YouSaid · the spoken record

Zeke Faux

lines on the record: 137
first: 2023-11-02
most recent: 2023-11-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I actually wish I knew that Alameda research Sam Bankman Freed's hedge fund was secretly borrowing all the customer money from FTX because I'm still kicking myself that I didn't catch this guy. That could have been like my claim to fame”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's about right. Yeah. There was one thing about the world of crypto that I wish I knew when I started this book, which was that.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know they're talking with their friends about the same stuff if you don't act super official and you just feel like you're part of the mix, people will talk to you about what's going on at work because”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you get into financial journalism, one thing I didn't really understand is that finance guys, a lot of them are on the phone all day. They're just gossiping with their buddies. And you can like get in the mix. And if you just act like you belong, you can call these guys up and be like, hey, did you hear about Jill at Goldman Sachs? Like I heard she took a big loss last week. And they'll talk about her with you. Happy to dig.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I actually like children's books a lot of the time, but these wimpy kid books, the number one children's book, they're super popular. They're just like, it's a kid's diary. It's a little repetitive. There's like 20 of them. We're almost to the end, but then Eli said we're going to start back at the beginning.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have a more off- And the guys who like they're guys who are like tiger detectives who have to go find the killer tiger are all true. One of the best nonfiction books of this genre. Right now, I'm reading a lot of diary of a wimpy kid to my children. I have twins who are six. And my son loves this serious diary of the wimpy kid. Actually, very boring. I don't like it”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My Pixar, there's a pretty mainstream because the kind of book that I wrote is the kind of book that I love. Like when I was a teenager, I loved these crazy nonfiction adventures. So that was into thin air by John Crackauer or the perfect storm. Or I loved bringing down the house by Ben Mesrich about the MIT Blackjack kids. And I still love that kind of book. Like David Gran, The Lost City of Z, or Patrick Radding, Keefe. I just, I love these true stories that are too crazy to believe.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I really thought, all right, it's my first book. I don't know. I don't want to disappoint anybody. I want the reader to feel like I did my best. I went to look at everything I could think of and like any questions you had. I really did my best to go to Cambodia to answer them or to El Salvador to see if this Bitcoin experiment was real. So maybe some part of that came from Gersh telling me quotes are boring. Get back out there to the subway station and ask people about the election.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he was like, all right, go find some people who are happy about this, interview him, come back with some quotes. And I think it was rainy. So I spent like a couple hours out in the rain stopping people on their way home from work and being like, what do you think about this? You know, not like the most fun assignment. I came back with what I thought were some pretty good quotes. And he was like, those quotes are boring. Give back out there. And I didn't like it at the time, especially because I was not getting paid. But I think that that's a, it's true. You got to put in the time in this crypto world I spent day after day talking to these guys looking for the money interesting”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My first job as a reporter was at a paper called the Brooklyn Paper. It was like a free weekly you got at the supermarket. I was an unpaid intern. My boss was Gersh Kuntzman. And he is like a tabloid guy. He'd worked at the post. He was an amazing mentor because he was a very tough editor and he insisted that each of the stories be interesting. He couldn't have, there was no like meandering. The story had to have a point. When you pitch the story, you had to think of like what the headline would be and why anybody would care about this. If you came back, I was working for him when Obama won”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Got to get subtitles, and I'm waiting. The roundup three is out. It came out in theaters, but you can't stream it yet. So I'm waiting for number three.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's called The One That I like the Best. It's called The Roundup. That's entry number two in the Crime City series. And it stars this guy Don Lee, and he plays, he's like the prototypical cop from like an 80s, 90s action movie where he doesn't follow the rules, but he always gets his guy. Right. You know, he's always like beating up the suspect instead of asking him the questions like the other cops do. And it's funny. It's got great action scenes. I love it. Yes.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, like riding the subway was a treat because the parents weren't going to pay 20 bucks to swipe everybody in. And he was like, when I was younger, when I was poor, If you ask me, I would have said, What's the difference between $10 million and $100 million? And he's like, now that I got it, I know there's a difference. And he really wanted to get to that next level.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this Ave guy, he had a funny, he was a great character. At one point, James Franco was talking to him about playing him in the movie. That didn't happen. Oh, really? But he said, so he grew up poor in Brooklyn. He was from this big family. And he said that...”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so it takes like a certain kind of person who's so concerned about maximizing their money that they're willing to do that.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He did sell, he didn't get quite a hundred million. He sold to a different company, and he had actually moved, he did the Puerto Rico tax thing. Which you talked about in the book.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Whoa, so he did tell me that, and then I was like, I was newer at this, so I wasn't quite sure how to do the story. But then one day I obtained a letter and it said, dear Abe, we would like to buy your company for $100 million.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no. And I meet one of his minions who's like 18 years old. He has his minion give me a ride home. The guy's driving like a V12 Mercedes. He's this high school dropout who can, with this thick Brooklyn accent. And as he drives me home in his $100,000 car, he's calling these Bodega owners and being like, you're late on your payment. And I'm just like, what is with these guys? And so Abe told me, you see my empire here with like the stained carpets. I'm going to sell this company to a hedge fund. We're making so much money. I'm going to make $100 million. I'm going to be rich. Just.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. So I go to this guy's office who runs this thing called Pearl Capital. I meet this guy named Abe runs Pearl Capital and it's one of these cash advance outfits that charge like 500% interest. And it's like this dumpy office with like cases of Red Bulls stacked up.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was writing about these crooked brokers, and I was doing, I did a kind of fun story about how it was around the time the Wolf of Wall Street came out. And it was the point of the story was sort of like these guys are down on their luck and like the cold calling business is no good anymore. And a lot of these guys, so I spent a long time taking them out for stakes at Harry's or whatever. And they would a lot of them told me they'd gotten into this”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A bunch of crazy characters who were exploiting this loophole. And then New York State passed a law closing this loophole. After that, they moved to Connecticut and started doing it there. We exposed that loophole. Connecticut passed a law closing the loophole. I'm sure they found a new state.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They get it stamped because you already signed it, and then amazingly the lender could take this document to New York City Marshall. Who's Sheriff, and that sheriff would then fax something to the bank where the Bodega has a bank account and get the whole $15,000 right there. So instead of waiting two months to get your Usurius return, you get it in like a week or two. If the Bodega missed a payment or even if you just claim they did because there's no chance for them to contest it. So me and my colleague Zach Miter did a series about this. We wrote about.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They had all that covered. The wording was not exactly how I just said it. It would all get stamped. It would be the point of the series is this was legal. You could do this. You could take it to court. So what would happen is the Bodega misses a payment. That's it done. Yeah, the lender goes to court with this document, no warning.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Judgment. Yeah, so these guys, if you were the bodega, you would have to, before you got the loan, you'd have to sign a paper that said, I have defaulted on this loan. And if judge, when you see this document, please rule against me and seize my assets. So the lender would be holding that document. And if they ever run.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but they've got all these loopholes in the series was about this one amazing loophole that they came up with. These guys are super creative. This is the”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the best threads that I pulled in my whole career has been this world of brokers who sell small business loans. It's called Merchant Cash Advance. And basically the guys who were like worked for Jordan Belfort back in the 90s, that whole business of cold calling people and selling stocks has dried up. And if you're still, but if you still want to cold call people and earn commission, a lot of those guys now sell merchant cash advance to small businesses. It's like calling up a bodega and being like, Hey, do you need 10 grand? I'll get it to you tomorrow. But if you sign up, you're going to have to pay back like 15 in two months or something like that. Crazy rates, way higher than loan sharks.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would love to do it. If Michael Lewis, if you're listening, let's do it. You know, we can, you're a big draw. We can sell tickets. We can give money to one of the charities that SBF stiffed.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what? I've been particularly pleased. I've gotten some comments from crypto people, and they've said that they actually really like the book. And one guy said, please stay in crypto. We need you to make fun of us.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I realized when I finished the book is that before all this, I was just like, you know what? This was an amazing adventure. I've always wanted to write a book like this. I'm really proud of how it came out. I'm sure Michael Lewis's book is going to be a hit, but whatever. I don't care about his book. I think people should read this and it's going to be, and it's a lot of fun. I actually just don't know where I'm going to get another story like this. Like, this is like the story I've been waiting for my whole life.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so look, I didn't like that. And I think it's been pretty cool. A lot of the reviews have compared our books. And really didn't imagine that people would prefer my book to Michael Lewis's. And I've been amazed to see that it's gotten such good reviews.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't talk about the SEC that much in the book, and I actually would blame the SEC for not being a little quicker to crack down on some of this crypto stuff. But I think the book is, if anything, like an argument for financial regulation and saying that some of these age-old rules make sense. There's a reason why companies have to disclose stuff. And it's to prevent exactly things like this FTX collapse.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so the exchange lost almost a billion dollars because of a failure of the liquidation engine on something called mobilecoin. And if they had disclosed this, first of all, that would have erased all the exchange's profits, right? So like no more venture capital, you know, 32 billion valuation. So instead, they had Alameda take the hit, and Alameda could take the hit because they had unlimited access to the customer money.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the problem is that FTX, the way the exchange was set up, they claimed they had this great risk management system, this amazing liquidation engine, but it turned out that they didn't, and they exchange over the years actually took big hits at different times and that they covered those up by shunting the losses to Alameda.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and what the witnesses have testified to is that from actually very early on, Alameda was allowed to treat the customer money like a piggy bank and use it to gamble on whatever. And actually, one of the things that Michael Lewis has said that has also been shown to not be true at the trial, he said FTX, if you set aside the fraud, it was a good business, right?”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but it doesn't mean it was okay. The customers never agreed that he could gamble with their money. They thought that they were gambling with their money on Dogecoin or whatever.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If Lewis was saying that the money was simply misplaced, like that has been proven to be wrong. The money was definitely not just misplaced and they found it. It was bet on a lot of things. And for example, it came out at the trial that customers give money to the exchange. They're counting on the exchange, holding it, and giving it back when they want to withdraw. Just like you'd count on e-trade to have your money when you want to take it out. And what he had done in one instance was give $500 million to his hedge fund to invest in some AI company. And that turned out to be, it looks like it was a pretty good bet.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, first of all, it's come out at trial. All the witnesses said we committed fraud. We took the customers' money. We knew it was wrong. And Sam Bankman Freed's lawyers have brought this up and they're like, hey, how about we bring up as a defense that some of these bets worked out and maybe the money's not gone? And the judge addressed this. And he said, the argument that you're making and that Michael Lewis is semi-making in the book, he's like, that would be like I rob the Federal Reserve. And then I went and bought a million powerball tickets. Then I won and I returned the million dollars. It doesn't matter. You still rob the Federal Reserve. You're still going to jail.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, now Sam Bankman Freed's lawyers, this is the defense of Sam Bankman Freed. Sure. Hey, the money isn't actually gone, right?”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I mean, what that suggests is that they think there's going to be a pretty good recovery, but not the whole thing. 80%.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's still a bit mysterious. No, bankruptcy claims traders are not paying $90 on the dollar for FTX claims. They're going for like $40. All right, so”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, he said something in what I assume was a paid speech. He spoke at Bitcoin 2023 in Miami. He was on stage with Arthur Hayes, the head of Bitmex. And Michael Lewis said he got asked about He was like, you know, all you guys here want to know do I believe in crypto? And he's like, you remind me of the born-again Christians that I met when I was writing The Blindside. You ever wanted to know if I believed? And he's like, listen, it doesn't matter what I think about crypto. My book isn't about what I think about crypto. My book's about Sam Bankman Fried. And it only matters what he thinks about crypto. And I think this is a mistake. I think that crypto, it's like the biggest financial mania in modern times. And there's no way to write about that accurately without having an opinion about crypto by just like saying, oh, I'm neutral. I think you're missing out on explaining what's happened over the last few years.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's just here giving speeches, or maybe he's working on a documentary or something. It turned out he said he was not paid, and he did write a book. He was there to write a book.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, right. So that was pretty scary to me. But then I was at Crypto Bahamas where I saw the mooch. I saw Michael Lewis interviewing Sam Bankman Freed on stage. I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say. At this point, I learned about the shoes. I'd learned about the Pokemon game. I mean, I came in pretty skeptical of crypto. And all I was seeing was like a bunch of scams. And then I see Michael Lewis on stage interviewing Sam and he's just like fawning all over him. He's saying great things about him. And it goes beyond just being polite. He says, listen, look at the traditional financial world. Look at the crypto world. Crypto's better. And I'm like, Michael Lewis, like I grew up reading your books. I learned a lot about finance from you. But I really think I can't believe you would say that. So at that point, I actually wondered maybe he's not writing a book.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was writing this book, I became aware that pretty early on that Lewis might be working on a crypto book too. And this is my first book. You know, he's like the goat. Is the poet Lewis?”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and he had a lot of things, a lot of priorities, but one of the things he wanted was for the CFTC to regulate crypto. It seemed to me, even when things were going well, he was basically trying to get his preferred crypto legislation passed that would effectively cement FTX as the go-to crypto exchange that followed all the rules. And box out some of his competitors like Binance that were not run by Americans didn't have the same political influence and wouldn't be able to comply. I think that was part of his plan to grow and grow and grow and get out of this hole of borrowed money that he was in.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so he was one of the biggest donors to the Biden campaign, gave something like $5 million. And these were not like cash in bags. These were like donations that other corporations give. And I think it was pretty much two-thirds to Democrats, but still a third to Republicans.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Congress controls these huge pots of money. And if you can influence Congress to spend on your preferred causes, even if it costs you $100 million to buy influence, that could actually be very small in comparison to how much money you get Congress to spend. So he basically funneled as much money as he could to everybody in Congress and he took this really cynical and illegal approach to it where he was like I can't just give to everybody because then the Republicans won't like me because they know that I give to a lot of Democrats. The Democrats won't like me if they see that I'm not on their team. So he picked two of his lieutenants and he was like, all right, you're the Democrat and you're the Republican. We're going to funnel our donations through you.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so Sam, he had this idea that, you know, a lot of people say there's too much money in politics. He said there's not enough money in politics. Just think about how, and his logic kind of made sense.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Chinese government has cracked down, and there have been a number of busts. A lot of the worst compounds, though, have moved to Myanmar where they're essentially outside of the reach of law enforcement. They're in these border regions where even the police don't go. I went to one in a national park in Cambodia behind a big hotel, you know?”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, it is actually risen to their attention now, and they actually put out a report where they estimate that as many as 200,000 people work in these scam compounds. Yes.”
2023-11-02 · Masters in Business · Zeke Faux on Crypto and the Digital Asset Frenzy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source