What is writing?
In 2023 Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, a verdict that stemmed from his involvement in the collapse of the cryptocurrency platform FTX. During the trial, it was revealed that Bankman-Fried had diverted investors’ money from FTX to another company he owned, Alameda Research, which incurred a series of significant financial losses. Billions of dollars disappeared into thin air, and Bankman-Fried now sits in federal prison. I’m not primarily interested in Bankman-Fried’s crimes, or his stunning rise and fall as a crypto-entrepreneur. I’m more interested in his reading habits – or rather, what his reading habits reveal about our relationship to writing. In a puff-piece originally posted on Sequoia Capital’s website , but since removed, journalist Adam Fisher sat down to interview Bankman-Fried, shortly before FTX entered a liquidity crisis that would precipitate its demise. Fisher tells Bankman-Fried he became a writer because he is ‘...