K-Cups for Kenya

A Day with Sam Bankman-Fried

I recently won a Twitter raffle to spend a day with Sam Bankman-Fried at the new headquarters of FTX Bahamas. Much like when that Greg Twitter account got that Tesla from Sam, it wasn’t exactly an open contest. It was targeted towards journalists, and the winner was likely not randomly chosen: I was the only curator of Web3 content of the few hundred or so that entered. I suspect I was chosen as SBF knew that I would write an endearing portrait of him, as a vocal proponent of crypto and Web3. So I packed my bags and hopped on a flight to Nassau to check out the exchange-giant’s new headquarters.

It was dark when I landed on Sunday evening but I was greeted at the airport by a young woman who told me she had been working at FTX for 4 months now. After a short 10 minute ride from the airport, I was dropped off at the hotel FTX had booked for me.

“Sam will pick you up tomorrow morning at 7:30 sharp, in his Toyota Corolla,” she said as she waived goodbye.

For readers unfamiliar, Sam Bankman-Fried has become a hero of sorts for the crypto community. MIT-educated, Sam got his start trading ETFs for Jane Street, one of the most successful proprietary trading firms on Wall Street. In 2017, SBF struck out on his own to trade the Bitcoin premium in Japan and never looked back. He went on to found Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm, and FTX, one of the highest-volume exchanges today. Fondly referred to as a “our lord” or simply “The Bankman,” Sam has risen to become the biggest star in the fastest-growing sector in tech.

At 7:30 AM sharp, Sam pulled up to my hotel to pick me up for the day.

“Good to meet you, I’m Sam,” he said enthusiastically.

He was wearing a t-shirt, cargo shorts, white tube socks, and a pair of New Balance sneakers. Not exactly the outfit of choice you’d expect from one of the richest people in the world, right?

“Hop in, this is my Toyota Corolla. It’s a practical, reasonably priced, and utilitarian vehicle,” he said, with an almost robotic cadence.

“Monday is a great day for you to shadow me, I think you’ll get a comprehensive overview of my day-to-day. Our new headquarters are just down the road, I really think you’ll be impressed with what we’re building here.”

I had a number of questions for Sam, so it was great to get some one-on-one time before we got to the office. I knew that he had never been one to show opulent displays of wealth or arrogance; no one better personified the phrase “in it for the tech.”

“Is this what you wear everyday?” I asked smiling. I already knew that he had a coder-uniform of sorts.

To my surprise, Sam abruptly reached down and grabbed both of his legs and positioned them behind his head in a yoga pose I had only previously seen attempted by flexible Instagram models¹. Even more shockingly, the car kept following the road, despite Sam taking both hands off the wheel and both feet from the pedals. It became clear he wanted me to see his entire outfit.

“These are my New Balance sneakers, they are practical, reasonably priced, and utilitarian.”

I was impressed by his flexibility. And of course, I was impressed by his unassuming uniform of choice. But I was most impressed, shocked really, that the car continued driving without a driver in control.

“I didn’t know they made self-driving Toyota Corollas,” I exclaimed.

Sam appeared confused. Flustered, in a way, as if he was taken aback that I skipped over his Spartan choice of footwear straight to the fact that the car had assumed the driver’s role without a hiccup. It was almost as though his brain was short-circuiting, searching a database of responses for unexpected decision trees.

“This is my Toyota Corolla. It’s a practical, reasonably priced, and utilitarian vehicle,” he finally responded.

When we arrived at the main building, I realized that we had essentially done a big loop. My “hotel” was actually on FTX’s campus. In fact, I could have walked to the headquarters much faster than riding with Sam. If I didn’t know any better, I might think that Sam wanted to import a very specific first impression into my head, of his Toyota Corolla, and of his New Balance sneakers. But I knew I was in the presence of a genius, I won’t question his methods!

---

FTX recently made the decision to move their headquarters to the Bahamas. Here’s a quote announcing the move from Sam:

In an industry historically known for operating in a regulatory grey area, SBF has made it his mission to help create a robust regulatory framework around crypto. There’s no one better to do it, either. From studying at an elite university, to working on Wall Street, to now being CEO at a rapidly growing corporation, no one understands the ins and outs of building a decentralized future better than Sam.

When we stepped out of the car we were greeted by the young woman who had picked me up from the airport the night before.

“Morning, my lord,” she said with a smile on her face.

“Just call me Sam,” SBF responded, almost curtly.

The girl looked confused, as if she had been trained to do one thing her whole life and suddenly, without warning, was being told to do the opposite.

“Follow me right this way,” the smile had returned to her face and she motioned for the front door.

Right inside the entrance there was a machine, at head height, with two eyepieces jutting out.

“Step right here as we scan your eyeballs,” the girl said, still smiling energetically.

As we proceeded into the lobby, I asked Sam about the purpose of the retina scan.

“Well, everyone has their eyeballs scanned. I may need them one day.”

I understood. A genius is always thinking to the future. I can’t wait to see what Sam has in store for me.

---

Sam started his day at 8:30 with a daily pitch meeting with the Alameda Research team. Alameda is a prop trading firm, founded by Sam, that operates independently (unclear on exactly the structure) from FTX, the exchange. While Sam still directs Alameda, most day-to-day operations fall to one of Sam’s best friends from MIT, Alabama Tabasco.

When we arrived in the Alameda office, I was immediately struck by the layout of the room. There were eight office chairs in a circle and a single chair in the middle with a desk and computer. It was like a wheel of sorts, with the outer desks connected on spokes roughly 10 feet from the central hub, where SBF took a seat.

“Let’s get started,” Sam said, motioning at the young man directly in front of him. He stared straight ahead.

“Good morning. 500, 1,300, 2,000, 3,000,” the young man responded.

“Got it, thanks,” Sam noted, as he typed on his computer.

At that moment, the young man’s desk began to move to the right, while Sam stayed centered. It was like a merry go round of office chairs whereby Sam could look straight ahead and receive information while his analysts and traders were moved one spot over after they finished their pitch. Brilliant really. Sam was the centralized decision maker, his employees mere spokes on the wheel. This process continued, each analyst presenting four numbers and then rotating to the right. When the first young man was returned to his starting position, Sam stood up.

“Thank you guys, I will get back to you.”

Alabama Tabasco, who had been standing in the corner at his own separate desk, approached me and said he’d be showing me around for a bit.

“What did I just witness, what were those numbers?” I inquired, completely lost.

“Well you see, Sam’s time is very important. In fact, he’s calculated it to be worth roughly $17 per second. We try to optimize all of our processes around here. What you just saw was our analysts giving the market cap, circulating supply, fully diluted value, and max supply of various tokens they have been researching.”

“Well don’t you need the names of the tokens? Or anything about the founders or what the project intends to do?” I asked, somewhat astonished at how quantitative the entire process appeared.

“Well those qualitative points just aren’t that important to what we do here at Alameda. They’re not not important. But they don’t have much bearing on our core business here. Putting Sam in a centralized role there in the middle of that room, watching his brain work those numbers, it’s incredible. When we start discussing the merits of an investment, we’ve found it detracts from Sam’s ability to make money for us. We have a good process, I promise you.”

Tabasco seemed to imply that he didn’t want further questions so I obliged. And frankly, I was still in awe that I was able to witness a generational talent use his big brain right before my eyes.

---

Tabasco led me next door into a much bigger room, a vast sea of curved monitors as far as the eye could see.

“This is FTX. This is where we make all the magic happen. Starting from the front of the room, we have customer service, engineering, market making, ventures, prop trading, and our risk management department,” he motioned to each part of the room as he named the business units although it wasn’t clear at all that there was any demarcated separation between each group.

I noticed that the analysts who were in the Alameda Research meeting a few minutes ago were now all at desks in this room.

“So basically the prop trading, and market makers and venture people all work together, there’s no real separation is that right?” I asked as I scanned the room.

“Well, we like to have the traders near the market making department so they can stay…” and then he paused as if searching for the most precise word, “abreast, I guess you could call it, of any movements in the market.” He grinned, with a tinge of nefariousness.

I could tell FTX knew what they were doing. The professionalism, the centralized coordination, the efficiency with which they worked: it was becoming more and more clear that the direction of crypto needed to be in the hands of FTX, SBF, and Tabasco. Without them, we stood no chance.

---

Tabasco informed me that we would link back up with Sam for lunch on the top floor. The cafeteria upstairs was incredible, with every flavor of cuisine you could imagine for the employees to choose from. I noticed at the end of the room, there was a buffet table set up that said “bugs.”

“You guys serving bugs now?” I said, half-jokingly, assuming that it meant something else.

Sam looked at me very seriously, as if he wanted to convey the intense conviction in what he was about to say,

“I believe very strongly that we will all eat the bugs in the near future. I have been an adherent to Malthusianism for a period of time now. The future is in the consumption of insects. And you will like them.”

He went on to explain that, while there was a dedicated bug station at the cafeteria, he was also slowly adding single insects into other dishes served at the FTX cafeteria. His reasoning was that gradual inoculation would better prepare his workers for a diet of almost exclusively insects, which he was sure was coming. These little tidbits, direct from our smartest thinkers, are what makes my job worth it. I grinned at Sam knowing how early we were.

We then took a seat on the balcony outside, overlooking a massive pool and volleyball court. Just beyond that, you could see the pristine waters of the Caribbean Ocean. After lunch I stood up and approached the balcony, there seemed to be a pool party going on below. Tabasco joined me as we looked down at the pool. I noticed a middle-aged man, seemingly intoxicated doing cannonballs into the pool, three younger girls by his side.

“Who’s that guy, he looks like he’s having a blast,” I asked.

“Oh that’s Hunter. Sam donated a good deal of money to his father’s campaign. We are his adult monitors of sorts. He likes to come down to the Bahamas but he really needs a watchful eye to make sure he doesn’t get too rambunctious! It’s quite important that we maintain regulatory control, so we can shape the direction of crypto. What’s good for us is good for crypto. You’ll learn more about our philanthropic efforts this afternoon.”

---

After lunch I was led outside across a courtyard to a different building altogether. Inside, there was a large logo on the wall that read “Sam Bankman-Fried’s Central Center for Effective Altruism and Philanthropic Studies.” Every wall contained the photograph and inspirational quote below

Readers likely know that what SBF does is for the greater good. One reason I was so keen to do a story on Sam was his devotion to making money for the sole purpose of doing good in the world. In fact, Sam is so committed to Effective Altruism™️ that he isn’t even giving any of his money away yet, so that it can compound and he can do even MORE good. Incredible.

Tabasco led me through the entrance (after our second eyeball scan) down a hallway with glass floors. To my astonishment, the entire ground below was stacks of one-hundred dollar bills. And it looked deep. I saw a machine that appeared to be dispensing and then piling these bricks of money in order.

“This is our Effective Altruism fund,” Tabasco told me as we continued to walk, “this is where we keep all of the money that we intend to altrue² with. Sam likes to be able to visualize just how much good we can do. This vault you’re seeing goes down roughly two miles.”

“That’s incredible. I’m surprised, a crypto company amassing such a fortune in, dare I say, fiat currency,” I remarked half-heartedly. “How much is enough though, I mean how much do you need to make the world a better place?”

Tabasco looked around as if he was making sure we were alone and then leaned into my ear,

“I’m not entirely sure but, from what I can gather, all of it.”

I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. Either way, there’s no better custodian of all the money in the world than Sam.

---

At the end of the walkway, we came to a room with another interesting layout. In the middle SBF was sitting on a beanbag facing a window that took up the entire wall. It took me a second to realize that we weren’t looking out of a window but at a hyper-realistic virtual replica of the beach outside. I later found out that Sam prefers looking at digitalized iterations of the real world in preparation for the metaverse. Behind the beanbag, employees sat in a semi-circle of office chairs looking at the back of Sam’s head. Sam was laying down, not completely flat, but in a lounge position. He had his hands together in front of his head with this fingers spread in a contemplative manner. The room was quiet.

“Let’s get started shall we?” Sam asked.

The employee in the first chair read from a piece of paper,

“I have an altruistic proposition. We have roughly $30 billion in reserves right now, I believe we could completely eradicate Malaria. Our network of contacts in sub-saharan Africa is growing and I think with sufficient coordination, we could relieve the entire continent of the disease. Thank you for your time.”

Sam remained facing forward, hands together with fingers spread. He stared up at the virtual beach scene.

“But would it be,” and then he paused for what seemed like ten seconds, “effective?” And that was it. No response, no additional commentary.

Interestingly, this same exact process played out with the next six presenters. Sam would stare at the VR beach, they would present some form of altruism, and then Sam would pause and ask if it would be effective.

The final presenter, I was told, was a new hire at the Central Center for Effective Altruism. This would be his first opportunity to impress the new boss.

“I have an altruistic proposition. There is a startup that needs funding, it’s called K-Cups for Kenya. The essence of it is this: money is raised to airdrop Keurig K-Cups on villages in Africa. These villages do not have electricity or running water. These packs of K-cups are dropped in burlap sacks from helicopters directly onto the villagers. The idea is to bring a first world invention to those less fortunate. Thank you for your time.”

And at this moment, something incredible happened. Instead of his systematic questioning of whether or not it would be effective, Sam started a mutter that soon turned into an excited crescendo,

“Dropping. Valueless. Toke…,” he cut himself off, seemingly about to say the word token(?), “Dropping. Valueless. Goods. On poor people. Who have no need for them.”

This went on for two full minutes, Sam’s brain racing while repeating the same five statements, as if he was stuck in an endless loop. The whole room sat anxiously awaiting Sam’s next move. All of a sudden, it stopped. And something happened that I later found out had never happened before at one of these meetings. Sam turned around and looked the young man who had pitched to him directly in the eyes. The other employees let out audible gasps seeing Sam sit up on his beanbag.

“And you’re sure they have absolutely no use for them?” he asked, as if the answer could not come soon enough.

“I'm sure,” replied the new employee, “these villages do not have Keurig machines. They don’t even have electricity or potable water.”

“And you’re sure these villagers are very poor, yes?”

“I’m positive.”

Sam turned back around, hands together and stared at the moving beach scene on the wall. I could feel genius in the room. I think we all felt it in that moment.

“This is, at its core, Effective Altruism Trademark,” he verbalized the word trademark in an excited proclamation.

Everyone in the room stood up and started clapping. The young employee who pitched K-Cups for Kenya stood there beaming. I had just watched history unfold. I walked over to Sam to congratulate him, to thank him for letting me witness genius.

“That was remarkable. The future is bright if it is in the hands of people like yourself.”

Sam smiled back at me, elated. He then made eye contact and hugged me, something I later found out had never happened before. He stepped back after the hug, appearing surprised at his own display of emotion. He then looked down at his beanbag, still smiling sheepishly cheek-to-cheek,

“This is my beanbag. It’s practical, reasonably priced, and utilitarian.”

---

It was only 2:30 PM but Sam ordered a party, in the metaverse of course, to celebrate the funding of K-Cups for Kenya. The guest list was a who’s-who of people who believe in a decentralized future: Marc Andreesen, Chamath, Muhammed Bin Salman, and a number of high profile Solana VCs. Hillary Clinton and George Soros even stopped by to show support for K-Cups for Kenya (I later found out that the Clinton Foundation was going to partner with SBF on this one).

As I reflect on the day I spent with SBF, I am hopeful. Hopeful for a future centralized around people who want to do good. Hopeful that people like SBF, who know what is best for crypto, will continue to defragment this industry. Hopeful that more pioneers in our space will donate to presidential campaigns to effect regulatory change on our industry. Without these larger-than-life figures, crypto has no chance. Sam Bankman-Fried is his name, and he will make the world a better place, better than anyone else.

1.

2. So committed to the cause, SBF has turned “altruism” into a verb colloquially used around FTX offices.