Signature, a big name in crypto banking, is backing away from the sector after this year’s turmoil. Almost a quarter of its $103 billion in customer deposits was crypto-industry-related as of November, The Financial Times reports.
Writing in literary magazine n+1, Laura Preston tells us what it was like to impersonate Brenda, a chatbot whose fallbacks were “poets and writers with MFAs, but there were also PhDs in performance studies and comparative literature, as well as a number of opera singers.”
Getting this talent was possible because, at $25/hr, they got paid better than they would as adjuncts in academia.
The only way to keep pace with the inbox was to go into a state of focus so intense that at times I felt on the verge of astral projection. I heard nothing and felt nothing, not even the cues of my body. I sometimes became light-headed, and it would occur to me that I hadn’t been breathing. A senior operator watched our inbox stats at all times, and if a message went unanswered for more than a few minutes, we were in for a public shaming on Slack.
Silvergate Capital, a famous crypto bank, has filed a letter with the SEC from its CEO, Alan Lane. Apparently, he is using it to correct what he terms “speculation — and misinformation — being spread by short sellers and other opportunists.”
Okay! Unfortunately for Lane, this question raises more questions than it answers, such as what his “extensive due diligence” on FTX and Alameda consisted of!
I loved this chewy piece by Zeke Faux at Bloomberg about Sam Bankman-Fried, crime, and media manipulation. Faux goes into detail about what he missed, what he noticed, and what he thinks happened at FTX. Here’s a taste:
Two people with knowledge of the matter told me that Ellison, by then the sole head of Alameda, had told her side of the story to her staff amid the crisis. Ellison said that she, Bankman-Fried and his two top lieutenants—Gary Wang and Nishad Singh—had discussed the shortfall. Instead of admitting Alameda’s failure, they decided to use FTX customer funds to cover it, according to the people. If that’s true, all four executives would’ve knowingly committed fraud.
We’ve talked a couple times about how money is just feelings, and here’s venture capitalist Charles Hudson, confirming it:
I see three dominant emotions on the capital provider side of the table right now.
Loss: Loss is one of the dominant emotions people are feeling right now – loss of paper gains, loss of expected carried interest, and a loss of optimism about the future.
Anger: Anger about having agreed to terms and prices that no longer make sense and maybe never made sense.
Regret: Regret about M&A deals that people should have taken, secondary transactions that should have been pursued, public company shares that should have been sold or distributed.
Look out below!
[Charles Hudson's Blog]
Look man, I’m not a legal expert or anything, but there’s a long and rich history of creative racketeering cases being brought in New York, and uh:
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York recently sent out a slew of requests, asking recipients to voluntarily hand over information on a list of FTX employees and associates, according to people familiar with the case.
They’re asking nicely now, but there is no doubt in my mind they’ll be back with subpoenas if they don’t get the cooperation they’re looking for. Anyway, time to talk to your lawyer!
Future, which had a run of a year and a half, was the VC firm’s transparent attempt to market their investments. (This is called “talking your book.”) They’re shutting it down. Here’s what a16z’s Margit Wennmachers said at the start:
Say I’m ‘Mr. Smarty Pants’ or a very interesting analyst, I think the question should be: Should I try to get this into The New York Times or should I get it into Future? We want to help advance the narrative about the future, and how technology shapes it. Because if we do that, our companies will have an easier time flourishing.
Turns out the media business is actually very hard!
[Business Insider]
