At the Sam Bankman-Fried Trial, It’s Clear FTX’s Collapse Was No Accident

I’m just back at my desk after spending two days in court at the Sam Bankman-Fried trial. The downtown Manhattan courthouse is just a few stops away on the subway, and I figured I’d stop by to see Caroline Ellison, Alameda Research’s ex-CEO and Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend, testify about his alleged crimes. It was more revelatory than expected.

Bankman-Fried’s empire — which spanned FTX and Alameda — lost billions of customer money without dispute, but there’s a narrative that his simple carelessness might’ve been at fault. It was a whoopsie, you could say, from a guy with good intentions. High-profile writers including Michael Lewis seemed to buy the theory, and Bankman-Fried’s lawyers played off it.