FTX, every mention

FTX with Sam Bankman-Fried & Mario Gabriele (Extended Cut) · Acquired Dec 15, 2021 · 49 mentions

• ▶ 1:01 Ben Gilbert Today we are telling the story of the crypto trading exchange, FTX, started just two and a half years ago and today worth over twenty five billion dollars.
• ▶ 1:12 Ben Gilbert They're by far the fastest growing crypto exchange.
• ▶ 1:15 Ben Gilbert In the research, I found that they grew an astonishing 10 X by volume in the year 2020.
• ▶ 1:21 Ben Gilbert I went to look if they repeated that unbelievable feat in 2021,
• ▶ 1:25 Ben Gilbert And found out that they actually 10 X just in the first half of 2021.
• ▶ 1:30 David Rosenthal The answer is no, they didn't.
• ▶ 1:31 David Rosenthal They doubled it.
• ▶ 1:34 Ben Gilbert So the pace is accelerating for FTX.
• ▶ 1:36 Ben Gilbert We're still waiting on end of year numbers, but this company is, is just astonishing.
• ▶ 1:41 Ben Gilbert So FTX is now the sponsor of the Miami heat's basketball arena, FTX arena, and you can see their logo on every major league baseball umpires uniform.
• ▶ 1:51 Ben Gilbert You can see Tom Brady and Giselle and FTX commercials.
• ▶ 1:55 Ben Gilbert So what is going on here, and how did they get so big so fast?
• ▶ 2:35 Ben Gilbert Listeners, if you haven't read it yet, Mario did a three-part epic series on FTX over at The Generalist, and I, I think it's safe to say, Mario, you are truly a world expert on this company after writing, I think, 36,000 words.
• ▶ 3:15 Ben Gilbert So before we get in, is it right to say, Mario, do you know, this, is this company only 200 employees, and I think maybe started the year at like a, a few dozen employees?
• ▶ 3:37 Mario Gabriele Um, so they're growing extremely fast, but
• ▶ 6:31 Ben Gilbert Well, it is, uh, it is our pleasure and our privilege to really, uh, get to have you tell the story of FTX today, of Alameda Research, how this whole crazy thing came to be, and, and really help us analyze the, um, the crypto assets…
• ▶ 18:20 Sam Bankman-Fried And one thing which we really try to maintain as a company is that people understand both of those sides.
• ▶ 23:19 Ben Gilbert This all predates FTX.
• ▶ 29:35 Ben Gilbert Okay, so why start FTX?
• ▶ 38:13 Mario Gabriele Like I remember talking to Chris McCann at raise capital and talking through how they thought about investing in FTX seed round as like,
• ▶ 39:52 Mario Gabriele And it's essentially, uh, still sort of the fundamental power behind FTX's engine.
• ▶ 45:43 Ben Gilbert I was reading through, uh, FTX's PitchBook page to look at really, like, these astonishing rounds that have come together, not just because of how fast it's grown in, in valuation and investment raise, but the unbelievable sea of…
• ▶ 46:45 Ben Gilbert Going back to the story here a little bit, so I've got a list in front of me of, that I, I pulled up from PitchBook of the original investors in FTX, and this is a nutso list.
• ▶ 47:14 Ben Gilbert So your fundraise, once you decide, oh, we're starting a company called FTX, and it's an exchange for crypto derivative products.
• ▶ 47:32 Sam Bankman-Fried I think eventually the story that convinced us that FTX would be exciting convinced a lot of people.
• ▶ 52:06 Ben Gilbert And Sam, what were the things you were really intentional about as you realized, okay, we're going to build a company, an enduring institution here, an operating company with FTX?
• ▶ 55:41 Ben Gilbert It is worth noting because you just brought up this in the United States and outside the United States for our half of listeners that are in the US, you'll note that the thing you can use and I can use FTX US is not a derivatives platform.
• ▶ 55:55 Ben Gilbert and it's a very, very simplified version of the complex platform that, um, that y'all have built Sam at FTX.
• ▶ 1:04:05 Ben Gilbert We will come back to some of this in our analysis section, but just to kind of finish out the growth of the company and bring us to today.
• ▶ 1:10:09 Ben Gilbert Well, rather than going through blow by blow over the, the last couple of years from your launch, can you just fast forward us to today and what are some of the, the high level public stats that you can share on FTX as a business right now?
• ▶ 1:11:05 Sam Bankman-Fried We, we have FTX US as well.
• ▶ 1:15:24 Sam Bankman-Fried Like, the biggest things we're thinking about are how do we communicate to people who FTX is in a way which is kind of meaningful and, you know, which will hopefully leave a little bit of a mark, I guess.
• ▶ 1:16:18 Sam Bankman-Fried And when I say people here, I don't just mean, like, you know, potential, like, direct users of FTX the platform.
• ▶ 1:19:28 Ben Gilbert I think a lot of FTX's success to date is because
• ▶ 1:19:59 Ben Gilbert FTX that will enable it to be durably profitable as, as competition pours in.
• ▶ 1:24:19 David Rosenthal It wasn't like there was a, um, you weren't coming from behind against FTX today.
• ▶ 1:25:02 David Rosenthal Is it fair to characterize FTX as a whole as like, you know, you have, you have the exchange business, both spot and, and derivatives as, as the bigger part of it.
• ▶ 1:25:29 David Rosenthal In the long term, there's a lot more that we can, there's a lot more opportunity for FTX to serve, build products and serve here than just beyond that, right?
• ▶ 1:27:40 Mario Gabriele and, you know, find new places for FTX to imbricate itself in users' lives?
• ▶ 1:28:28 Ben Gilbert Well, thinking about sort of the playbook, like, that you've, you've implemented to run FTX.
• ▶ 1:32:04 David Rosenthal That is what FTX and SPF are doing.
• ▶ 1:37:53 Ben Gilbert Okay, well, FTX has a set of resources right now.
• ▶ 1:37:56 Ben Gilbert It has human capital, it has, uh, financial capital, lots of it, and it's got time.
• ▶ 1:40:33 Sam Bankman-Fried I think the plausible C is we just kind of don't really grow, you know, like you kind of look back at us like, you know, in a year and you're like, where is F, or in five years, you know, where is FTX now?
• ▶ 1:40:43 Sam Bankman-Fried And the answer is like, you know, they're like, you know, one of the bigger, but not like the biggest crypto exchange.
• ▶ 1:48:55 Ben Gilbert Is there anywhere, you know, we've got a bunch of smart people out there listening who might want to work at FTX.
• ▶ 1:49:11 Sam Bankman-Fried You can go to ftx.com or ftx.us if you're in the US, um, and I can file a support ticket there.
• ▶ 1:49:11 Sam Bankman-Fried You can go to ftx.com or ftx.us if you're in the US, um, and I can file a support ticket there.
• ▶ 1:50:18 Ben Gilbert Conveniently, there is a book on FTX, and you wrote it and published it on your website in three parts.