#Kevin O’Leary: I in

[princestreetco]

#Think | Kevin O’Leary: I invested in FTX. Here’s the big problem with crypto.

#PrinceStreet #Learning #Video #Technology #Media #Science #Youtube #Tech #Kevin O’Leary: I in

[fickle-fandoms]

you think being cis is tough? imagine having gender envy for these mfs

#i swear i’m not a capitalist #i don’t understand it either #but hey me going bald on t is uhhh kinda likely #clue #shark tank #mr. green #kevin o’leary #bald men #tranmasc #mr. wonderful

[collapsedsquid]

On “Shark Tank,” celebrity venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary often grills contestants on their potential monopoly pricing power. It seems his fondest aspiration that contestants convince him their products will be practically alone in their markets, protected by entry barriers such as patents and proprietary know-how. Mr. O’Leary appears to see such market restrictions as a key to his investment decisions. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Lina Khan would be aghast. Ms. Khan tightly adheres to the idea that monopolies are always bad. She believes that powerful firms can undercut their competitors through so-called predatory pricing to achieve market dominance, as she has argued Amazon has done. Once they have control of a market, the theory runs, monopolies can raise prices to boost profits. [...]

Mr. O’Leary’s questioning exposes the soft underbelly of progressive antitrust theory. The cruel market reality that Mr. O’Leary understands (and that antitrust enforcers like Ms. Khan seem not to) is that highly competitive markets are the least friendly to investors and consumers. As economist Dwight Lee and I have argued, if an investor gets in on a product in such a market, with signs of future profitability but no entry costs, imitators will immediately spring up. They’ll enter without having to pay the development costs, then expand supply and depress prices to the point that only the imitators’ costs can be recovered—not the original innovators’ and investors’, which can be much higher. No investor in his right mind would knowingly put his money in a market like that. He might as well torch the cash up front. In this way, a perfectly or even highly competitive market is the least efficient and welfare-enhancing of all market structures, including a monopoly.

Anti-capitalist propaganda in the Wall Street Journal

#bring back royal soap monopolies

[beardedmrbean]

With some Democrats deciding to re-commit funds from FTX donations towards charity or other party campaigns after the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy, Rep. Maxine Water, D-Calif., told FOX Business she doesn’t "want to get into that" topic.

Waters avoided reporter Hillary Vaughn’s question when asked if Democrats who received campaign cash from FTX should give it back, saying, "Well, I don't want to get into that. As a matter of fact, both sides, Democrats and Republicans, have received donations. So thank you."

The Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, however, did claim that lawmakers will be putting together a hearing to "explore exactly what has taken place" with FTX.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, was a major contributor to Democratic candidates during the midterm election cycle, funneling most of his donations through a little-known political action committee (PAC).

FTX FOUNDER SAM BANKMAN-FRIED HIT WITH CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT THAT ALSO NAMES BRADY, BUNDCHEN, SHAQ, CURRY

Overall, in 2021 and 2022, Bankman-Fried donated nearly $38 million to various candidates and PACs, mainly giving his cash to Democratic candidates and left-wing groups, according to Federal Election Commission filings (FEC). The majority of his political givings, though, went to the Protect Our Future PAC, a group founded in January that is dedicated to boosting candidates committed to preventing future pandemics.

Bankman-Fried wired an initial $9 million in February to the PAC shortly after it was created, FEC records showed. He then made three additional donations worth $18 million between March and June, increasing his total contribution to Protect Our Future PAC to $27 million.

The Daily Beast reached out to more than 25 lawmakers that received money and reported that some said they'll give the money to charity. Other congressmen said they spent it to boost other Democratic candidates, and some didn’t reply at all.

Names of Democratic candidates that have received political contributions from FTX include Rep. Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., and Reps.-elect Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Sydney Kamlager of California, Jonathan Jackson of Illinois, Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Rob Menendez Jr. of New Jersey.

On Wednesday, Bankman-Fried was hit with a class-action lawsuit filed by investors alleging he and other high-profile celebrities – such as legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady and NBA star Stephen Curry – violated Florida law and made consumers suffer more than $11 billion in damages.

The lawsuit, which names "Sam Bankman-Fried, Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors, Shaquille O’Neal, Udonis Haslem, David Ortiz, William Trevor Lawrence, Shohei Ohtani, Naomi Osaka, Lawrence Gene David, and Kevin O’Leary," seeks to make them "responsible for the many billions of dollars in damages they caused Plaintiff and the Classes and to force Defendants to make them whole."

The suit describes the well-known celebrities as "all parties who either controlled, promoted, assisted in, and actively participated in FTX Trading and FTX US (collectively, the ‘FTX Entities’), offer and sale of unregistered securities in the form of yield-bearing accounts (YBAs) to residents of the United States."

The lawsuit was filed in Florida because the defendants, it says, "conduct business in Florida, and/or have otherwise intentionally availed themselves of the Florida consumer market through the promotion, marketing, and sale of FTX’s YBAs in Florida, which constitutes committing a tortious act within the state of Florida."

Last week, Bankman-Fried admitted his fault in a tweet: "I'm sorry. That's the biggest thing," the founder wrote. "I f---ed up, and should have done better."

#nunyas news #there's a reason she keeps landing on the #most corrupt members of congress list

[deltamusings]

“There’s no cash for small businesses, and when the Fed raises rates another 50 basis points, that’s going to make it worse,” O’Leary said.

“No, I’m not happy.”

“Let’s tell small business how to survive this pending crisis,” O’Learry urged lawmakers.

“And the program that I’m really talking up is the employee retention credit, which none of these small businesses have applied for yet. And I want everybody on the Hill to let their constituents know they should apply for it, because we’ve got a real crisis coming here.”

[toastsandwichdotcom]

Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank squeezing someone to death. I think this turned out pretty good.

#shark tank #gif #animation #art

[canichangemyblogname]

Y'wanna hear about a term I heard about today on my least favorite NPR program? Quiet quitting.

The segment on this program, Marketplace, presented this as a Very Bad Thing™️. And this is why it's my least favorite program of the day.

Marketplace diverges in its economic coverage from other NPR programs. For example, coverage of this topic from the program All Things Considered focused on how this term is maliciously misleading. Because it refers to workers setting boundaries rather than not doing more than they're compensated for, and "quitting" essentially suggests they're not doing their job when they are.

Written coverage of this, like the article below, took the stance that employees do not have to do free labor and if employers want their employees to do more work, they should be properly compensated.

But Marketplace? They interviewed a journalist from the Wall Street Journal. And their position on this was that this was a concerning lack of engagement in the workplace and, despite establishing this phenomenon as a desire for more work boundaries earlier in the interview, they painted this as workers 1.) refusing to excel in their work, and 2.) refusing to do as they're requested because they're paid.

Oh. And that if unemployment was higher, that this would not be an issue. Their warning to workers? You're setting yourself up for a layoff later on.

Check it:

Ryssdal: What are companies and employers saying about this? Because you could see them being a little bit, what do you mean? I’m paying you and you got to do the job?

Ellis: Yeah. Well, you know, Gallup has been doing a lot of polling over the years on employee engagement. And across the country, U.S. engagement is falling in the workforce. I mean, I think that’s a trend that is concerning for employers because there’s some correlation between how engaged you are at your job and how long you want to stay there, you know, how willing you might be to recommend it to a friend as a workplace. Things like that. Maybe even productivity, which, obviously, workplaces care a lot about. All of those things. So I think there’s a degree of hesitation, I mean, maybe frustration with this downturn in engagement. That is happening a lot more broadly than, than the youngest of professionals.

Ryssdal: How much do you think this would be happening if the unemployment rate wasn’t where it is, right? I mean, this is a very employee-favored environment now. And if you want another job, you can get another job. And everybody on both sides of the question knows that.

Ellis: It’s a really good point. So I talked to Elise Freedman, who’s a senior client partner at the consulting firm Korn Ferry, about this very issue. I mean, and she, you know, said the people who are consciously dialing back, who might not be raising their hand for the stretch assignments or the extra work at the end of the day, I mean, that they might be setting themselves up for a layoff if things do turn, so I think there is some realization that, that this is perhaps a byproduct of the leverage that employees have in the labor market right now. And that there could well be a risk if things do turn.

And the thing is? Many other major news outlets are taking a similar stance.

From the CNBC article Don’t try quiet quitting, says Kevin O’Leary: It’s ‘a really bad idea’:

But, “quiet quitting is a really bad idea,” says O’Leary, an investor and star of ABC’s “Shark Tank.” And that’s true for multiple reasons, he says.

First: Employers value hungry, keen workers. “People that go beyond to try to solve problems for the organization, their teams, their managers, their bosses, those are the ones that succeed in life,” O’Leary says.

O’Leary himself says he looks to hire people who are willing to put in “25 hours a day, eight days a week.” If you’re shutting off your laptop at 5 p.m. and going home, “you’re not working for me,” he says.

Second: O’Leary says you need a strong financial base to afford choosing how you want to structure your life and days. Limiting the hours you work per day, he says, is not conducive to the kind of success that brings that freedom — especially early in life.

Terrible message that ironically points out how people without secure financial bases have less choice in employment and are less likely to have access to a work-life balance.

It bears noting that the people without this security are often those without access to generational wealth.

"[I]n corporate America, minorities are held to a different standard... We are looked at differently, there is unconscious bias still, and so we have to go above and beyond in order to be successful. We can’t risk being looked at as not performing, if we are not meeting those expectations, we are the first on the chopping block." -Jha’nee Carter in the Seattle Times

From the New York Post article Can I discipline my employees who are ‘quietly quitting’?:

I’ve been hearing a lot about the new term “quiet quitting” where employees just coast, doing the bare minimum to get by. I feel that my team performs that way. Is this the new work norm with this generation, and should I just accept it? Or can I require these employees to put in more effort?

If you just accept employees doing the bare minimum to get by, then you’re “quiet quitting” your job as a manager. Bottom line: You can’t force anyone to do anything. Employees who coast are usually disengaged from their work, so figuring out how to get them motivated is the only way to get them to naturally sustain higher engagement. If you can’t, or they won’t, then you can set expectations for performance and outcomes. And if they don’t meet those expectations, you can quietly fire the quitters.

Their answer is simply to fire employees for doing their job, nothing more and nothing less, and not providing you free labor.

From the Business Insider article 'Quiet quitting' helping to keep you sane at work? Experts say not so fast - and offer surprising solution:

[A]s it gains popularity in offices across the US, career experts are urging workers to consider the consequences of joining the trend.

Senior vice president of an outplacement firm Andrew Challenger said employees should remember that they won't always have the luxury of not caring about getting fired.

"If the labor market turns, those people (who quietly quit) will be at the top of the list" of layoffs, he said to USA Today.

...

"The risk of getting fired isn't motivating them to change their behavior," Stacie Haller, career strategist and coach, said to USA Today. 

Employees are realizing the power they hold in a labor market where there are nearly two job vacancies for every unemployed person, according to the Labor Department. 

"Everybody's thinking, 'They're not going to fire me because my warm body is better than nobody,'" Mark Royal, senior client partner for a recruiting and human resource consulting firm, told USA Today.

I think the actual premise is "Pay me for more work" and "I understand I'm expendable to the capitalist class, so why should I provide them free labor and compromise my personal life?"

Although, CNN, with a total of about 1.687 million viewers, came in with the article Bosses don't need to freak out about 'quiet quitting', quietly surprising me:

[T]here's no shortage of handwringing out there about how this is just another lazy young-person trend, a Gen Z scourge, a fad carried out by a bunch of entitled brats who are ruining their career prospects. 

That is, of course, missing the point.

Quiet quitting isn't quitting the job, it's quitting the really crappy parts of the job. And that's unquestionably a good thing. 

Bosses who are worried about quiet quitting might want to look inward for a moment. If your staff are rejecting a life of juggling emails while ostensibly on vacation, or endless meetings, or grueling hours, maybe it's the demands of corporate life that need to change and not the attitudes of the people who dare to opt out of the grind.

I remember articles 10 years ago talking about how Gen Z is the next generation of "go-getters" and "business hustlers" with great ambition, unlike those lazy millennials. Now that Gen Z has joined the post-college workforce and also said, "I don't care for exploitation," they too are joining the ranks of "lazy, entitled" young people.

Anyway... this is your friendly reminder that capitalism and the capitalist class need you vulnerable (without a secure financial base) and desperate (unemployed, without income, and without a way to pay for basics) so they have workers more accepting of the exploitation of their labor.

#capitalism #socialism #labor exploitation #worker's rights

[sheshallfromtimetotime]

Tagged by @polyproticamory. Thanks!

Rules: spell out either your name or username using only books or only movies that have your vibe, and tag some people.

I did books ‘cause I thought that’d be easier than movies, but wow, that was still hard. I was literally digging through my old reading lists and googling books that started with h and e to try to jog my memory of what I’ve read and resonated with. It’s absurdly long, took forever to do, and there are so many repeated letters, but.... ta da!

Tagging @pendragyn, @catalynmj1015, @froglady-15, @meldanya44 and whoever the hell else wants to give it a shot.

S - Squire by Tamora Pierce

H - Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

E - Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

S - Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

H - The Hours by Michael Cunningham

A - All The Young Men by Ruth Coker Burks with Kevin Carr O’Leary

L - Little Weirds by Jenny Slate

L - Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce

F - Fleabag: The Scriptures by Phoebe Waller-Bridge

R - Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

O - One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

M - My Own Devices by Dessa

T - Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert

I - I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay? by Naomi Shihab Nye

M - Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl From Somewhere Else by Maeve Higgins

E - Endgame by Samuel Beckett

T - To Be Taught, If Fortunate - Becky Chambers

O - Object Lessons by Eavan Boland

T - The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

I - [Insert] Boy by Danez Smith

M - A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

E - Emperor Mage - Tamora Pierce

#thanks! #polyproticamory #tag meme #books

[faulentzer]

It’s not a crime if no money was last is the weakest bullshit excuse I’ve ever heard! If that’s the case, why don’t I just sneak in his house at night, crawl in bed with him and his wife, and make myself comfortable? I didn’t damage anything nor did I take any money. These scumbags flagrantly violate the rules, aka the laws, which gives them great advantage over those that don’t and then have the nerve to whine about being held accountable. They all think that they are smarter than the law abiding citizens they absolutely harm. Fuck these assholes and especially fuck O’Leary!

[emmabeverage]

Kevin O’Leary Demolishes CNN Host Over Trump Verdict!

I don't know why the New One World Order dislike Trump so much because he is just as dirty as they are. He didn't hang out with Jeffry Epstein because he was innocent! That was his favorite flavor. Maybe because he is not a Fascist One World Order guy. https://veteranstoday.com/2020/10/27/blockbuster-report-trump-settlements-for-10-child-rapes-half-boys-bankruptcies-justice-department-coverup/

#youtube

[rorygilmre]

the airport is such a lawless place. you’re telling me i just took a shot of vodka while kevin o’leary gives financial advice on his 4am morning show and a pilot wearing a santa hat just walked by me? and now i’m gonna go buy a bottle of water and a muffin for $30?

#leah rambles

[recentlyheardcom]

'What are you, an idiot?': Kevin O’Leary says people are wasting 15 to 20% of their income on ‘stupid stuff’ like coffee and sandwiches — here’s what he wants you to do insteadSwinging by your local coffee shop for a little caffeine boost before your work day commences might feel like an absolutely unskippable step in your morning ritual — but Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary says it’s little purchases like these that push people into debt.“Stop buying coffee for $5.50,” O’Leary said on an episode of the Erika Taught Me podcast, hosted by lawyer and money influencer Erika Kullberg.Don’t miss“I can walk around with anybody for a day and tell you they’re wasting 15% of their money — sometimes 20% [on] stupid stuff.”Here are some of the veteran investor’s cold hard truths when it comes to spending money, and what he says you should do instead.Small everyday purchases can add upInflation is hitting consumers hard and pushing even higher-income folks into a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.Just take a look at food-away-from-home costs — which have climbed 6% since last year, according to the latest consumer price data. In comparison, food-at-home costs have only gone up by 2.4%.“You go to work, you spend $15 on a sandwich. What are you, an idiot?” O’Leary said during the podcast, urging folks to make their own lunches and bring their coffee from home.“You start to add that up everyday, it’s a ton of money.”O’Leary isn’t wrong about people spending more when they go to work. A recent report from video-conferencing company Owl Labs found that workers spend about $31 more each day when they work from the office compared to at home, and this could become an even more pressing problem with more companies doing away with their COVID-era remote work policies.Story continuesO’Leary claims that a lot of Americans — especially those who work in big cities — are making their first $60,000 in their early careers “piss away” about $15,000 a year on unnecessary purchases.O’Leary’s mom taught him an important lessonO’Leary credits his mother, Georgette O’Leary, a small business owner, for teaching him how to manage money.Georgette advised him to never spend more than what he earned — and that’s a lesson Mr. Wonderful wants to share with Americans as well. He recommends folks write down their various sources of income and their expenses over a 90-day period.He says folks often end up spending more than they make and needing to dig themselves out of debt. A lot of spending is done on credit cards, which can come with interest rates of around 21%. In the second quarter of this year, Americans’ credit card balances hit a record high of $1.03 trillion, according to the latest data from the New York Fed.“That’s what destroys people,” he cautions. “They just don’t live within their means.”Read more: Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now use $100 to cash in on prime real estate — without the headache of being a landlord. Here's howWhat you should do insteadO’Leary has a few tips for folks trying to figure out how to manage their money, which he discusses on Kullberg’s podcast.Firstly, he recommends you save about 20% of your income and invest it in the market over a 20 to 30 year period to get you a return of about 6-8% and help you retire with a solid nest egg.“Even if you have the average salary — $54,00 in America — you’ll have a million and a half bucks in the bank,” he claims.O’Leary also tells people to be intentional with their purchases, recounting that Georgette used to buy just one really good Chanel jacket a year and when she died, family members fought over her clothing since they were vintage and their value had soared over time.“Don’t buy the crap, just buy the good stuff, and buy less of it,” he advises. Try to avoid purchasing a lot of cheap, fast fashion and opt for more sustainable, long-lasting pieces that will be better for the environment and your wallet.And don’t forget to reward yourself. O’Leary says you should never go into debt for something

you can’t afford, but if you’ve got the funds feel free to treat yourself as a reminder that you’re doing well and hitting your financial goals.Lastly, O’Leary says if you want to make more money and have a good skill set, consider starting your own side hustle outside of your main job. He would know — after all, he’s seen plenty of folks bring their own business ideas to television shows like Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den.“I don’t believe in the 9-to-5 job market anymore,” he says. “We have people working for us all around the world, we somehow are very, very productive and that’s the new economy.”What to read nextThis article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

[metamoonshots]

Nishad Singh – FTX’s former director of engineering – revealed extra particulars in regards to the crypto trade’s profligate spending throughout his testimony at Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial on Monday. Singh pled responsible to each cash laundering and marketing campaign finance violations, breaking down his involvement within the firm’s over $100 million in donations to political candidates. Extreme and Flashy Spending As explained by Singh, the chief got here to know Bankman-Fried via his youthful brother, Dave, with whom he was shut associates. He started working at Alameda Analysis in 2017, when Sam Bankman-Fried and his companion, Gary Wang, had been nonetheless formally main the buying and selling desk. Singh mentioned his impression of Sam grew bitter over time. “I’ve been intimidated,” he defined. “Sam is a formidable character. I got here to mistrust him.” The engineering professional was significantly skeptical of Sam’s “extreme” spending habits, significantly round superstar partnerships and different types of advertising. “It didn’t align with what I assumed we had been constructing the corporate for,” he mentioned, including that such offers “reeked of extra and flashiness,” and that he’d been “embarrassed and ashamed” by them. Some such offers included FTX’s $135 million buy of FTX Arena, a $28 million sponsorship cope with basketball star Steph Curry, and one other for $14 million with well-known investor Kevin O’Leary. Altogether, Singh mentioned such offers tallied as much as $1.3 billion in expenditures. Influential Figures Throughout his testimony, prosecutors offered an image during which Bankman-Fried stood amongst quite a few celebrities at a post-Tremendous Bowl occasion in Los Angeles. It included well-known singer Katy Perry, actor Orlando Bloom, investor Michael Kives, and himself. “Sam despatched Gary and me a time period sheet to offer hundreds of thousands in bonus to Michael Kives & Bryan Baum, & a billion funding of their VC agency,” mentioned Singh. The engineer mentioned he objected to the transfer, asking that the funding “ be carried out with Sam’s cash and never FTX’s cash.” Singh claimed to have “little or no” involvement with the huge political donations made by FTX. Nevertheless, donations from his Prime Belief account had been used to ship donations to candidates and Tremendous PACs. “There was a Sign chat referred to as Donations Processing,” he defined. “Sam let his brother Gabriel to so it. Ryan Saleme had entry to my account. My position was to click on the button.” SPECIAL OFFER (Sponsored) Binance Free $100 (Unique): Use this link to register and obtain $100 free and 10% off charges on Binance Futures first month (terms).PrimeXBT Particular Provide: Use this link to register & enter CRYPTOPOTATO50 code to obtain as much as $7,000 in your deposits.

[ailtrahq]

“People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results –– they choose it because it seems authoritative or familiar.” -Michael Lewis, The Big Short.Renowned author Michael Lewis published his book, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, on the rise and fall of FTX on the first day of the trial of its notorious founder Sam Bankman-Fried (Bankman-Fried). The book has met with heavy criticism by commentators for its seemingly favorable portrayal of the millennial crypto founder. It’s funny because at its core, the story of Bankman-Fried is a very old-school, Big Short-esque tale of a privileged actor who leveraged, for his own gain, our society’s predilection to make value judgements on people not due to their track record –– or as Lewis put it, “facts” –– but rather based off of a set of heuristics and approval from “sophisticated” people. Bankman-Fried’s ability to convince those we trust to be the “smart people” of our society –– including Lewis –– is uncanny. But why did they fall for him? Perhaps, it is because Bankman-Fried was someone they understood. He was an insider, who –– like them –– saw crypto as a community they could capitalize on, rather than an an ecosystem to nourish. Crypto ColonialismFortune Magazine in their profile of Bankman-Fried, wrote that the Bay Area native doesn’t look like the most powerful man in crypto. But is that really true?If anything, a 20-something year-old man oozing social awkwardness, an MIT degree, and poor fashion-sense is the wet dream of many a modern “sophisticated” tech investor. Bankman-Fried could easily be a character on the HBO show Silicon Valley.Now compound that with his birthright –– two parents who are law professors at a modern basilica of commerce –– Stanford University, and you have almost messianic figure of modern capitalism. One need not look further than the praise given to him by Kevin O’Leary, saying “I'm a big advocate for Sam because he has two parents that are compliance lawyers." the Shark Tank investor said in 2022. O’Leary continued: “If there's ever a place I could be that I'm not going to get in trouble, it's going to be at FTX.” We later found out that the Canadian investor was paid close to a million dollars an hour to be a public spokesperson for Bankman-Fried.But beyond Bankman-Fried’s bona fides, the real selling point that captured investor attention was Bankman-Fried’s mission. Not “effective altruism” –– subscribing to trendy, faux empathic movements is certainly a good marketing move for elite financiers. But, what really excited his investors was his belief that crypto wasn’t a serious industry worthy of building up, but rather a great opportunity to grab a bag load of money from gamblers.As a Sequoia Capital’s venture capitalist put it in a now deleted profile on Bankman-Fried, “Yes, crypto eventually could replace money, and, yes, it can eventually decentralize the web,” the investor said. He continued: “But all those things are not true today. And, so, what is the thing that people do today? They trade. And if people trade, and people like trading, what is the business model that will make tons of money? It would be an exchange.”This quote shows that the investors of Bankman-Fried didn’t view the crypto community as serious. To them, crypto itself has the same societal significance to getting three sets of cherries in a row on a slot machine in a Vegas casino. Better to invest in the casino rather than the photos of cherries.Agree or disagree with them, the crypto, and specifically the bitcoin subsection, of the community is serious with their goals. They are largely a set of libertarian, hyper-principled people. They are profoundly serious about their view on how blockchains can be used to liberate the currently unbanked, protect the value of one’s labor from ever increasing inflation, and connect people around the world through payments, and specifically remove government interference in money.

As Erik Voorhees’ puts it –– in what is now one of the final debates with Bankman-Fried –– “what we are doing here is in effect bringing the same separation that occurred between church and state to state and payments. In effect freeing people around the world.” The earnesty of belief held by people like Voorhees doesn’t compute for people like Sequoia VC or Bankman-Fried. For them those beliefs were useful in that they got a community to work hard for close to no reward until the first few bitcoin bull runs. But the belief itself? For the jaded elite, a company mission often is a means to a single end: Enrich one’s bank account. To them, a mission is as significant as making a “charity,” or going on a service trip in high school to look good for an ivy league admissions officer. It is just part of “the game.”This is quite problematic, since their investments in immature crypto companies –– and overall childish behavior, like when FTX raised $420,690,000 from 69 investors –– is a large part of the reason the “crypto” industry isn’t respected by the general public.Moreover, Bankman-Fried regularly made statements criticizing bitcoin, for being “slow, and bulky.” Keep in mind, the bitcoin community not only birthed crypto, but are –– for better or worse –– perhaps the most ideologically pure people in technology. Moreover, Bankman-Fried sought to influence legislation that would impact the earnest bitcoiners. Since he was –– prior to FTX’s collapse –– one of the biggest Washington donors, he likely would succeed in lobbying the government to follow his view. But this here is a form of colonization. The crypto community was a vibrant ecosystem prior to Bankman-Fried’s entry. It was a bunch of misfits that came together to build something that was unique and important. A chance to feel empowered in a system they feel marginalized in. For Bankman-Fried and his cohorts to come into it aiming to make a percentage off of the trading fees of investors –– rather than create products and businesses in the ethos of bitcoin –– was their original sin. Should we be so surprised that it eventually fell apart?A Silicon SocialistIn a similar vein to a young child who asks “why doesn’t the government just print more money and give it to the homeless?” –– Bankman-Fried’s claim to fame was to make a lot of money and give it away. Like some benevolent patrician. Andrew Carnegie in board shorts. But was it really an authentic impulse for charity, or was his empathy just some kind of game strategy to increase his social capital?In a phone call with crypto reporter Tiffany Fong, Bankman-Fried said that he donated as much money to Republicans as he did Democrats, but did so quietly in order to gain favor with journalists who he felt were predominantly left wing. In other words, Bankman-Fried manufactured a public persona of humanitarianism, but in reality his raison d'être was to gain more power and cloutHis former business partner Anthony Scaramucci said that he saw Bankman-Fried as having a sort of “superiority complex.” So, perhaps in Bankman-Fried’s head he thought that he could single-handedly solve all of the world’s problems if only he had all of the money.Whatever the truth may be –– what is it that made Bankman-Fried think that he had the right to use other’s money at his own discretion? Or for him to enter a space that he, once again, had close to nothing to do with creating. What made him think that he should be the authority who decides what aspects are kosher or haram? Or write legislation for it?At its core is a belief he was the smartest person in the room. A belief certainly had the innate privilege to feel given his parents’ societal standing, and his undeniable analytical wit. But, what was missing in the matrix of Bankman-Fried was a soul. A soul that would allow for him to truly respect community that he was entering as a stranger. History is filled with examples of people similar to Bankman-Fried, who rose to power promising to be stewards of a new, more fair utopia.

When, in reality, the main change they’re looking for is to be the ones in power. Bankman-Fried took that trope and sprinkled in Silicon Valley culture. As Michael Lewis writes, for Bankman-Fried, most of life is just some kind of game. One which –– if most legal experts are correct –– he won’t be getting any restarts on.This is a guest post by Jacob Kozhipatt. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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HIGHLIGHTS FOR ABC NEWS’ ‘GMA3: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW,’ JUNE 5-9

The following report highlights the programming of ABC’s “GMA3: What You Need to Know” during the week of June 5-9. “GMA3: What You Need to Know” is a one-hour program co-anchored by Eva Pilgrim and DeMarco Morgan, with Dr. Jennifer Ashton as chief health and medical correspondent. The news program airs weekdays at 1:00 p.m. EDT | 12:00 p.m. CDT on ABC, and 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. EDT on ABC News Live.

Highlights of the week include the following:

Monday, June 5 — Author Elio Morillo (“The Boy Who Reached the Stars”); clinical psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Gardere; dermatologist Dr. Michelle Henry with her summer skincare checklist; actress Tammy Townsend (“Average Joe”)

Tuesday, June 6 — “The Freedom to Exist: A Soul of a Nation Presentation” with actor and author Elliot Page (“Pageboy”); dietitian Maya Feller; a chat and performance by musician Ben Harper

Wednesday, June 7 — Rapper Doug E. Fresh joins Paisley Park’s 2023 Celebration; Deals and Steals with ABC e-commerce editor Tory Johnson

Thursday, June 8 — First female secretary of the United States Army, Honorable Christine Wormuth; businessman and TV personality Kevin O’Leary (“Shark Tank”); actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (“Never Have I Ever”)

Friday, June 9 — Travel expert Kellee Edwards; Faith Friday with pastor and author James Levesque (“Engaging Heaven”)

ABC Media Relations

Brooks Lancaster [email protected]

Daniela Urso [email protected]

-- ABC --

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You Can Take The Losses and Retail Can’t — Challenging Kevin O’Leary | by Wasif M Rahman | Coinmonks | Mar, 2023

“I would imagine you would feel some level of guilt when some of the companies that you are promoting end up leaving retail investors holding the bag.” This was a line from Hasan Minhaj during a 34-minute debate with Kevin O’Leary on The Daily Show. O’Leary is an iconic investor, educator and judge on Shark Tank. He is fondly referred to as “Mr. Wonderful” and is one of the most influential…

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