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☆ The psychologists who sit between you and your dream job on Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Nabbing your dream job might just amount to getting approved by a handful of psychologists and business strategists. Click here to read more about ghSmart, the leadership advisory firm that plays a key role in Wall Street's hiring process. Generative AI startups on the rise. PE firms big bet on food companies isn't paying off. Private-equity firms bought up the companies behind some of your favorite brands of food, but rising interest rates have ruined those investments, The Wall Street Journal reports.

☆ At FTX, Multimillion-Dollar Expenses Were Approved by Emoji
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Caitlin Ostroff | Vicky Ge Huang | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

FTX’s failures are rooted in “hubris, incompetence, and greed,” the crypto exchange’s new management team said in a report outlining scathing details about the lack of financial controls and record-keeping under founder Sam Bankman-Fried . Mr. Bankman-Fried’s crypto hedge fund Alameda Research often had difficulty understanding what its positions were, let alone hedging or accounting for them, the report said.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly joked about losing track of assets worth millions of dollars
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sam Bankman-Fried joked about losing track of millions of dollars in assets, a debtors' report said. The document accused the individuals in charge of FTX and Alameda of misusing funds and lying. In an internal communication cited in the report, Bankman-Fried once said FTX's sister company Alameda Research was "hilariously beyond any threshold of any auditor being able to even get partially through an audit." According to the report, Alameda struggled to understand what its own positions were, "let alone hedging or accounting for them." This inner circle reportedly included Bankman-Fried, FTX cofounder Gary Wang, former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, and FTX's former engineering director Nishad Singh.

☆ From threatening skeptical execs to approving expenses with emojis, here are the 6 most damning claims from FTX's first debtors report
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Sam Bankman-Fried threatened FTX employees who voiced concerns about its business practices. The report, which is 45 pages long, compiled interviews of 19 former FTX employees and "received substantial information through counsel" for five others. 1) SBF threatened FTX execsMultiple FTX execs were threatened after voicing concerns over the company's business practices. As a result, the report says: "Senior FTX Group personnel scrambled to cobble together purported policies that could be shown to auditors. One former executive described Singh's and Wang's oversight on FTX Group as: "If Nishad [and Gary] got hit by a bus, the whole company would be done."

☆ Failed crypto exchange FTX's spectacular collapse was due to 'hubris, incompetence, and greed,' says first debtors' report
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

On Sunday, its debtors released their first report on the collapse of the crypto exchange. The report alleged a lack of controls including in management, governance, and accounting. Read further for the three key allegations from the debtors' report. The report alleged the management and governance of FTX were largely limited to Bankman-Fried, Singh, and Wang. The report also alleged FTX failed to put in place "basic, widely accepted" security controls to safeguard its crypto assets.

Launched in February 2022, the FTX Future Fund was part of the FTX Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire which fell apart last year, in what U.S. prosecutors called an "epic" fraud. Representatives for FTX also declined to comment and declined to say whether the FTX Foundation is included in the bankruptcy proceedings. The FTX Future Fund supported research into topics that "improve humanity's long-term prospects" and was funded primarily by Bankman-Fried, according to a profile of its activities published on Twitter. FTX's statement did not reference the FTX Future Fund specifically. One FTX Future Fund beneficiary in the U.S., who asked not to be named, said they received a grant of more than $150,000.

☆ Kanye West and Sam Bankman-Fried lose billionaire titles on Forbes' annual rich list
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Sam Bankman-Fried and Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, have dropped off Forbes' billionaire list. Bankman-Fried's net worth tumbled from $24 billion in 2022 to less than $10 million, per Forbes. Bankman-Fried's net worth tumbled from $24 billion in 2022 to less than $10 million, according to Forbes wealth reporter Richard J. Chang. Bernard Arnault and his family topped the list with a net worth of $211 billion, according to Forbes. Forbes estimated the billionaire had around $39 billion knocked off his total net worth last year.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to latest round of federal fraud, bribery charges
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Mackenzie Sigalos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in New York federal court Thursday to five additional charges related to the collapse of his former crypto exchange FTX and hedge fund Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried's hedge fund then allegedly used the unfrozen assets to continue to fund Alameda's loss-generating trades, continuing on what the government says was a fraud upon customers and investors for another year. The 13-count indictment gives details of hundreds of political donations that Bankman-Fried allegedly directed in violation of federal campaign finance laws. Bankman-Fried already pleaded not guilty to eight other counts. In addition to this federal indictment, Bankman-Fried also faces civil charges from both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to new federal charges
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Kara Scannell | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of failed cryptocurrency trading platform FTX, pleaded not guilty to five new federal charges of fraud and conspiracy, including one count of conspiring to bribe Chinese government officials. An attorney for Bankman-Fried entered the plea on his behalf of his client, who was seated beside him in the New York courtroom Thursday. He previously pleaded not guilty to eight other charges stemming from what prosecutors have described as one of the biggest financial frauds in US history. In the latest indictment, prosecutors alleged that Bankman-Fried sought to pay off Chinese officials to unfreeze accounts belonging to his hedge fund, Alameda Research. Three of Bankman-Fried’s former business partners — Gary Wang, Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh — have pleaded guilty to numerous charges and are cooperating with investigators.

☆ The FBI is struggling to analyze Sam Bankman-Fried's laptop because it has so much data on it, prosecutors say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Prosecutors said they're struggling to analyze a laptop for their case against Sam Bankman-Fried. Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to federal prosecutors' new criminal charges against him. In a hearing in Manhattan federal court Thursday morning, Assistant US Attorney Nicholas Roos said the FBI was struggling to extract data from a laptop they obtained from the FTX founder. Prosecutors have already produced around 6 million pages' worth of discovery material to Bankman-Fried's legal team, Roos said at the hearing. Federal judges look to sentencing guidelines articulated by a pre-sentence department, part of the US probation office that works for the federal court.

☆ FTX's Bankman-Fried to plead not guilty to campaign finance, China bribery charges
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Luc Cohen | Thomson Reuters | Reports On The New York Federal Courts. Previously Worked As A Correspondent In Venezuela | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - Indicted FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to plead not guilty on Thursday to new U.S. criminal charges, which include conspiring to violate campaign finance laws and bribe Chinese authorities. Bankman-Fried, 31, had earlier pleaded not guilty to eight counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly stealing billions in FTX customer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters he also plans to plead not guilty to the new 13-count indictment. Bankman-Fried is confined to his parents' Palo Alto, California, home on $250 million bond pending trial. Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Daniel WallisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Bankman-Fried is expected to be arraigned on the new indictment on Thursday before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan federal court. The new indictment said Bankman-Fried ordered the $40 million cryptocurrency payment to a private wallet from Alameda's main trading account, to persuade Chinese government authorities to unfreeze Alameda accounts with more than $1 billion of cryptocurrency. Prosecutors said the Alameda accounts had been frozen as part of an investigation into an unnamed Alameda counterparty, and Bankman-Fried's prior efforts to lobby Chinese officials to lift the freeze were unsuccessful. They also said Bankman-Fried around November 2021 authorized a transfer of tens of millions of dollars of additional cryptocurrency to "complete" the bribe. Concerns that Bankman-Fried might tamper with witnesses prompted Kaplan to threaten jailing him unless tighter restrictions could be worked out.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly paying his lawyers with a 'multi-million dollar gift' to his dad through Alameda
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sam Bankman-Fried's "multi-million dollar gift" to his father is covering legal costs, per Forbes. Bankman-Fried had started Alameda in 2017 and was its CEO until October 2021, according to court filings by federal prosecutors in New York. Bankman-Fried also apparently rejected personal finance advice from his father, who had reportedly "begged his son to put away savings," according to Forbes. In an updated indictment unsealed on Tuesday, they also accused Bankman-Fried of trying to bribe Chinese officials with more than $40 million in payments to "influence" them. A hearing over the updated indictment has been scheduled for March 30 in New York federal court before US District Judge Lewis Kaplan.

☆ SBF played 'League of Legends' so much he was gaming during pitch meetings. Now his lawyers say there'll be no more online games for the crypto king.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

He's said to have played it at a pitch meeting, and says he's been gaming while under house arrest. The conditions also say Bankman-Fried will be prohibited from accessing any video games or gaming hardware that "permit chat or voice communication." Bankman-Fried, who was arrested in the Bahamas in December, previously touted his penchant for the online game "League of Legends." "I'm (in)famous for playing League of Legends while on calls," Bankman-Fried tweeted. But Bankman-Fried isn't very good at playing "League of Legends," according to billionaire Elon Musk and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

☆ As climate change intensifies extreme weather, NOAA looks to startups to help improve its forecasts
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Magdalena Petrova | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The U.S. experienced 18 separate billion-dollar weather or climate disasters in 2022, costing a total of $165 billion in damages. This information is then fed into powerful supercomputers that produce weather models that meteorologists use to come up with forecasts. As climate change intensifies extreme weather events, accurate weather forecasting is becoming more important than ever. The weather forecasting services industry in the U.S. was estimated to be worth about $17.4 billion in 2023, according to IBISWorld. CNBC spoke with two such companies, Boston-based Tomorrow.io and Alameda, California-based Saildrone, to learn how their technology can help improve weather forecasting for NOAA and others.

☆ FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Faces New Criminal Charge
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( James Fanelli | Corinne Ramey | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment that charged FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried with violating a law that prohibits bribing foreign officials. The indictment, the third Mr. Bankman-Fried has faced, alleges that in 2021 he authorized bribing one or more Chinese government officials with at least $40 million in cryptocurrency to regain access to accounts that the country’s law enforcement had frozen. The accounts held more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency and were tied to his crypto-investment firm Alameda Research, according to the indictment.

☆ FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Charged With Bribing Chinese Officials
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( James Fanelli | Corinne Ramey | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Prosecutors accused FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried of conspiring to bribe Chinese government officials to regain access to more than $1 billion in frozen cryptocurrency, in a new indictment that charged him with violating U.S. anticorruption law. The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, is the third Mr. Bankman-Fried has faced since the collapse of the crypto exchange. It alleges that in 2021 he authorized bribing one or more Chinese government officials with at least $40 million in cryptocurrency to regain access to accounts that the country’s law enforcement had frozen as part of a continuing investigation into a party that traded with his crypto-investment firm, Alameda Research.

FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried paid out tens of millions of dollars worth of bribes to at least one Chinese government official, federal prosecutors alleged in a new indictment Tuesday. The indictment said accounts belonging to Bankman-Fried's hedge fund, Alameda Research, were the target of a freezing order from Chinese police "in or around" November 2021. Bankman-Fried and his associates considered and tried "numerous methods" to unfreeze the accounts, which contained around $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency, prosecutors allege. Ultimately, after both legal and personal efforts failed, Bankman-Fried agreed to and directed a multimillion-dollar bribe to have the frozen accounts unlocked, prosecutors alleged. Bankman-Fried now faces a federal indictment and civil charges from both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

NEW YORK, March 28 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the founder of now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to pay a $40 million bribe to Chinese government officials. The indictment said Bankman-Fried ordered the $40 million cryptocurrency payment to a private wallet from Alameda's main trading account, to persuade Chinese authorities to unfreeze Alameda accounts with more than $1 billion of cryptocurrency. Prosecutors said the Alameda accounts had been frozen as part of an investigation into an unnamed Alameda counterparty. They also said Bankman-Fried later authorized a transfer of tens of millions of dollars of cryptocurrency to "complete" the bribe. Under the new conditions, Bankman-Fried would be barred from using electronics except for a phone with no internet capability and a basic laptop with limited functions.

NEW YORK, March 28 (Reuters) - Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried said they reached an agreement with U.S. prosecutors on Monday on revised bail conditions, after a judge raised the prospect of sending the indicted FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder to jail pending trial. The laptop will have monitoring software to track user activity and Bankman-Fried won't have administrative access to prevent tampering with the restrictions. In Monday's letter, Bankman-Fried's parents agreed to restrict his access to their devices, while also signing sworn affidavits to not bring prohibited electronic devices into their home. If there's reasonable suspicion of a violation, Bankman-Fried must submit his devices for a search, the letter added. But in January, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Bankman-Fried attempted to contact current executives at now-bankrupt FTX.

Yet investors aiming to amp up their bets face an ominous obstacle: a lack of liquidity that could trigger wild price swings. Slippage, a liquidity measure describing how much prices change between the placement and execution of a trade, has also increased. The vanishing liquidity can be traced back to the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange and hedge fund Alameda Research. Until then, "liquidity is probably going to get worse and worse", said Joseph Edwards, investment adviser at Enigma Securities. "Even if some players haven't left the place, they are on the sidelines right now because of what's happening with banking turmoil," Edwards said.

☆ Binance 'could be in big trouble' as the CFTC lawsuit alleges the crypto behemoth dodged regulators and breached laws
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Zahra Tayeb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Binance is being blow-torched from all angles as US regulators close in on the world's largest crypto exchange. The CFTC sued the exchange this week for violating US financial laws, whilst some reports suggest Binance has engaged in secret fund transfers. On Monday, the Commodities Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Binance and Zhao himself, for allegedly breaching US financial laws. Following the shocking implosion of Sam-Bankman Fried's FTX exchange late last year, concerns have risen whether Binance faces similar risks. If US authorities decide the links meant the crypto exchange had control over the US platform, it could expose the company to enforcement action.

The trial will be the first test of how Zantac cancer claims will fare before a jury. GSK said in a statement it disagreed with the ruling and would defend the case at trial. Originally marketed by a forerunner of GSK, it was later sold successively to Pfizer (PFE.N), Boehringer Ingelheim and finally Sanofi (SASY.PA). While NDMA is found in low levels in food and water, it is known to cause cancer in larger amounts. Analysts said it was not surprising that Grillo ruled differently from the federal court because California's courts are known to be friendlier to plaintiffs.

☆ FTX reaches deal to recover over $400 mln from hedge fund Modulo
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Dietrich Knauth | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

March 22 (Reuters) - Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has reached a deal to recover more than $400 million in cash from hedge fund Modulo Capital, pulling back 97% of the money that FTX companies sent to the hedge fund in 2022, according to court documents filed on Wednesday. FTX's new CEO, John Ray, has said his top priority was recovering assets to repay FTX customers. Alameda, at the direction of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, had paid $25 million to acquire a stake in Modulo and contributed $450 million to an investment fund managed by Modulo, according to the filings. FTX also agreed to not take further actions against Modulo or its principals Xiaoyun Zhang and Duncan Rheingans-Yoo related to the 2022 payments, according to the filings. FTX has previously recovered more than $5 billion in its quest to repay customers of the bankrupt crypto exchange.

☆ From $2.5 million yachts to $400,000 in DoorDash bills, here are Sam Bankman-Fried and other execs' wildest purchases with FTX and Alameda funds
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

Since the dramatic implosion of crypto exchange FTX last November, court filings and other reports have revealed the extent of executives' lavish spending habits. Liquidation expert John J. Ray III took over the FTX CEO role from Sam Bankman-Fried to handle the bankruptcy. Nathan Howard/Getty Images; Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesBankruptcy lawyers said Alameda "bought planes, houses, threw parties, made political donations" with a $65 billion line of credit at FTX. The vast sums are hard to visualize, but it was partly thanks to this spending that customers have been left out of pocket.

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