Sequoia Capital on Sam Bankman-Fried's upbringing

SBF is from the Bay Area—the eldest son of two Stanford law professors, Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried.  His parents raised him and his siblings utilitarian—in the same way one might be brought up Unitarian—amid dinner-table debates about the greatest good for the greatest number.  One of SBF’s formative moments came at age 12, when he was weighing arguments, pro and con, around the abortion debate.  A rights-based theorist might argue that there aren’t really any discontinuous differences as a fetus becomes a child (and thus fetus murder is essentially child murder).  The utilitarian argument compares the consequences of each.  The loss of an actual child’s life—a life in which a great deal of parental and societal resources have been invested—is much more consequential than the loss of a potential life, in utero.  And thus, to a utilitarian, abortion looks more like birth control than like murder.  SBF’s application of utilitarianism helped him resolve some nagging doubts he had about the ethics of abortion.  It made him comfortable being pro-choice—as his friends, family, and peers were.  He saw the essential rightness of his philosophical faith.

~ Sequoia Capital, "Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex - And Maybe You Should Too," September 22, 2022

Sequoia Capital on its initial investment in FTX

Alameda was not immune to the exchange-level shenanigans that gave crypto as a whole its sleazy reputation.  But FTX had an ambition to change that.  It was built to be the exchange traders could count on. SBF needed to get the word out.  He wanted FTX to be known as the respectable face of crypto.  This required ad campaigns, sponsorship deals, a charitable wing—and a war chest to pay for it all. 

FTX did need money, after all.  And it needed that money from credible sources so it could continue to distinguish itself from the bottom-feeders who came to crypto to fleece the suckers.  So, in the summer of 2021, when FTX started to raise its Series B from a who’s who of Silicon Valley VCs, [Sequoia partners Michelle] Bailhe and [Alfred] Lin hit the “Don’t Panic” button.  “Embarrassingly, we had never tried to reach out to Sam, because we figured he didn’t need us,” Bailhe admits.  “I thought they were just minting money and had absolutely no need for investors.”  Learning otherwise, they quickly contacted SBF and organized a last-minute Zoom call between him and the partners at Sequoia—at four California time on a hot July Friday afternoon.  Bailhe was adamant, putting her reputation with the other partners on the line: “I’m like, ‘No, it’s worth it. Cancel your afternoon.’”

~ Sequoia Capital, "Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex - And Maybe You Should Too," September 22, 2022

(The account is based on an article by journalist Adam Fisher, commissioned by Sequoia.  The article, published last September, was posted on the firm's website under "We help the daring build legendary companies.”  It has since been removed.)

Sequoia Capital on how William MacAskill and Sam Bankman-Fried met

MacAskill was visiting MIT in search of volunteers willing to sign on to his earn-to-give program.  At a café table in Cambridge, Massachusetts, MacAskill laid out his idea as if it were a business plan: a strategic investment with a return measured in human lives.  The opportunity was big, MacAskill argued, because, in the developing world, life was still unconscionably cheap.  Just do the math: At $2,000 per life, a million dollars could save 500 people, a billion could save half a million, and, by extension, a trillion could theoretically save half a billion humans from a miserable death. 

MacAskill couldn’t have hoped for a better recruit.  Not only was SBF raised in the Bay Area as a utilitarian, but he’d already been inspired by Peter Singer to take moral action.  During his freshman year, SBF went vegan and organized a campaign against factory farming.  As a junior, he was wondering what to do with his life. And MacAskill—Singer’s philosophical heir—had the answer: The best way for him to maximize good in the world would be to maximize his wealth. 

SBF listened, nodding, as MacAskill made his pitch.  The earn-to-give logic was airtight.  It was, SBF realized, applied utilitarianism.  Knowing what he had to do, SBF simply said, “Yep. That makes sense.”  But, right there, between a bright yellow sunshade and the crumb-strewn red-brick floor, SBF’s purpose in life was set: He was going to get filthy rich, for charity’s sake.  All the rest was merely execution risk.

~ "Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex - And Maybe You Should Too," Sequoia Capital, September 22, 2022

(The account is based on an article by journalist Adam Fisher, commissioned by Sequoia.  The article, published last September, was posted on the firm's website under "We help the daring build legendary companies.”  It has since been removed.)