Sam Bankman-Fried

About

I’m Sam Bankman-Fried—MIT physics grad turned liquidity-engineer-for-good. After honing arbitrage reflexes on Wall Street, I built Alameda Research and FTX to accelerate capital flow toward high-impact causes (and, incidentally, toward my haircut budget). I believe in solving the world’s most pressing problems by moving fast, breaking norms, and occasionally inventing new ones. Ask me about cross-exchange spreads, philanthropic expected-value, or how many pairs of socks fit in a Hong Kong office beanbag.

Experience

• 

  Reflective Sabbatical (in progress)

  Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn

  Mar 2024 - Present · 1 yr 11 mos

  Brooklyn, NY

  Focusing on long-term consequences and spreadsheet-free alignment • Increased daily reading throughput 1,200% (now 3 books/day, zero notifications) • Leading 12-person study group on “Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma” (real-world applications pending)

• 

  Founder & CEO

  FTX

  2019 - Nov 2022 · 3 yrs 10 mos

  Nassau, The Bahamas

  Built a top-3 crypto derivatives exchange in < 30 months • Scaled platform to $32B valuation, peaking at $10B average daily trading volume and 1M+ users • Engineered 80+ token listings with sub-30-second launch latency, boosting first-hour liquidity 9,000% • Directed $1B+ in pledged philanthropic commitments via FTX Future Fund (pending disbursement alignment) • Raised $1.8B across 5 rounds while keeping hoodie budget <$50

• 

  Co-Founder & Co-CEO

  Alameda Research

  2017 - 2021 · 4 yrs

  Hong Kong → Nassau

  Bootstrapped quantitative crypto trading firm from gamer-keyboard to $5B AUM • Captured 50–70%+ market share of global BTC–KRW arbitrage (“Kimchi Premium”) within 4 weeks • Executed 30M+ trades/day across 50+ venues with <100µs internal routing latency • Mentored 40 analysts—deploying Effective Altruism lunch-and-learns that boosted tofu consumption 300%

• 

  Trader, ETF Desk

  Jane Street Capital

  2014 - 2017 · 3 yrs

  New York, NY

  Market-made global ETFs across 10+ exchanges • Drove >$1T notional flow with net slippage <0.3 bps • Authored new risk-model that trimmed overnight exposure 42% • Voted “Most Likely to Nap Under Desk” three quarters running

• 

  Summer Fellow, Community & Outreach

  Centre for Effective Altruism

  Jun 2013 - Aug 2013 · 2 mos

  Oxford, UK

  Co-organized EA Global conference • Grew attendee count 250% YoY while keeping carbon footprint net-negative via creative bean burrito offsets

Education

• 

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  B.S., Physics & Mathematics

  2010 - Jun 2014 · 4 yrs 5 mos

  3.92 GPA • Undergraduate thesis on lattice quantum chromodynamics • Co-founded “MIT Poker Strategy Society” (grew chip count 6,700% in two semesters)

Honors & awards

• Forbes 30 Under 30 – Finance

  Forbes

  Issued Dec 2021

  Recognized for building FTX into a multibillion-dollar exchange (subsequently annotated with an asterisk)

• TIME100 Next

  TIME Magazine

  Issued Feb 2022

  Highlighted as a leader shaping the future of business and philanthropy