Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

ah very interesting

In the summer of 2021, Insider has learned, Thiel began providing information as a "confidential human source," or CHS, to Johnathan Buma, a Los Angeles-based FBI agent who specializes in investigating political corruption and foreign-influence campaigns.

https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-fbi-informant-charles-johnson-johnathan-buma-chs-genius-2023-10

i havent heard that name in a long time

Charles Johnson, a longtime associate of Thiel's and a notorious figure in the far-right movement that Thiel has subsidized for a decade, told Insider in a statement that he helped recruit the billionaire as an informant by introducing him to Buma.

Thiel was probably pissed that foreign investors were getting the deals he wanted to make and was going to try to rat them out

yeah hope we get more details re who exactly he was informing on

it will undoubtedly be something incredibly self-serving

re: https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-fbi-informant-charles-johnson-johnathan-buma-chs-genius-2023-10

Peter thiel: I’ve sent you two excel spreadsheet of power rankings of boys’ blood by both efficacy and terroir, race of course plays a large part in this but so of course does their upbringing

FBI handler: (distracted) okay, you sent me this last week

Thiel: this is updated

— Alex Degen (2023) (@atothe_d) October 19, 2023

lol

🧛

max otm

https://maxread.substack.com/p/techno-optimism-is-a-sign-of-vc-crisis

Meantime on the good ol' fashioned 'take the old guy for a ride' front

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2023/10/23/eric-schmidt-michelle-ritter-steel-perlot

SBF about to take the stand!

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/26/business/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-trial

Whoops, or not:

And in a twist, there will be no testimony from Bankman-Fried after all today. The jury is being sent home so the lawyers and the judge can hold a hearing as to what Bankman-Fried will be allowed to testify on.

Well, soon enough.

if he makes this work i’m ready to buy in on crypto for i will have seen evidence of brilliance i cannot understand

hopefully he can explain just the what the hell blockchain actually is

considering its built-in requirement for ever-increasing computing power and energy use, blockchain is a scheme to perpetually expand the profits of the chip industry and utilities

Ohhhhhh what a read this is:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23934195/sam-bankman-fried-self-testimony-deleted-signal

https://i.imgur.com/XoNePWx.jpg

clearly SBF never watched Petty Mason

“I really enjoyed [Lewis’s] book, by the way! Though the reporting in Going Infinite suggests that Bankman-Fried is an unrestrained sociopath, Lewis’s general attitude toward Bankman-Fried may be best summed up as “I love my gamer son.”

All the LOLs:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/02/business/sam-bankman-fried-trial

Guilty on all counts.

well well what will Michael Lewis have to say about this

Would be cool if he could be cellies with Elizabeth Holmes in the Tech Grifter cellblock

ha!

A brutal read, a necessary one

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/2/23944485/sam-bankman-fried-guilty-verdict-parents

getting a lot more schadenfreude from seeing this guy's parents suffer than i could ever get from him tbh. feel strongly that i'm owed for how many articles i read telling me to take this guy seriously because his dad was a "philosopher" (?), and i'm definitely owed for how many times i read the phrase "their work in legal ethics" adduced as evidence against their having raised a con man. would like to take my payment in the form of images of them just standing there frozen like jimmy stewart looking down from the bell tower

ha yeah i weirdly look at him and go “what a deluded self-absorbed fool doing illegal shit,” and look at them and think “what a pair of evil assholes who raised a fool, assisted him in swindling millions, were actors in the swindle to their own benefit, and with all of their alleged expertise and judgment, failed to advise him to his benefit! Fuck them and ruin them!”

the tousle-haired mogul

what a scamp

You talk about day
I'm talking 'bout night time
When the monsters call out
The names of men
Bob Dylan knows
And I bet Bankman-Fried did
There are things in night
That are better not to behold

I appreciate this deep cut

how did this happen so quickly when theranos/various trump cases take years on end? was it just that his crimes were so blatant/uncomplicated?

It certainly seems to have been a straightforward case for the prosecution to make

for holmes the delay was covid + pregnancy

I don't think him taking the stand helped much either

Pretty much everyone else charged immediately folded as well.

starting to think that investing in something called 'crypto' might not be the safest bet

feel strongly that i'm owed for how many articles i read telling me to take this guy seriously because his dad was a "philosopher" (?), and i'm definitely owed for how many times i read the phrase "their work in legal ethics" adduced as evidence against their having raised a con man.

― difficult listening hour, Thursday, November 2, 2023 11:52 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yeah any reasonable dispassionate observer would see the whole ecosystem of elite institutions guys with bags of money and their media apologists as completely corrupt, because it is

I suspect Michael Lewis's GOING INFINITE is gonna be a long-term record-holder for amount of changes between the hardcover and paperback editions.

its very funny to be literally sitting next to a guy while he commits one of the biggest frauds ever and not notice and also write a book about it

Though the reporting in Going Infinite suggests that Bankman-Fried is an unrestrained sociopath, Lewis’s general attitude toward Bankman-Fried may be best summed up as “I love my gamer son.” In the courtroom, Lewis looked pretty bummed, occasionally shaking his head.

Just happened upon this gem of a sketch from last year

https://i.insider.com/63a4b3307877e10018fd618e?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp

George Michael on trial!

outside of the fact that he's incredibly guilty and offered up a godawful defense I think this is maybe the flipside of the two systems of justice thing we got goin here, where if you fuck with rich people's money things suddenly start moving very fast. this should've happened with Theranos too but she got lucky with Covid

I think he looks like a descendent of Genghis Khan. Also there's a dude with an apparent pentagram on his shirt behind him.

That's Michael LaRoux Matthews from OnCinema investigations unit.

his attorneys' heads are weirdly small

he looks like a descendent of Genghis Khan

only a few million of those milling around

its very funny to be literally sitting next to a guy while he commits one of the biggest frauds ever and not notice and also write a book about it

walt isaacson seems to be on the same beat

true, tho i hold him to a lower standard than lewis

I find the politics of these people inscrutable

A grim month: 31 Israeli and at least 3600 Palestinian children have been killed since October 7.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) November 4, 2023