High Signal Podcasts Evidence ledger
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Public evidence record

Sam Bankman-Fried

Published podcast speaker

Claims
57
Episodes
3
Shows
3
Named items
0

Claim ledger

What Sam said.

57 transcript-backed records

04 / evaluation

It was the first time that I gave on that scale in a race. And I did it because he was, of all the candidates in the cycle, the most outspoken on the need for more pandemic preparedness and prevention.

“It was the first time that I gave on that scale in a race. And I did it because he was, of all the candidates in the cycle, the most outspoken on the need for more pandemic preparedness and prevention.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

07 / preference

” When you're looking at developers, I think we want people who can understand what FTX is, how it works, and thus what the right way to architect things would be for that rather than treating it as an abstract engineering problem divorced from the ultimate product.

“” When you're looking at developers, I think we want people who can understand what FTX is, how it works, and thus what the right way to architect things would be for that rather than treating it as an abstract engineering problem divorced from the ultimate product.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

08 / evaluation

To the extent you're just thinking of personal criteria, that's going to argue heavily in favor of a safer career path because you have much more quickly declining marginal utility of money than the world does.

“To the extent you're just thinking of personal criteria, that's going to argue heavily in favor of a safer career path because you have much more quickly declining marginal utility of money than the world does.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

10 / preference

For instance, if you could have either two half-time employees or one full-time employee, you're way better off with one full-time employee because they're going to have more context than either of the part-time employees would have—thus be able to work way more efficiently.

“For instance, if you could have either two half-time employees or one full-time employee, you're way better off with one full-time employee because they're going to have more context than either of the part-time employees would have—thus be able to work way more efficiently.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

11 / recommendation

Most startups and especially very early-stage startups should not be trying to maximize the chances of having at least a little bit of success. But that means you have to be okay with the personal fallout of failing and that we have to build a community that is okay with that.

“Most startups and especially very early-stage startups should not be trying to maximize the chances of having at least a little bit of success. But that means you have to be okay with the personal fallout of failing and that we have to build a community that is okay with that.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

13 / uncertainty

If that’s where you start, you can just look at, “Well, okay, what scale would that have to be at?” Pick your favorite big thing — I don’t know — big internet thing.

“If that’s where you start, you can just look at, “Well, okay, what scale would that have to be at?” Pick your favorite big thing — I don’t know — big internet thing.”
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

14 / belief

I think that, more generally, even if it’s not framed in terms of thinking hard about numbers necessarily, there’s something very quantitative about how you view the world if you’re thinking about things from a utilitarian perspective, from a consequentialist perspective.

“I think that, more generally, even if it’s not framed in terms of thinking hard about numbers necessarily, there’s something very quantitative about how you view the world if you’re thinking about things from a utilitarian perspective, from a consequentialist perspective.”
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

15 / belief

The Patriots are probably the most notable example of that, and I think everyone knows it’s about Belichick and the staff that he’s built and the culture that he’s built, centered around outthinking some other coaches.

“The Patriots are probably the most notable example of that, and I think everyone knows it’s about Belichick and the staff that he’s built and the culture that he’s built, centered around outthinking some other coaches.”
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

16 / recommendation

I think working out the healthcare infrastructure, or obviously — and especially with the world we’re in — direct cash transfers are always within an order of magnitude of the best thing you could do.

“I think working out the healthcare infrastructure, or obviously — and especially with the world we’re in — direct cash transfers are always within an order of magnitude of the best thing you could do.”
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

18 / evaluation

There certainly is a lot more funding than there was before, but saying it’s not funding-constrained — I think people go too far in that, and to some extent that’s a symptom of not thinking hard enough about great ways to spend money.

“There certainly is a lot more funding than there was before, but saying it’s not funding-constrained — I think people go too far in that, and to some extent that’s a symptom of not thinking hard enough about great ways to spend money.”
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

19 / prediction

Certainly companies, and maybe even industries — you want on a single shard, so I think you want millions of TPS [transactions per second] per shard if you are going to shard it. And that, basically, gets me to where I am, which is, when you’re looking at the type of things that could scale to support gigantic billion-person applications online, I think you’re looking at a very limited number of blockchains that are focusing very heavily on their scaling.

“Certainly companies, and maybe even industries — you want on a single shard, so I think you want millions of TPS [transactions per second] per shard if you are going to shard it. And that, basically, gets me to where I am, which is, when you’re looking at the type of things that could scale to support gigantic billion-person applications online, I think you’re looking at a very limited number of blockchains that are focusing very heavily on their scaling.”
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

21 / preference

Then a thing that is really important — at least in how we function — is having a company culture that that is what matters, and making it clear that in the end, that’s what we care about.

“Then a thing that is really important — at least in how we function — is having a company culture that that is what matters, and making it clear that in the end, that’s what we care about.”
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

22 / evaluation

I think a lot of the reason is that a nice property of games is, you’re just put in front of a messy situation, and in the end, your directions are “Do the best you can.

“I think a lot of the reason is that a nice property of games is, you’re just put in front of a messy situation, and in the end, your directions are “Do the best you can.”
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

23 / preference

” I’d had a burger for lunch that day, so “yes” was not a factually supported answer at that time, but I have not eaten meat since. It was way easier for me once I went cold turkey than it was for me to try to wean myself off it because the cognitive load of every time that I went to eat, having to decide what I could and couldn’t eat and should and shouldn’t eat was just overwhelming me.

“” I’d had a burger for lunch that day, so “yes” was not a factually supported answer at that time, but I have not eaten meat since. It was way easier for me once I went cold turkey than it was for me to try to wean myself off it because the cognitive load of every time that I went to eat, having to decide what I could and couldn’t eat and should and shouldn’t eat was just overwhelming me.”
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

29 / belief

I think that in the end, our sense of this is this isn't, you can choose to be compliant or you can choose to be functional, and you have to choose which company you're launching.

“I think that in the end, our sense of this is this isn't, you can choose to be compliant or you can choose to be functional, and you have to choose which company you're launching.”
Publisher
Acquired

30 / belief

A lot of this is something that you have to figure out over time. But I think a lot of this is like, you put someone in an uncertain messy situation where there's no obvious right answer.

“A lot of this is something that you have to figure out over time. But I think a lot of this is like, you put someone in an uncertain messy situation where there's no obvious right answer.”
Publisher
Acquired

33 / uncertainty

If you asked me what is a Bitcoin, I would not have been able to give you an answer other than a thing that trades on some exchanges and decentralization. I don't know.

“If you asked me what is a Bitcoin, I would not have been able to give you an answer other than a thing that trades on some exchanges and decentralization. I don't know.”
Publisher
Acquired

35 / belief

The answer is that there actually weren't a lot of other players in this value chain. That's one of the bigger differences between what we see in crypto and I think what we see in most financial ecosystems.

“The answer is that there actually weren't a lot of other players in this value chain. That's one of the bigger differences between what we see in crypto and I think what we see in most financial ecosystems.”
Publisher
Acquired

39 / belief

I think we're basically still making this up as we go, and that it's probably going to be a while before people feel like, all right, we now understand all the implications that that ended up having for society.

“I think we're basically still making this up as we go, and that it's probably going to be a while before people feel like, all right, we now understand all the implications that that ended up having for society.”
Publisher
Acquired

41 / belief

I think thinking about did we ever succeed at getting retail users at penetrating that market is going to be one of the things that I think we're going to grade ourselves on, which I think I'm cautiously optimistic about, but we haven't proven that.

“I think thinking about did we ever succeed at getting retail users at penetrating that market is going to be one of the things that I think we're going to grade ourselves on, which I think I'm cautiously optimistic about, but we haven't proven that.”
Publisher
Acquired

44 / uncertainty

I think maybe another consequence of that or I don't know what flows from what exactly, but maybe a related statement is that I don't think of us as we've built the hard thing and now we’re coasting.

“I think maybe another consequence of that or I don't know what flows from what exactly, but maybe a related statement is that I don't think of us as we've built the hard thing and now we’re coasting.”
Publisher
Acquired

50 / evaluation

There's eventually a lot of things that ended up becoming pretty relevant here. But I think the most legible thing and the most egregious thing at the time was this 83% of profits thing where it's just like, okay, that will change, that has to change.

“There's eventually a lot of things that ended up becoming pretty relevant here. But I think the most legible thing and the most egregious thing at the time was this 83% of profits thing where it's just like, okay, that will change, that has to change.”
Publisher
Acquired

51 / evaluation

In the end, most of our initial growth came from power users, the people who are spending hours a day in the ecosystem, and would try out every new exchange that came, and use the ones that they liked the most, that was the best fit.

“In the end, most of our initial growth came from power users, the people who are spending hours a day in the ecosystem, and would try out every new exchange that came, and use the ones that they liked the most, that was the best fit.”
Publisher
Acquired

53 / prediction

The biggest thing that we're anticipating is the launch of derivatives hopefully sometime in the next year that we think could really bring a lot that's been missing to the market.

“The biggest thing that we're anticipating is the launch of derivatives hopefully sometime in the next year that we think could really bring a lot that's been missing to the market.”
Publisher
Acquired

55 / evaluation

It's a variable cost and it just decreases your revenue, whatever, but it's basically near zero. So we felt like we've been using these products, we understand it, it's a big business, but okay, fine, whatever.

“It's a variable cost and it just decreases your revenue, whatever, but it's basically near zero. So we felt like we've been using these products, we understand it, it's a big business, but okay, fine, whatever.”
Publisher
Acquired

57 / prediction

I can't tell you what that is now because the world might change, which is, honestly sometimes how we think about things, that the world does change and you have to adapt.

“I can't tell you what that is now because the world might change, which is, honestly sometimes how we think about things, that the world does change and you have to adapt.”
Publisher
Acquired
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