Former Alameda Engineer Speaks Out: SBF Was a "Master of Promises," Stole My Life Savings
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Former Alameda Engineer Speaks Out: SBF Was a "Master of Promises," Stole My Life Savings
I experienced luxuries I had previously only seen in movies; at the same time, I also witnessed irresponsible behavior.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: aditya_baradwaj
Translation: Block unicorn
As an engineer at Alameda Research, my entire life savings were stolen by my former boss, Sam Bankman-Fried (widely known as SBF). Now, after the chaotic months following the FTX collapse, I'm ready to tell my story.
Let’s start from the beginning:
I still remember the first time I met Sam—it was my first day in the office. I had just left my job at Google and was excited to work at this small, mysterious crypto trading firm. Back then, coverage of Sam was limited to niche tech news. In Silicon Valley circles, Alameda/FTX wasn’t widely known. In fact, the only reason I even knew about the company was because some early employees had also attended UC Berkeley, and word had spread through personal networks.
The office itself was unremarkable—on the fourth floor of an ordinary office building in downtown Berkeley, a place I’d walked past many times during college.
On the directory, the list of tenants for the 4th floor was nearly blank, showing only that they shared the building with names like "Pacific School of Religion"—nothing like what I expected from a multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency trading company.
When I walked into the office, SBF was sitting in the middle of the trading floor, on a phone call while playing League of Legends.
Yes, that was Alameda's trading floor… Even though on paper Sam had transitioned to running FTX full-time, the two companies were deeply intertwined in practice. Shared offices, social events, and housing arrangements between the two firms were common—though we’ll get into that later.
I’m not sure who he was talking to, but I overheard snippets of his conversation:
"Decentralization is the future. The most important thing you can do for yourself is drop everything and join crypto."
This was one of the many contradictions I would observe in SBF. On one hand, he passionately promoted the benefits of decentralized, permissionless finance to anyone who would listen. Yet, a centralized derivatives exchange requiring KYC and IP verification is hardly a model of decentralization.
Maybe everyone has two conflicting thoughts inside them… or maybe something else.
The point is, SBF was promoting the virtues of decentralized finance while running FTX—a centralized exchange. That seems contradictory.
Perhaps SBF believed that decentralized finance was the future, but it wasn't yet mature enough and needed centralized exchanges to help it grow. Maybe he thought DeFi and CeFi could coexist, each serving their own purpose.
Or perhaps, deep down, SBF himself harbored this contradiction—he wanted DeFi to succeed, but also recognized that centralized exchanges remained indispensable for now.
That night, we ordered Sliver Pizza, ate together, and he revealed his plan to move the entire company to a small island in the Caribbean. I knew nothing about the Bahamas at the time, but from my conversation with SBF, it was clear he had done his research.
SBF said, "Did you know FTX’s revenue exceeds 10% of the Bahamas’ GDP?" I didn’t—but a quick Google search confirmed he might have been spot on.
SBF then elaborated further on FTX’s vision—far beyond just being a crypto exchange: He spoke of building a vaccine factory in the Bahamas to address overlooked medical issues caused by the FDA’s slow drug approval process. He argued that lives were being lost every day due to delays in accessing life-saving medications—an invisible graveyard. He discussed political donation strategies pursued by FTX executives. He talked about emerging technologies like iterated embryo selection and the importance of preventing China from dominating foundational biotech research. And of course, he mentioned anti-malaria bed nets and veganism.
Listening to Sam’s vision, it became clear that every step he took—Alameda, FTX, the Bahamas, policy advocacy—was part of a grand strategy. He didn’t want to build just a company; he wanted to build a machine—an ever-expanding sphere of influence that could transcend the confines of that small Berkeley office, spreading positive impact across the globe. Not just a company, but a monument to effective altruism.
As an idealistic new employee, it was hard not to be captivated by SBF’s vision. Many of us joined the company precisely because we wanted to do good in the world. And here was a billionaire under 30 using his wealth to back an unprecedented vision for the future.
Not to mention, his self-deprecating and awkward demeanor made him relatable—something many of us could see in ourselves (and which helped attract top talent).
Over the next year and a half, my life transformed in ways I never imagined.
I experienced luxuries I had previously only seen in movies. I regularly flew between Berkeley, Hong Kong, and the Bahamas. I interacted with celebrities, sports icons, and political figures.
Yet at the same time, I witnessed reckless behavior. A company handling billions of dollars operated with dangerously lax risk management. Technical debt that would make any software engineer cry. Millions of dollars wasted on frivolous spending. And an arrogant attitude that none of it really mattered.
Of course, SBF never built the vaccine factory or eradicated malaria. His most trusted clients, investors, and employees ended up in financial ruin. And that unfinished FTX headquarters? It remains abandoned on a beach in Nassau, a crumbling ruin.
SBF himself is currently incarcerated at MDC prison for violating his house arrest conditions. Even after all this, he still seems unable to follow the rules.
In recent months, I’ve seen countless speculations online about FTX and Alameda. Unfortunately, much of it isn’t grounded in reality. What were Sam, Caroline, and the others really like? Was all of this just a scam? What was life like in the Bahamas? People deserve to know the truth.
Unfortunately, my experience at FTX/Alameda is too complex to fully detail in a single article.
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@aditya_baradwaj
