WEBVTT - Sam Bankman-Fried 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.600 One of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world of 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:10.280 cryptocurrency is Sam Bankman Freed. He's created the ft x platform, 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:13.480 and that platform has been so successful in the cryptocurrency 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.079 world that Sam has become one of the wealthiest men 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.360 in the world. As a result of this, he's now 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.479 focusing a lot of his energy on philanthropy. I sat 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.560 down with him at the Bloomberg headquarters in New York 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.319 recently to talk about the future of crypto and his 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.120 desire to change the world to make it a better place. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.360 So is crypto down for the count or is it 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.280 coming back? I think it's coming back. And obviously a 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:36.680 lot of this is just going to have to the 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.560 macro environment. You know, if we see markets crash again, 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:41.559 we're going to see crypto crash along with it. If 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:43.440 we see a market recovery, we're going to see a 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.320 crypto recovery along with it. But I think this is, 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:48.480 you know, it's flushed out a lot of the things 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:50.920 that needed to be flushed out from the crypto space anyway. 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:56.720 Right when the when May of this began, I think 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.800 a meltdown in tech values and also crypto. Did you 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:02.560 get nervous that all of a sudden the world was 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.360 going to fall apart. Not super nervous, It's like it 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:08.640 was definitely gonna be a rocky road for the industry. 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:10.880 And you know, you saw some businesses blow up when 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.240 bitcoin hit twenty k. Um. I think you know, if 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.120 we saw things meltdown much further than they did, right, 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.600 if we saw you know, nazac trop from here in 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.319 bitcoin go down to ten k per token, I think 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.559 you would see another round of pain for the industry 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.200 that would potentially be more of a medium to long 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:30.759 term problem. So it didn't give you any gray hair 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.679 I can see, so oh well a little bit, but 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.760 you know I plucked those out to keep up appearances. Um. 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.479 So let me ask you this. When the bitcoin world 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:41.160 was kind of going down a bit, I think a 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.960 bitcoin peaked at sixty one or something. Now it's at 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.400 as low as when I did. Um, a lot of 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.480 other cryptocurrencies went down as well. Um, you bailed out 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.640 some companies. What money did you use to do that? 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.240 So there there are a few different versions of it, 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.320 and um, you know, one piece of this was basically 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.880 FTX balance sheet, like we keep our corporate cash just 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.799 in dollars and so you know, we've raised a few 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.640 billion dollars over the course of the last last couple 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.560 of years and we're profitable business. Um. Now we we've 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:18.440 also done some acquisitions which partially balances that out, but 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:20.640 you know, we had some some cash left and with 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.480 the Block five you know deal for instance, UM that 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.720 was on f I think f x USS balance sheet. 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.080 Well on Wall Street has had its problems early in 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.200 the twentieth century, um shape Mr JP Morgan himself. Yeah, 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:35.639 I used to go out and say I'm going to 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:37.880 bail out certain companies and you were called the JP 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.640 Morgan crypto. Does that bother you or not? It doesn't 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:43.320 bother me too much. I mean think it's something I 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:45.680 thought was the right thing for the industry. And you know, 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.320 are very explicit mandate that we sort of gave to 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.320 the team of people working on this was your goal 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.960 is not to make a fortune for us doing this, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.560 like your goal is to do okay deals. Your goals 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:58.920 for us to knock get our faces ripped off. But 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.320 contingent on that, you know, do as much as we 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.120 can to bail out the industry, and that that was 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.520 the higher goal, was trying to backstop places rather than 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.679 maximizing on on these deals. No, I would have loved 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:11.480 other people to do it, Like I think I've been great. 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.040 So you went in, you bought some companies where those 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:18.320 investments profitable. I mixed is basically the answer. I think 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:19.840 some are going to turn out to be profitable, some 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.600 won't be, like one of them, certainly. I mean with Voyager, 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.239 I think, you know, there's seventy million dollars there that 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.359 that that we put in that I'm not sure ever 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.240 seeing that seventy million again. And so you know, we 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:32.520 actually make snap judgment calls, and we made them such 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.080 that if things turned out well, they'd be good investments, 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.480 and if they turned out badly, they'd be bad investments. 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:39.680 But we sort of limited the amount that we could 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.160 lose from it. Why if so many young people seem 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:44.119 so attracted to crypto. I mean, I know the people 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:45.520 from all over the world, of all ages, but it 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:49.000 seems like young people particularly are very interested. Why is that? Yeah, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:50.800 I mean, partially, it's a new thing that's going to 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.520 appeal to younger people. But I think another aspect of 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.040 this is if you're you know, twenty one years old 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.680 and you're trying to get access to markets you want 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.400 to be able to to train aid to invest. You 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.440 can sign up for an account on the Crypto Exchange 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:05.800 and get full market access. If you try and get 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.920 that same level access in equities and commodities, you can't 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.840 get it. You're gonna end up with heavily intermediated access 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:16.640 that has like pretty limited amounts of real interactiveness, limited 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:19.680 amounts of liquidity, limited amounts of size, limited amounts of 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.159 market data. And so I think for a you know, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.560 natively digital generation that's looking to take more control of 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:27.719 their finances actually being able to do it with crypto. 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.120 It is a big, big difference. So in your own case, 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.040 you got involved with crypto at what age I was, boy, 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.680 I guess there's twenty five or so. And did you 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.520 ever imagine that at when you got involved you would 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:42.400 now be one of the most important people in the 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.680 crypto world. I have become a multi billionaire. No. Well no, 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.599 although the crypto worlds also grown quite a bit since 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.080 I got involved. But I was surprised at how big, 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:56.839 how how big things you're in general, how big you know, 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:58.760 I was able to grow things. I thought there was 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.119 a chance of it, like I did see pretty high upside. 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.920 When I got involved, I was surprised that we actually 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.680 got there. So today you're running ft actually start ft 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.919 X in what year? And what does it actually do? 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.640 So it's a encryptocurrency exchanges is what we call it. 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.279 But really it's a combination of a few different businesses. 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:19.960 If you compare it to traditional finance, right, you have 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.479 you know, the New York Stock Exchange, y nastact, ice 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.040 and C and me as the exchanges and that that's 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.719 where bids and offers cross. But you don't go to 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.599 New York Stock Exchange dot com to send an order there. 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.320 They are primarily the sort of back end trading infrastructure. 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:38.440 Separately have brokerages, fcms and other businesses that sat in 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.479 the front that you know, consumers access, and then you 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.240 have different settlement and sort of custody parties sitting in 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.120 the middle. There in crypto, all of that gets squashed 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.359 traditionally into one entity. And so what what FTX is 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.120 it's sort of all of those things. It's a back 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.320 end you know, match engine, risk engine, custody system. It's 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:01.000 a front end mobile app, website, API and everything in between, 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:02.680 so that you know, if you want to buy or 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:04.280 sell a bit cooin. You can go to ft x 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.520 dot com and you know, we offer all the services 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.400 necessary to do that except for buying and selling. So 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.000 you got involved because you thought it would be in 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.320 a creative new area to to get involved with. But 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.960 was making a lot of money at one of your goals? Yeah? 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:20.760 It was. And in particular, when I was in college, 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:22.200 I started went to a lot of charities that I 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.120 really respected and said, Hey, what can I do to 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.560 help you guys out, Like, do you want me to 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:29.880 work for you? And they basically not really. I mean 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.640 you could, but they'd be kind of mediocre. Um. You 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:34.400 know what they say is they they'd rather my money 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.560 than than my time. And so I ended up going 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:38.760 on to Wall Street and then getting involved, you know, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.600 with crypto, with the goal of donating what I made. 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.880 So let's go back to your youth. Not that you're old, 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.640 now you're how old? Thirty years old? Thirty years old? 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.880 So let's go back to let's say when you were 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.480 growing up. You grew up in California on Stanford campus, 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:57.000 and your parents were both professors at Stanford Law School. Yeah, 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:03.040 and one's name was Professor Freed and one is professor Bankman. 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.760 So whose idea was it to combine the two into 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.120 one name. I think they kind of both had the idea. 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.080 I think there's a little bit hashing out of exactly 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:12.080 what that would look like. Would it be Bankman freed? 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.960 Would I be free bankman um? But I think they 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.400 kind of mutually came to that decision. So if you 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:21.840 got married someday and you yeah, so you'd have two hyphens, right, well, 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.120 especially if if I'm married someone with a hyphenated last name, 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.320 right then you've got four names. I think at that 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.360 point we just have to roll a die and choose one. 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.560 Oh wow, Okay, so you've thought about that. Yeah, I 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:34.280 mean you can also just choose a totally new name. 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:36.960 But would it be particularly attracted to find somebody had 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:39.800 a hyphenated name or not? Really? Oh, I think it 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.360 would be. It would be worth one good story. That's 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.080 why I get out of it. On the scale if 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.520 life partner is not the most important criteria. Okay, So 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.680 you're growing up, your parents are distinguished professors at Stanford 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.320 Law School. Were you interested in the law at any 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.720 point or not not at all? Growing up? I think 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.120 I'd become more interested in it recently, but you know, 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:00.240 and when it's growing up, my parents told me you 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.680 can do whatever you want with your life. We don't 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.080 particularly recommend that you become a lawyer, but you know, 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:07.160 you're welcome to do whatever you want. So we were 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:08.960 a bit of a math prodigy when you were younger. 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.040 I was certainly better at math than I was at 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.960 at a reading or literature. So you went to M 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.160 I T. Yep. And when you got there, did you 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:18.960 find that people were smarter than your thought or not 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.360 as smart as you thought? I think smarter than I thought. 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.160 I think maybe some part of me had hoped that 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.040 I would, you know, be able to live a life 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.120 where I, you know, was always clearly sort of like 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.240 you know, uh, an outlier on that, And I think 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.520 M I T. Taught me that wasn't true. That there 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.280 were a lot of other really smart people in the world, um, 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:42.520 and you know, was really interesting and cool getting to 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:44.280 know them. So when you get the M I T. 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:45.880 Did just say, Look, I'm going to go out and 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.640 become a multi billionaire before I'm thirty. No, I had 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:50.240 no idea what was gonna do. I mean, I I 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:52.240 weekly thought I was going to become a professor, not 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:54.960 for any particular reason. I realized I didn't really like 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.480 academia when I was there, and that left me kind 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.800 of a little bit lost about what I would actually 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.640 do with my life. So what did you major in physics? Technically? 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.080 I I took about the bare minimum that you could imagine. 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.200 It took maybe seven or eight physics classes my whole 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.760 time there. So what did you really take courses in math? 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:12.920 Or I took some my minor in math, but I 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.120 took a kind of popourri of classes, um, you know, 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.960 some policy classes, some econ, some psychology, But really I 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.360 also didn't take that many classes and and sort of 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:24.400 got a little burnt out of academia. And so when 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:26.800 you graduated, what did your parents say you're to you 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.120 about what you should do upon graduation. I mean mostly 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:31.720 they said a should do what I wanted, and what, 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.319 like I thought was whatever I thought would be exciting, 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:36.640 and you know, they're going to support me with whatever. 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.840 But I, you know, going to like junior year of college, 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:42.280 I had no idea what that was going to be. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.040 Always sort of had just ruled out or soft ruled 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.440 out academia and didn't know what was going to replace it. 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.559 I ended up interning at Jane Street, a finance firm, 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.960 after my junior year, and I really liked it there 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.360 and was starting to chart a path forward of donating money. Okay, 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:01.880 so did you do upon graduation? You took a job 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.199 in finance? Yep, went back to Jane Street work there 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.760 full time. And what did they do? They're quant trading firms. 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.439 So I was on the internationally t F desk. Basically 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.880 that means you have a US listed fund that owns 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.400 a lot of foreign stocks. So you know, you could 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.600 look at e m U S listed ETF that owns 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.880 a bunch of emerging market companies, um, you know across 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:27.160 uh Asia, across lot M, and you know a few 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:31.720 places in Europe. And it's basically a combination of like modeling, 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.319 computer trading, and real time intuition kind of jumbled together. 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:37.840 And how many years were you doing that? About three 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:39.560 three and a half years, all right? Then after that 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:41.280 you said I'm going to go start something in the 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:45.080 crypto world. Not quite so I left in late in 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.680 Let's says fall, roughly, not sure what it was actually 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.280 going to do next. What I'd really done was sort 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.480 of written down like twelve things I could do with 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.080 my life, and I felt like a lot of them 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.000 were compelling, and I didn't know what was going to 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.680 be best, but that you know, the only way to 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.200 try would be to to to leave and just dive 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.320 into some of them. And so you started your own company. 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.079 What was it called? So Alameda Research is the first 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:10.960 company started up, and it was a crypto quand trading firm. 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.000 And you know the sort of founding if it was 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.880 basically well, you know, bitcoin was trading on a lot 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:17.920 of different crypto exchanges and it was not trading at 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:19.600 the same price on all of them. So you might 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.160 see it training for ten dollars on coin base and 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:26.160 ten tho on bit stamp, and you know, in theory 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:28.920 there's a one percent arbitrage to do their trading those 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.560 against each other, all right, So she decided to mirror 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:35.960 less trade bitcoin or other cryptos and take some arbitrage advantage. 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.120 And it was a profit of white presume, Yep, it was. 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.720 It was a huge amount of logistical work, like finding 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.000 the trades was the easy part. The hard part was 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.720 getting the account sending wire transfer, was opening up entities 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.440 and all of the other sort of operational work that 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.400 went into actually being able to execute normally. Then people 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:54.960 start companies, they get venture capital money, and those venture 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:56.840 capital's own a piece of it. Did you get venture 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.280 capital money? Not for Alameda? And part of this was, 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:01.920 you know, we talked with some VC firms and our 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.679 petrits basically, hey guys, good news. A bunch of twenty 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.040 five year old UM, we don't really know what a 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.240 big poin is, but we're trading it. Also, this is 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:13.040 all crypto um and uh, you know, we got a 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.679 startup together. None of us has run a company before, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.200 and we'd like a hundred million dollars by next Tuesday. Ideally. 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.719 It was not a very compelling pitch turned down. Oh yeah, 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:25.360 I mean no one. You know people are like, oh 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.400 that's so cool, like I hope you find success, and 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:30.520 you know, no one was. And it's what we ended 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.600 up doing is basically cobbling together lines of credit and 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.240 other things from various sources, trying to sort of snowball 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.200 and be able to to to build on ourselves. Okay, 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.040 so after that, you've started another company, f t X. Yeah, 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.240 Now what is ft X do that your first company 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.880 didn't do? So Alameda is buying and selling like it's 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.880 trading for its own book and you know, trying to 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.760 to do profitable trades. F t X you can think 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.920 of it as infrastructure. It's markets infrastructure, so everything that 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.360 sits between a buyer and a seller. So ft X 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.160 doesn't buy in cell itself. Um, but it's a venue 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.400 where people can go to trade crypto and and you 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.600 know that that aims to solve sort of every piece 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:11.400 in between those two parties from you know, the clearing 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.600 and settlement and custody, the you know, anti money laundering. 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.320 You know, your customer policy is the compliance uh you know, 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.880 the match engine, the risk engine, the front end and 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.320 everything else. Right, So why does somebody come to ft 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:24.160 X and use you as opposed to one of the 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.160 other uh similar exchanges. Yeah, I mean, you know, to 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.600 each his own. But the things that I think we've 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:34.000 particularly specialized and been good at one, we've been pretty 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.400 you know, fast moving and innovative, you know, where a 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.880 relatively new venue. But we've put a lot of thought 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.080 into exactly how our products are designed. Where's the company based. 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.760 So we have we have a lot of offices for 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.360 regulatory reasons. So as an example, we have a new 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.160 Tokyo office with a bunch of people in it because 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.360 we now have a jfs A Type one financial services 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:59.160 license there. So we have like little bases in a 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.200 number of the Jersey dictions that we are licensed and 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:05.040 regulated in. But our biggest offices in the United States, 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.040 in Chicago and outside the United States is NASA on 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.760 the Bahamas, Right, So you live in NASA and is 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.160 that a tough place to live? It's it's really tough. 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.240 It's a hard life. And so how do you put 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.480 up with the pleasure of going to the beach or 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.720 not versus working? I'm uh, you know, for better or 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.600 for worse, not the person most tempted in the world 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:26.280 to go to the beach. I enjoy it being there. 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.280 I like going there once every couple of months, but 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:30.760 I don't I don't spend a lot of time outside. 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:32.440 I'm pretty much just in the office. So you don't 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:34.560 look like you have a tan or anything. No, not 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.960 so much. So what is your interest in philanthropy? You're 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:39.960 one of the youngest people to sign the Giving Pledge 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.440 you were at the most recent meeting. What propelled you 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.520 to do that? It's always been in theory of goal 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:47.160 of mine to figure out how it can have positive 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.280 impact on the world, and how it can have the 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.560 biggest possible impact, not just you know, some some random 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.280 amount of it. I didn't actually put that into action 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.320 for a little while, but when I got to college, 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.200 I sort of came to terms with the fact that 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.680 there were really things that I could do that would 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.520 have impact, that it was worth doing those, and then 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.680 started to think more critically about what should I do 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:09.880 with my life that would be the best for the world, Like, 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.320 what what would maximize that? What is effective altruism, which 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.720 is something you have pursued. Yeah, so the effect of 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.000 altruist community is the community people doing basically that, looking at, 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.760 you know, how can you maximize your positive impact on 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:24.560 the world? What should you actually do with your life? 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:26.720 And it looks at it both from the lens of like, 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.360 you know, should you be you know, earning TV, which 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.520 is say, making money with the goal of donating it 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.440 to effective causes? Um. Also you know, it looks at, 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.280 you know, should you be working directly for some of 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.480 these foundations. In addition to that side, it also looks at, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.160 you know, what causes are the most impactful? Right? Should 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.360 you be thinking about global poverty, about you know, animal welfare, 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.080 about climate change, about pandemics, like what are the areas 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.480 that are most impactful, you know, to focus on. And 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.080 I got involved in the community in college and it's 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.240 been a really big part of how I've decided what 0:15:58.280 --> 0:15:59.600 to do with my life. What do you hope your 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.160 impact society is. I mean, in the end, obviously there's 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.560 an impact from the day to day work. UM hoping 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.000 to make financial markets more efficient, more inclusive, you know, 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.560 from what I do with my donations. We'll see in 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:11.920 the end, but you know, right now, I think I 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.720 would say biggest things like getting the world to a 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.160 place where we're actually ready for the next pandemic, even 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.600 if it's nasty, even if it's bioengineered, that we can 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:22.560 shrug it off the way we failed to shrug off 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.640 covid UM would be one of the primary goals. And 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.840 I think, you know, helping DC become more constructive UM 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.160 is a big goal. So very often when people get wealthy, 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.200 they buy fancy suits and so forth. You haven't gone 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.640 to that phase yet, right, Not so much. Your outfit 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.760 is pretty much standard. It's some kind of T shirt, shorts, 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.160 tennis shoes. Is that what you wear all the time 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.240 When I go to Washington, d C. I have a 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.760 suit there because I have to wear it on the hill. 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.560 But outside of that, Yeah, So you're thinking of buying 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.200 a house to live in or where do you live? So? 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:58.480 I live in uh, the nine nine colleagues and I 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:02.560 bought a large apartment together near office that that that 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:05.360 that we live in. UM and I don't. I mean, 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:07.480 you know, I'm sort of really fortunate to be able 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.480 to have a really comfortable life and not have to 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.920 worry ever about, you know, money for myself. But I'm 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:18.119 not particularly excited, you know, to to to dive into luxury. 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.919 I'm not excited about yachts. UM and I both think 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:23.320 it's not what I should do with my money. I 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:24.719 think I should be thinking about how I can help 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.280 the world with it. And also just isn't who I am. 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.520 So do you go to Washington much to lobby with 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.320 members of Congress and or regulators? And is an uplifting 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:35.840 experience for you? It's so, I I go a lot. 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:37.919 I'm there probably every few weeks, and it's been a 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.119 surprisingly uplifting experience. I was not expecting that I was 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.320 expecting it to be a real slog and I think 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.720 it could have been in a slightly different universe where 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.440 you saw continued wards going on between regulators and the industry. 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:52.880 What we've tried really hard to do over the last 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:54.560 year is to get the industry to a place where 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:59.880 it is happy to accept sensible regulation. And I think 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.840 that's that's helped turn down the volume a little bit 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.600 on the arguments and due to a place where most 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.679 people are honestly trying to engage on what's the important 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.640 federal oversight that we need to give to the industry. 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:12.320 How can we do that in a way that makes 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.840 sense given how the industry operates. The crypto industry seems 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.000 to want to be regulated by the CFTC and some 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.160 people want the SEC to be the principal regulator. UH, 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.199 do you have a view on this? So in the end, 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.359 both are going to be regulators. And you know, the 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:28.800 CFTC is going to regulate commodity future, so it's going 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:33.280 to regulate very likely futures on tokens that are not securities. 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.320 The SEC is very likely going to end up regulating 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:41.520