Jeff John Roberts on being duped by Sam Bankman-Fried

It’s not a good feeling.  In July, I sat down with Sam Bankman-Fried for over an hour at a hotel overlooking Central Park, a meeting that would be the basis for a Fortune cover story.  I was charmed by his nerdy affect as SBF, unkempt in a T-shirt and bushy hair, as he twirled a fidget spinner and rattled off tidbits about everything from M&A strategy to the macroeconomy to the importance of trust in business deals.  It was all bullshit, of course, and I didn’t see through it.

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[L]ike any good con man, SBF told us a story we wanted to hear and were eager to believe.  He styled himself as a trading genius who outgrew the elite quant firm Jane Street Capital, and who appeared to run circles around everyone else in the industry.  His pedigree was immaculate with a degree from MIT, parents who both teach at Stanford Law School, and personal connections to top power brokers in Washington, D.C.  SBF also discussed philosophy and poetry and took thoughtful positions on current issues like climate change and animal welfare—offering a more likable, human alternative to other crypto CEOs, whose libertarian views can come across as stark and unsettling.

~ Jeff John Roberts, "How SBF fooled everyone - including me," Fortune, November 14, 2022

(Roberts wrote the Fortune cover story, "The Next Warren Buffett?".)