he was notoriously cutthroat and brutal, and everyone who worked with him hated him. he hired a PR agency in part to help strategize his image, which seems to have been a great investment

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5251774&forum_id=2#45623631)

Reply40 RecommendShare

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5251774&forum_id=2#45625349)

"During this process, many people have made accusations against me. Some of them--including, for instance, that I exhibited poor risk management oversight as CEO of FTX--are true. But many are not. . . .

8) Various claims that I am Jewish.

a) Ok, technically this claim is correct. . . .

b) But I don't think I need to spell out the implications being made.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5252148&forum_id=2#45625902)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5251774&forum_id=2#45626015)

Not morons in the sense of their IQ, morons in the sense that their statistical isolation from all meaningful consequences and a normal life of tribulation has left them severely lacking perspective.

They all inhabit this gross parody of a meritocracy where they can wastes millions in other people's money and hollow out companies for short term gains and be treated like geniuses, because they have and MBA from Harvard. They had rich parents who could finance them a few million to start their business. They sucked their boss' son's cock in a satanic ritual in Yale and that means they get to join the Executive Caste and earn 500% their actual effective contribution. Yeah no wonder they saw Sam playing games and thought he was exceptional, because to them being exceptional has always meant not giving a shit about the social norms and expectations that bind the try-hards to middle management status. Those smart type A strivers who organize the unused pen boxes never become The Big Guy, they work for him. They are the put-upon bureaucrats, the well compensated suckers who grease the machines. Executive mindset isn't diligence or hard work or creativity, it's knowing how to play pigskin with the boys, how to break eggs and dip without sweating the hard stuff. The Big Guys aren't looking for diligence, they're looking for "their people," they're looking for those who know - or at least signal that they know - the grift. Most importantly though, a the Executive must square the circle and feel that all of the former makes them really smart and gifted and valuable, you can't be too self-aware, self-awareness ruins the kayfabe.

In this incestuous fantasy land of self aggrandizing narratives, guys like Fried, Holmes, and the other silicon con-men can play its royalty like chumps. All they need to do is press the buttons that light up the neurons of our oh-so intelligent masters of the meritocracy. Gameplay is actually very simple: you use buzzwords, you engage FOMO by advertising yourself as the next monopoly, and you rail against the stuffy old companies - vestiges of a time when the US actually had a social project with the inefficiencies and (shudders) obligations that reflect that. Most importantly though, you invent new ways of being moral to assuage the ever gnawing guilt and imposter syndrome that torment every suit and angel investor when they think about their unearned wealth.

It's no secret that Fried's "Effective Altruism" happened to be a philosophy that promised selfless work without sacrifice or change in lifestyle, because there's nothing else the suckers want to hear more than this: "You don't need to give away your unearned wealth to be an effective social boon. You don't have to care about the plight of the common man to be a good person. You're the elite class. You're building starships, you're leading humanity. No, it doesn't matter that you've never actually built anything substantial in your life and your wealth comes entirely from various schemes that gnaw at the foundations of American society, selling the excrement of its once robust institutions as simulacrums of a product. It doesn't matter. You and you alone by birthright and diploma can bear the torch of Humanity and lead the ignorant masses to Mars, all you need to do is boost some FTX."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5251774&forum_id=2#45628080)

https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1602783723673378816

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5251774&forum_id=2#45628374)