This timeline will be going in chronological order, from current and most recent developments to the very beginning. All times are in Pacific Standard Time. I will be using a wide variety of emojis, including 🚩 for red flags we should have looked out for, 🐥 for a Tweet, 📈 to represent funding rounds.

Current: SBF is still in the Bahamas. The Bahamas Government admitted they ordered SBF to direct the $600+ million that was “hacked” to cold storage.

https://decrypt.co/115008/ftx-bankruptcy-jurisdiction-fight-bahamas-regulator-directed-sbf-asset-move

2021-now, Alleged But Not Proven: The rift between Binance and FTX as a result of the breakup increases due to competition. SBF, with his connections in the media, may have planted hit pieces on CZ, leading to more negative press surrounding Binance. The Binance money laundering story may have been one of them.

https://www.binance.com/en/blog/ecosystem/crypto-and-money-laundering-an-inconvenient-truth-421499824684903925

November 17, 2022: The bankruptcy court filings in the state of Delaware are officially revealed. There is a serious level of irresponsibility in running the business. Even the ex-Enron CEO John Ray III admits to not having seen this level of corporate failure.

https://twitter.com/GRDecter/status/1593272102047580161

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/FTXFILING.pdf

November 16, 2022: An interview with Vox reveals a serious psychopathic nature of SBF. He admits to supporting current socially progressive ideas simply to win. Additionally, he doesn’t actually believe regulations help, further revealing he was simply expressing support for regulations to curry political favor.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-cryptocurrency-effective-altruism-crypto-bahamas-philanthropy

November 14, 2022: The New York Times releases an article about FTX and how SBF’s empire collapsed. The relatively light-sounding article, especially compared to its harsher treatment of other tech companies, only fuels more suspicion of SBF’s connections with the media and powerful politicians.

Questions arise from SBF’s donations to the Democratic party to his parent’s connections to powerful regulators like SEC’s Gary Gensler. Additionally, this seems to be a win for citizen-journalism, as players like Cobie and Autism Capital continue to shed useful information on the situation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/technology/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-crypto-bankruptcy.html

November 13, 2022: I believe this is the time when SBF began to formally “go total berzerk”, as if the simple apology for losing customer funds weren’t enough. This was when the cryptic Tweets started coming out:

https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1591989554881658880

November 11-12, 2022: An alleged “hack” of FTX drains up to $600 million worth of customer funds, nowhere to be seen again. At that point in time, I personally believed it was a malicious inside job of some kind.

https://twitter.com/Mudit__Gupta/status/1591297558890295297

November 11, 2022: FTX, FTX US, and Alameda formally file for bankruptcy. SBF steps down, and ex-Enron CEO John Ray III steps into his shoes as CEO of FTX.

https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1591089317300293636

November 10, 2022, 6:13 AM: SBF apologizes.

https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1590709166515310593

November 9, 2022, 1:00 PM: Binance decides not to acquire FTX after due-diligence.

https://twitter.com/binance/status/1590449161069268992

November 8, 2022: Cobie livestreams about the FTX situation along with Do Kwon and Martin Shkreli.

November 8, 2022, 8:09 AM: Binance offers to acquire FTX after a full due-diligence.

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1590013613586411520

November 7, 2022, 1:38 PM: A now-deleted Tweet shows SBF saying that FTX is fine and that assets are fine, in an attempt to appease customers.

There was some speculation that only the FTX International customers were affected and not the ones in the US. This would, however, be proven false very quickly.

https://twitter.com/CryptoSlash5/status/1590235124977000449?s=20&t=GBge5g28RHhKGRz0xRWUQQ

November 6-7, 2022: FTX pauses withdrawals. Hard to determine at what time.

November 6, 2022, 8:03 AM: Alameda Research CEO offers to buy Binance’s position at 22 a token, which was approximately the market value at the time. This suggests a lower limit and a certain amount of desperation. 🚩

https://twitter.com/carolinecapital/status/1589287457975304193

November 6, 2022, 7:47 AM: Binance liquidates remaining FTT tokens. CZ suggests it may have to do with the support for controversial regulation.

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1589283421704290306

November 4, 2022: Another blogpost from Dirty Bubble Media, titled “Is Alameda Research Insolvent”, is dropped. Many people suspect this post led to CZ liquidating Binance’s FTT treasury.

It demonstrates that the FTT token was artificially pumped by FTX buying it with customer’s assets, then having those gains marked on their balance sheet. These positive gains would be picked up by investors (like pension funds), who would then give out loans that are collateralized by said tokens. These loans would then be used to donate money to politicians, secure naming rights, etc.

https://dirtybubblemedia.substack.com/p/is-alameda-research-insolvent

November 2, 2022: A Coindesk article suggests that a leaked FTX balance sheet shows an unusual level of closeness between FTX and Alameda Research. This only fuels more suspicion, since Alameda was known to invest in highly skeptical projects with little or negative return.

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/02/divisions-in-sam-bankman-frieds-crypto-empire-blur-on-his-trading-titan-alamedas-balance-sheet/

October 28, 2022: SBF goes on Bankless with ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees to debate the regulations surrounding crypto. Sam’s incoherence and lack of professionalism only fuels more distrust in FTX. 🚩

October 19, 2022: SBF expresses his support for the DCCPA on Twitter, a series of crypto regulations that has major implications on DeFi usage in the USA. His opinions are objected by several prominent crypto community members, including the Bankless team. 🚩 🐥

https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1582835426116575235

Bankless’s response:

https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1582842277948362753

September 2022: FTX US President Brett Harrison steps down, for no clearly stated reason. 🚩

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ftx-president-brett-harrison-steps-down-2022-09-27/

August 2022: Sam Trabucco, Alameda Research’s Co-CEO, steps down for no stated reason. 🚩

https://blockworks.co/news/top-alameda-exec-steps-down

July 2022: BlockFi is in trouble. Once again, SBF offers to buy them out. As Brian Armstrong mentioned on the All-In Podcast, this could also be a 🚩, since it suggests recklessness on Sam’s part, as well as suspicion on where his money came from.

June 2022: In the aftermath of the LUNA collapse, crypto markets begin to take a steeper dive. Coinbase announces layoffs of 18% across teams. Exchanges Celsius and Voyager announce bankruptcy. SBF offers to bail them out. Alameda had already committed $500 million to financing Voyager.

January-May 2022: In the meantime, while FTX was gaining attention, Alameda Research was placing extremely risky bets on speculative assets. 🚩 They had lost $500 million in capital from Magic Internet Money and were also heavily investing in the Luna ecosystem, which ended up collapsing in May of 2022.

https://stormgain.com/blog/luna-falls-due-wonderland-scandal

January 2022: 📈 FTX raises a $400 million series C from Softbank Vision Fund and Temasek. Now valued at its peak of $32 billion.

This fundraise reveals how many “trusted” players actually believed in him, from Sequoia to the Singapore government.

https://trungphan.substack.com/p/ftx-the-32b-implosion

December 2021: 🐥 SBF Tweets about the roadmap for FTX and the crypto industry as a whole, including a possible regime for regulations. This can be seen as another 🚩, since it signifies a more regulatory perspective on the crypto industry than most other crypto builders. While companies like Coinbase at the time were struggling with the SEC, SBF’s FTX were opening up the idea of working with said regulators.

One theory as to why SBF had such different opinions was that he viewed crypto from a purely trading and profit maximization perspective. Many builders like Brian Armstrong and Ryan Selkis believe in crypto’s utility: The ability for individuals to economically empower themselves by using a currency not controlled by any cabal or government. But SBF saw more of the market making side of things. Such regulations would be more beneficial to his business.

https://twitter.com/sbf_ftx/status/1475567126165532676

October 2021: 📈 FTX raises a $420.7 million series B from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Now valued at $25 billion.

July 27, 2021: Binance distance itself from FTX. In exchange for ownership of the company, Binance now has a treasury of FTT tokens.

https://decrypt.co/76810/behind-the-breakup-of-ftx-and-binance

July 2021: 📈 FTX raises a $1 billion series B from Sequoia. Now valued at $18 billion dollars. A now-archived part of the Sequoia website shows a now-regrettable article about SBF’s “savior complex”.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221109230422/https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlight/

June 2021: FTX fully acquires the naming rights to an arena in Miami, FL, after spending $135 million.

October 2020: The US Presidential Election. FTX is one of the largest donors to the Biden 2020 campaign. Possible 🚩 given this may be seen as a way to curry favor from a new presidential administration.

https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/joe-biden/contributors?id=N00001669

2020: The COVID-19 pandemic causes an increase in activities from home, and with the combination of stimulus checks printed from several governments, interest in crypto activity increases. FTX benefits, and global volume on the exchange increases.

https://blog.ftx.com/blog/mid_year_review_2021/

January 2020: FTT Token whitepaper released. The goal of FTT was to serve as a backbone of FTX, where customers who hold FTT can get discounted tx fees and can be used as collateral for future positions.

https://whitepaper.io/document/502/ftx-token-whitepaper

From the Etherscan smart contracts, it seems like a standard ERC-20, without any additional modifications.

https://etherscan.io/token/0x50d1c9771902476076ecfc8b2a83ad6b9355a4c9#code

December 2019: 📈 FTX raises a corporate round from Binance. Binance officially has a percentage ownership in FTX.

https://www.binance.com/en/blog/all/binance-announces-strategic-investment-in-cryptocurrency-derivatives-exchange-ftx-414610870200725504

August 2019: 📈 FTX raises a $5 million in seed funding from diverse VCs as Galois, Kenetic, and Consensus Lab

May 2019: FTX Founded

January 2018: Alameda Research solidifies market arbitrage opportunities

November 2017: Alameda Research Founded

While I can sympathize with the people who want to curb the influence of the woke mob, I wanted to write this post to counter some of the narratives around an excessively progressive Silicon Valley. Having grown up in the South Bay and currently back working as a SWE, I do not believe Silicon Valley is that “woke” of a place. I will primarily be using anecdotal evidence to back my claims, and you are more than welcome to disagree with my commentary.

I believe the idea that Silicon Valley is woke is a myth for several reasons:

1. We have to define what Silicon Valley is. Does it include San Francisco, which has been a hotbed of left-wing politics for the last century, or does it just compose of bedroom communities along the Peninsula as well as the sprawling South Bay? For this post, I’ll define Silicon Valley as the area south of San Francisco, stretching among San Mateo, Santa Clara, and a tiny sliver of Alameda County (Fremont). San Francisco has a history of radical political movements, but the rest of the Valley -- apart from maybe the influence of Stanford in Palo Alto -- is fairly tame. Much of that area used to be farmland that got converted into business parks and industrial areas. With the rise of semiconductors and later, the internet, we had droves of people move in, but outside of work and families, there really was no distinct politics or culture that arose from the Valley. In fact, that dearth of ideas and trends outside of one’s 9-to-5 is one of the biggest criticisms people have about Silicon Valley -- that one could see it as a giant suburb where adults just go to work and kids go to school, rinse and repeat.

2. Engineers make up a large amount of Silicon Valley. In an engineering education, quantitative reasoning and logic make up the bulk of coursework. Ideas had to be proved with axioms, and problems had to be solved with equations and algorithms. This makes our tolerance for non-logical thinking quite low, which is why you won’t see most of us becoming political or social justice activists. Additionally, engineering majors tended to have little time in school to pursue activities outside of their coursework, research, and internships, hence no time for said political activism. Sure, you might see a few virtue signalers social media posts here and there, but that pales in comparison to full-on wokeness. Engineers continue this very logical train of thought to the companies as well, creating highly-scalable and optimized solutions of atoms and bits that allow billions of users to connect, interact, and transact on a daily basis.

3. The engineering recruiting process involves a highly meritocratic interview, where prospective employees are required to solve algorithmic problems with code or explain a portfolio of past projects and accomplishments in great technical detail. This is the standard operating procedure for 99.9999% of tech companies and is done to ensure the best hires. It is in the company’s best interest to only hire the top talent; a 10x employee can do the work of over 10 other employees, while a bad hire not only doesn’t produce output but also brings down the rest of the team. Affirmative action or discrimination based on attributes outside of direct ability would run counter to this reality. Let me emphasize: There is no possible way for affirmative action to even work in the hiring process. The stakes are too high, the employees have a lot of leverage in the negotiation process, and companies need to ensure that a hire is a definite yes.

4. There is a plurality of immigrants coming from mostly the Asian and Indian subcontinents, here on H1Bs or Green Cards and primarily working as engineers. Contrary to what you might think, most of these immigrants do not subscribe to a radical progressive agenda. For starters, some of them are still grappling with a language and cultural barrier, so not all of them would understand the current social fabric of American society. Furthermore, most, if not all, cultures outside of America tend to lean more socially conservative, regardless of country. America is already on its 60th gender pronoun; Asian countries are just starting to slowly accept gays and lesbians. Americans made up the term Latinx; Latin countries absolutely hate it. Finally, many immigrants come here to work hard, be a productive member of society, raise a family in a tight-knit community, and ensure their children have a bright future. Really nothing woke about that.

5. Engineers and other people who actually build (as well as execute and operate) are not necessarily the ones making the business or marketing decisions. It’s a combination of PMs, middle-management, and an executive team that has to answer to the board as well as shareholders. A lot of companies these days are run by a committee at the top, who makes quarterly goals (OKRs) that trickle down to management, who further makes micro-goals for each of their sub-teams. Couple that with the fact that performance reviews and promotions are determined by accomplishment of said goals, and you can see that engineers don’t have much of a choice. I can confident that Twitter engineers were not the ones who wanted to de-platform certain users; they simply had no choice but to do the dirty work. This means that, in companies where the majority of people are the builders (the worker-bees), the cultural and corporate visions are being made by a small percentage of crusaders. The way that tech companies are run these days are almost like Communist countries, where the Politburo makes these grand central economic plans that need to be executed by the institutions and local committees at the bottom. At least we don’t have the famine that comes along with it too.

These are just a few reasons why I don’t believe that Silicon Valley is that woke. Now, don’t take this as an implication that these tech companies are free from radical progressive thought; it’s just that the people making the cultural decisions do not make up the vast bulk of the Valley. Overall, I will go as far as to say that outside of technology and innovation, we are a pretty boring place. Not a lot of homegrown artists or culture like there is in LA, not a lot of activities to do like in NYC, and not a lot of political debates like in DC. I think a lot of the impressions people get about us come from our neighbor to the north, SF, but keep in mind San Francisco didn’t have an influence in Silicon Valley tech until very recently.

Regardless of religion, race, nationality, gender, politics, we continue to quietly produce products and services that the rest of the world consumes on a free market. And that is perhaps the least woke thing you can think of.