Sam Bankman-Fried
15 statements across 3 episodes · 5 bullish · 5 bearish · 3 people on the record · first statement Dec 15, 2021 by Sam Bankman-Fried · said 19 times in 8 episodes since 2022 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Sam Bankman-Fried's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Ben Gilbert (8), David Rosenthal (7), Michael Lewis (2), Anthony Gonzalez (2)
tap a year for its mentions
2025 2 mentions in 1 episode
2023 2 mentions in 1 episode
2022 15 mentions in 6 episodes 3 per episode
- Holiday Special 2022 · Acquired
- From NFL to Startup COO to Congressman Regulating Crypto (with Rep. Anthony Gonzalez) · Acquired
- Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version) · Acquired
- Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity · Acquired
- Enron · Acquired
- The Browser (with Brendan Eich, Chief Architect of Netscape + Mozilla and CEO of Brave) · Acquired
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
Everything said about Sam Bankman-Fried, oldest first
Dec 15, 2021
Bankman-Fried: I could not describe a blockchain when I entered crypto
“I got one word further, but I couldn't have described a blockchain. I guess it was like, you know, they chained the blocks with the transactions in them, you know? I didn't really know who they was. I don't know if the blockchain does it. Like, I really didn't…”
Dec 15, 2021 negative
Dec 15, 2021 bullish
Dec 15, 2021
Bankman-Fried: FTX endorsement deals are for brand building, not customer acquisition
“When you look at sort of the customer acquisition side, I think it's easy to see a lot of the endorsement deals that we've done and think of that as like customer acquisition. It's actually not really how we think of it. It's not the most effective way to acqu…”
Dec 15, 2021 positive
Bankman-Fried: Crypto exchanges generated $1B annual revenue in late 2018
“So this is circuit late well, they were transacting how much per day, you know, globally five to ten billion dollars. What were their fees? They're making like four basis points on average on that. Right. And all right, you can sort of do the math there, actua…”
Dec 15, 2021 positive
Bankman-Fried: FTX hired for composure under pressure rather than prior experience
“Experience is very much not what we hire for. Right. In fact, sometimes we're almost like, you know, I wouldn't quite say we're anti-selecting for it, but, like, we like flexibility, and we like, you know, much more than, like, I don't know, we can teach thing…”
Dec 15, 2021 neutral
Bankman-Fried: Early FTX users were split between institutions and individuals
“They were about half and half really. You know, the thing that, that really, you know, set them apart was less being institutions and more being power users. And I, some of those were institutions, some of those were individuals.”
Dec 15, 2021 negative
Dec 15, 2021
Dec 15, 2021 bullish
Bankman-Fried: FTX's revenue is clean, clear, and completely transparent
“When you talk about, like, recurring revenue, like, there's sort of, like, doesn't exist a clearer example of that than, like, you know, I don't know, we have volume each day, and we charge a transaction fee on it, right? It's incredibly clean, right? People a…”
Dec 15, 2021 bullish
Dec 15, 2021 negative
Bankman-Fried: Aggressive headcount growth creates uncontrollable organizations
“Because I think if you, sort of, like, if you're too aggressive about, like, overgrowing the team, then you get this, sort of, monstrosity that no one can control anymore, and these are, like, an underestimated factor often, and we see time and time again this…”
Dec 15, 2021
Dec 19, 2022 negative
Rosenthal: Acquired regrets lending its podcast platform to Sam Bankman-Fried
“We lent our platform to Sam and to FTX, and yeah, I do feel bad about that. I don't think there's any way we could have known at the time, and I don't want to stop having interesting people and companies on the show, you know, up and coming companies, so.”