March 27, 2024 - 10:00am
An explosion of mushroom-cloud hair. The mangy, unshaven face, with its pursed, smirky lips. The baggy, flickering eyes, usually the tell-tale of an Xbox all-nighter. Sam Bankman-Fried will reappear in court this week as he is sentenced for multi-billion dollar fraud, facing up to a century in jail.
Upon examination, FTX’s Rumpelstiltskin accounts rendered a much-anticipated court drama open-shut. But for the ordinary onlooker, one question will remain: who would have bought anything off such a wreck in the first place, let alone trusted him with their money? The answer is that SBF represents both the culmination and the demise of a particular era of anti-haute couture: the age of the elite slob.
As the 2000s became the 2010s, a new silhouette emerged to mine the internet for its millions. It was thin, pale, gawky and casual. It threw out the fat ties and double-breasts of Patrick Bateman-era Wall Street, and threw on t-shirts, Allbird sneakers and polo necks. If there’s one individual to blame, it’s Steve Jobs, who not only established the look but also the broader mythos behind it. First: “Genius is in hurry; it has not time to fiddle with buttons.” And second: “I’m not like those other guys who sell you stuff at your door or in the store. I’m not even a salesman at all — I’m an artist.”
Though they always claimed it was a question of ease and comfort, soon all wannabe tech wunderkinds were imitating Jobs’s attitude, even hiring fashion consultants to achieve the calibrated poise of stylish yet slovenly. Jack Dorsey, Tim Cook and Evan Spiegel got in on the act; Mark Zuckerberg implausibly claimed that his wardrobe consisted of 20 identical grey t-shirts. Soon they were even in Downing Street: first Steve Hilton, pacing the corridors barefoot, then Dominic Cummings, with what Vogue accurately called “a masterclass in eff-off dressing”.
In the years since, this uniform has even found a sponsor: the clones of Silicon Valley now reportedly all don a Huel-branded black tee. Genius doesn’t only have no time to dress — it has no time to eat. So when SBF rose to prominence there was nothing striking about him. One in three Congress members took money from the guy. He was exactly how you’d expect a trustworthy if eccentric tech prodigy to look.
But, with his imprisonment, the high-water mark of this style has definitively been reached. The decline and fall began when Zuckerberg and then his contemporaries became regulars at Congressional hearings, forced into jackets and ties like first-day sixth formers.
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Subscribe‘Move fast and break things’, eh? Well now they’ve broken everything. What’s next?
Do you remember the photos of Sam BF with Tony Blair and Bill Clinton fawning over him.
I don’t suppose he’s heard much from them – nor all the others of the great and the good who kowtowed to him – since his arrest
Clinton the liar and Blair the snake. Well, one sure thing : neither will visit Sam in jail.
Would be lovely if they shared a cell though.
I’m no fan of either, but all politicians will pose for a pic with someone who forks over that much cash. Most are whores after all.
In the meantime in stiff upper lip Eton elites circles we have fluffy rough haired Boris. It is so contrived it is pukable. But somehow some of the public bought the BS and got conned. We don’t have to wear black ties to work, but a decent shirt and jacket and polished leather shoes would be a sign of discipline and style. I always detest grown men (yes Paul Smith you are the culprit!!!) wearing trainers / sneakers with a suit sans tie. Why oh why! That footwear is a contrived cool-projecting falsehood. Sneakers go with jeans or tracksuits. Not with a proper pair of trousers. Cry me a river of style!
I rather enjoyed going into Investment Bank meeting rooms in Manhattan stuffed with types in USD 3k suits while dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and flipflops. I did make sure my toes were always nicely painted though. Standards!
So why not go back to frock coats and top hats as office wear? Your forebears would have found your dress sense equally uncouth.
sorry for one more observation : Sam’s hair is as coiffed as Boris’.
The lamb will be sacrificed. The one in three members of congress who took his money will blithely go along, taking someone else’s money. And nothing else will happen.
It was ever thus!
SBF was a ‘Finance Bro’ not a ‘Tech Bro’.
Even ‘cursory’ research about him would surely have made that apparent?
As for an approach to business.
‘Better to be beg forgiveness than ask permission’ would be have been the mantra.
FWIW the last I’ve heard all the creditors have been or will be made good.
You actually believe that ??? That no one got scammed and ripped off by SBF and co ?
This was fraud, plain and simple. As the guilty verdict proves.
If you think this was a legitimate business practice, perhaps you should go to the US and have a go yourself.
I can’t see where I have suggested that FTX was engaged in legitimate business practices.
I merely pointed out that the author has done derisory research for his article, and displays his lack of knowledge by attempting to tie SBF’s fashion sense (sic) to the Tech Bro culture.
SBF was a Finance Bro. FTX was crypto exchange and Almeda Research was Crypto Trading Firm. Regulated Financial Services. His first job was at Jane Street Capital https://www.janestreet.com/ where his algorithm ‘called’ President Trumps victory in 2016 before anyone else. Still lost money on the trade though.
As I rather like, and enjoy reading UnHerd I would prefer if its comment pieces were reasonably informed. Arguably, I’m doing Nicholas Harris a favour. I’m pretty sure Paul Marshall (the person who pays his wages) knows the difference between an unregulated technology company and a regulated (however lightly) Financial Services Firm.
I also ‘suggested’ that apparently the creditors of FTX would be ‘made good’. (see URL below the result of a ‘cursory’ search)
https://www.theblock.co/post/275405/bankrupt-ftx-wont-be-restarting-but-former-customers-will-get-money-back-in-full
As for going to the US? I have lived there and its a Great Country with a wonderful justice system as the ‘Hound of Hounslow’ Navinder Sarao would probably attest. https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-51265169
Finance Bro’s actually ‘do’ pay a price when they ‘beg forgiveness’ and it’s not ‘forthcoming’.
I will be curios to see if a Michael Richard Lynch OBE DL FRS FREng a Tech Bro (of sorts despite being in a suit) pays a price for ‘moving fast and breaking things).
FWIW neither Navinder Sarao or Mike Lynch had to ‘go to’ the US and SBF was in the Bahamas.
Apologies I have digressed massively from the essential point of my original comment.
An UnHerd Commissioning Editor really shouldn’t be that ‘sloppy‘. A sloppiness that is sadly being reflected in the overall quality of the ‘comment pieces’ in the publication recently.
Have to agree with you about the editing/proof reading (if any) of these articles.
However, there’s no way the people ripped off by SBF/FTX will get all their money back – the fraud was way too large for that to ever be possible.
Perhaps you didn’t intend to imply that this was all some sort of victimless or unimportant crime. But it was open to that interpretation.
I don’t care what sort of “Bro” these people self-identify as.
There isn’t a lot of current reporting I can find on the Mike Lynch trial (which stated about a week ago). I don’t think HP have a leg to stand on inthis ridiculous case. On the other hand, Mike Lynch’s company accounting certainly left a lot to be desired. One of those cases where you wish they could both lose ?
I never speculate about the outcomes of the wonderful US justice system. I think I read somewhere that the one where SBF was tried has a conviction rate of 99%, I’m too lazy to check but it was frighteningly high.
Having said that I don’t speculate I would put money on Mike Lynch doing time.
The ‘Hound of Houndslow’ didn’t commit any crimes (well they weren’t crimes before he did the trades).
As a sometime ‘Finance Bro’ myself I do kind of care (not much admittedly). We always threw much better parties!
Re ‘making good’ SBF’s punters. I read an article (FT perhaps) late year that mentioned one of the ‘actual tech’ investments he made (circa USD 200m) was being valued at around USD 2bn by then. No fraud is too large to ‘make good’. Well maybe the Bernie Madoff gig was.
Who knows when SBF gets out in about 10 years (of the 25) he might be a billionaire again?
.
I can’t see where I have suggested that FTX was engaged in legitimate business practices.
I merely pointed out that the author has done derisory research for his article, and displays his lack of knowledge by attempting to tie SBF’s fashion sense (sic) to the Tech Bro culture.
SBF was a Finance Bro. FTX was crypto exchange and Almeda Research was Crypto Trading Firm. Regulated Financial Services. His first job was at Jane Street Capital https://www.janestreet.com/ where his algorithm ‘called’ President Trumps victory in 2016 before anyone else. Still lost money on the trade though.
As I rather like, and enjoy reading UnHerd I would prefer if its comment pieces were reasonably informed. Arguably, I’m doing Nicholas Harris a favour. I’m pretty sure Paul Marshall (the person who pays his wages) knows the difference between an unregulated technology company and a regulated (however lightly) Financial Services Firm.
I also ‘suggested’ that apparently the creditors of FTX would be ‘made good’. (see URL below the result of a ‘cursory’ search)
https://www.theblock.co/post/275405/bankrupt-ftx-wont-be-restarting-but-former-customers-will-get-money-back-in-full
As for going to the US? I have lived there and its a Great Country with a wonderful justice system as the ‘Hound of Hounslow’ Navinder Sarao would probably attest. https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-51265169
Finance Bro’s actually ‘do’ pay a price when they ‘beg forgiveness’ and it’s not ‘forthcoming’.
I will be curious to see if a Michael Richard Lynch OBE DL FRS FREng a Tech Bro (of sorts despite being in a suit) pays a price for ‘moving fast and breaking things).
FWIW neither Navinder Sarao or Mike Lynch had to ‘go to’ the US and SBF was in the Bahamas.
Apologies I have digressed massively from the essential point of my original comment.
An UnHerd Commissioning Editor really shouldn’t be that ‘sloppy’. A sloppiness that is sadly being reflected in the overall quality of the ‘comment pieces’ in the publication recently.
Putting Steve jobs in the same category of undesirables like Bankman-Fried and Zuckerberg is just plain wrong
I’m not sure the article really does that. It’s really just saying that Steve Jobs setting himself up as an exception to normal rules opened the door to a load of frauds and chancers like SBF.
However, that said, some of the things coming out about Apple’s manipulative business practices (which do go back to Steve Jobs) are none too appealing. When you learn that they deliberately degraded their messaging app so that non-Apple users messages appear in a horrible, almost unreadable green text, while the Apple ecosystem messages are a nice blue, you might reconsider. This was done with the express purpose of shaming non-Apple phone users participating in chat groups with iPhone-owning friends. So that they would try to get their parents to pay a lot more for iPhones – or face social exclusion and possibly bullying. Sadly, it has “worked”. Just think how much needless misery and hardship (for poorer families) that has created.
It’s called ‘Capitalism’.
The official uniform of the elite is changing. Fad in fad out
‘Disrupters’ never wear a ‘uniform’. They don’t need to ‘fit in’.
What the hell did I just read? Has Mr. Blackwell risen from the dead?