| Sam Bankman-Fried Quick Info | |
|---|---|
| Height | 5 ft 8 in |
| Weight | 77 kg |
| Date of Birth | March 6, 1992 |
| Zodiac Sign | Pisces |
| Eye Color | Light Brown |
Sam Bankman-Fried is an American entrepreneur who is best known as the co-founder and CEO of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that was launched in May 2019 and which, by July 2021, was averaging USD 10 billion in daily trading volume with more than a million users. FTX had raised USD 900 million from the likes of Coinbase Ventures (the investment arm of Coinbase Global, Inc. (an American company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform) that aims to invest in early-stage cryptocurrency and blockchain startups) and SoftBank Group Corp. (a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company that focuses on investment management) in July 2021 at a valuation of USD 18 billion which had helped make Sam one of the richest people under the age of 30, in history. He also managed assets through Alameda Research, a quantitative cryptocurrency liquidity provider and quantitative trading firm that he had founded in November 2017.
Born Name
Samuel Bankman-Fried
Nick Name
SBF
Sun Sign
Pisces
Born Place
Stanford, Santa Clara County, California, United States
Residence
Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas
Nationality
Education
Sam went to Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, California.
He also went to a 5-week summer camp called Canada/USA Mathcamp which is for mathematically talented high-school students.
Sam, after his high school graduation, had joined the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2010. He had graduated from there in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and a minor in mathematics.
Occupation
Entrepreneur
Family
- Father – Joseph Bankman (Lawyer, Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School, the law school of Stanford University)
- Mother – Barbara H. Fried (Lawyer, Author, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, Co-Founder of the Political Fundraising Organizations Mind the Gap and Get-out-the-Vote (GOTV))
- Siblings – Gabriel ‘Gabe’ Bankman-Fried (Younger Brother) (Former Wall Street Trader, Director of the non-profit Guarding Against Pandemics)
- Others – Linda P. Fried (Aunt) (Dean of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health)
Net Worth
In April 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried’s net worth was $24 billion according to Forbes. At the peak of his career, his net worth had jumped to $26 billion which had dropped to $10.5 billion in October 2022.
Build
Average
Height
5 ft 8 in or 173 cm
Weight
77 kg or 170 lbs
Race / Ethnicity
White
He is of American descent.
Hair Color
Dark Brown
Eye Color
Light Brown
Sexual Orientation
Straight
Distinctive Features
- Mildly stocky frame
- Overgrown, curly hair
- Clean-shaven look
Sam Bankman-Fried Facts
- Sam was born on the Stanford University campus to an upper-middle-class family.
- When Sam was about 14 years old, his mother had realized that he had developed an interest in utilitarianism, a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
- When he was in high school, he had attended Canada/USA Mathcamp, a 5-week academic summer program for mathematically talented middle and high school students.
- In 2012, he had started writing a blog that would focus on topics like utilitarianism, baseball, and politics.
- In the summer of 2013, he had joined Jane Street Capital, a proprietary trading firm in New York, as an intern. He had joined them as a full-time employee in June 2014 after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- In September 2017, he had moved to Berkeley, California, where he had worked, between October 2017 and November 2017, for the Centre for Effective Altruism, a non-profit organization, as a development director.
- He is an active supporter of ‘effective altruism’ (a philosophical and social movement that advocates the use of reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible). He is also a member of Giving What We Can, an effective altruism-associated organization whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to charity.
- In January 2018, he had organized an arbitrage (the practice of taking advantage of a difference in prices in 2 or more markets) trade to take advantage of the higher price of Bitcoin in Japan compared to the United States.
- After attending a cryptocurrency conference in Macau, in late 2018, he had moved to Hong Kong for a while. It was there that he had conceptualized FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, that was eventually launched in May 2019. FTX, in line with his views on ‘effective altruism’, has a policy of donating 1% of its revenue to charity.
- He is a vegan and a teetotaler.
- He is known to often sleep on a bean bag chair in his office next to his computer.
- In November 2022, Sam listed his Bahamas penthouse for $39.5 million.
- On November 8, 2022, Sam’s net worth had dropped 94% (as per Bloomberg Billionaires Index) in a single day to $991.5 million due to his company FTX’s solvency crisis. This was the largest single-day drop in the fortune of any individual in the history of the index.
- In November 2022, his company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and he resigned as the CEO of FTX.
- By November 11, 2022, he had no material wealth as per Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
- He donated $5.2 million to Joe Biden during the 2020 election cycle, making him the individual second-largest donor during those elections.
- During the 2022 US midterm elections, Sam donated $40 million to various candidates.
- In December 2022, Sam was arrested by the Royal Bahamas Police Force after being accused of stealing billions in FTX customer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research. He was charged with “wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, and money laundering”. He later pled ‘not guilty’ to the charges. In February 2023, additional 4 criminal charges were imposed on him for making “more than 300 illegal political donations.” It was claimed that he had transferred at least $40 million in cryptocurrency to Chinese government officials, to unfreeze Alameda Research’s accounts. In March 2023, it was revealed that he had pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the additional charges as well.
Featured Image by Sam Bankman-Fried / Instagram
