not that whenever a serious straight news outlet runs anything even one-quarter as flattering about someone, old journalist hands call the piece a "blowjob" – but often rationalize it as a "source-greaser": giving the subject positive coverage now, on-the-record, for juicy inside access, attributed or not, later.
> Adam is an acknowledged expert at the genre of literary non-fiction known to the trade as “oral history.” As a genre, oral history is closest to documentary film: It has the same kind of immediacy — the same punch — but with the heft and gravitas of a book. It’s a type of narrative that Adam fell in love with as a magazine editor because it hands the authorial voice to the subjects themselves, allowing them to — in effect — tell their own story. Adam continues to champion the genre, believing that stories are told best by the people who lived them. He has worked with both private individuals and corporations and is always eager to discuss new projects.
It's a provocatively interesting choice of style/perspective – and plausibly fair, as long as readers understand the impressionistic 'all criticism off' viewpoint.
As such, this "literary non-fiction" is probably best shunted towards 'glossy magazine' and PR-involvement-disclosed venues, like corporate or investor websites as here, rather than straight news pages. (Or, ghostwritten in name of subject. Or, bylined 'as told to'.)
And I wonder to what extent Michael Lewis, whose warm parroting of SBF's thinking in his recent 'Going Infinite' has drawn criticism, sees himself as practicing the same fuzzy oral genre. Lewis's defensiveness in interviews suggests not, but that might just be a crafty long-form "process journalism" performance: you report what you think gets-at-the-truth, eventually, including with the stories triggered by your initial half-truths, such as your own 'mea culpa' followups & corrections.
It might be entertaining to check out Fisher's 2018 book, "Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley (As Told by the Hackers, Founders, and Freaks Who Made It Boom)", to see if it's got similar narrative plumage: https://www.adamfisher.org/work/author
Michael Lewis is decades removed from the era of Liar's Poker. These days he is simply writing as a means to sell an eventual screenplay. I even saw him make a guest appearance on an episode of Billions.
I don’t get the rationale behind this quote.