Sam Bankman-Fried
speaker
105 appearances
3 recordings
3 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Mar 2025
Sam Bankman-Fried’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Obviously, I've only seen one piece of him, which is Diddy in prison. You know, he's been kind to people in the unit. He's been kind to me. It's also, it's a position no one wants to be in. You know, obviously he doesn't, I don't.
So where are you? Yeah, well, I'm in MDC, Brooklyn, in a little side room. How long have you been there? I've been in prison for about, oh boy, what's it been now? It's been about two years. So what's it like? It's, I mean, it's sort of dystopian. You know, the fortunate thing, the place I'm in, I'm not in sort of I'm not in physical danger.
And frankly, a lot of the staff, they're trying to be helpful. They're trying to do what they can, given the constraints. You know, no one wants to be in prison.
And you can imagine what happens when you take sort of 40 people, you know, all of them have been at least charged with crimes and lock them in a single room for years on end and throw out the key, which is the most trivial things become all that people have left to care about.
Not of the sort of acute kind, like I haven't had, you know, I haven't been attacked or anything like that. I've had a lot of logistical problems. And, you know, the biggest, frankly, was when I was on trial, trying to get access to legal work was nearly impossible. I would, you know, on a typical trial day, they'd wake me up at 4 a.m.
I'd spend five hours in various buses, vans, and holding cells until my trial started in the morning, then trial straight through to 5 p.m., another four hours in holding cells and vans, you know, and get back at 9 p.m. way after any access to legal work was cut off for the day. So that was the biggest problem.
Well, it's a really good question because there's not a whole lot to do in person. I read books. I've started reading novels again. I play some chess. And I work on my legal case to the extent I can. There's appeal. There are other things. I do what work I can from in here on that. But the lack of other meaningful things to spend my time on is one of the most –
kind of soul-crushing things about prison.
You know, I've had a lot of time to reflect on how to communicate. And in retrospect, you know, I think I was not effective at communicating, especially when the crisis first hit and, you know, in the months thereafter. I made a mistake I often make. I get swept up in details and forget to meet the bigger picture.
No, I wasn't. But I was... my mind was racing because there were, you know, a billion things to keep track of. You know, we sort of typically I'd have, and back when I was running FTX, you know, I'd go on to have an interview, but, you know, while on the interview, there'd be two issues I'd have to resolve with the company. So I'd have sort of one eye on Slack open, responding to messages.
And I knew that I had something else I had to do right after the interview that I hadn't had time to prepare for yet that I was sort of preparing for in the back of my mind.
Yeah, oh, it is. I... I prefer having the digital world. You know, at the end of the day, like, it's, but I will say that when I say that it's less from a perspective of, like, enjoyment or, you know, pleasure or leisure, and it's more from a perspective of productivity and ability to have impact in the world.
You know, from that perspective, it's so hard to do anything when you don't have the digital world.
He is. He is. And it's, I don't know, you know, he's been kind. I've made some friends. It's a weird environment. You know, it's sort of a combination of a few other high-profile cases and a lot of, you know, ex-gangsters or sort of, you know, alleged ex-gangsters. Yes.
I... you know, obviously I've, I've only seen one, one piece of him, which is, you know, did he in prison and, you know, he's been kind to people in the unit. He's been kind to me. It's also, it's, it's a position no one wants to be in, you know, obviously he doesn't, I don't, as you said, it's, it's kind of a soul crushing place for the world in general. And yeah,
You know, what we see are just the people that that are around us on the inside rather than. Yeah, we are on the outside.
Well, it's a really interesting question. And if. Of course, some of them, I think, are thinking like, wow, this is sort of a big opportunity, like, you know, to meet people they wouldn't otherwise get to meet, which is It shocked me the first time I heard that. It makes sense from their perspective, but boys, I know not how I think about prison. Sorry. Sorry to laugh.
No, that's such a good... I bet it's not how you think about it. No. It's not. And laughing is all you can do sometimes. There's no better alternative. They're good at chess. That's one thing I learned. Former armed robbers who... don't speak English, and, you know, probably didn't graduate middle school. A surprising number of them are, like, fairly good at chess.
Like, you know, not, I'm not saying they're grandmasters, but, like, you know, I lose games to them all the time. I was not expecting that.
Well, you know, I would say it's, Part of a larger whole, which, you know, it's one of the most sort of profound things that I've come to learn over my life, but still something I don't fully understand, which is obviously, you know, what we call intelligence or IQ or whatever. It matters. It's important. Working hard matters. It's important.
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