The Parents in the Middle of FTX’s Collapse

NYT TECHNOLOGY: The Parents in the Middle of FTX’s Collapse
By David Yaffe-Bellany, Lora Kelley and Kenneth P. Vogel
Section: Technology
Source: New York Times
Published Date: December 12, 2022 at 02:00AM

The FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother and father, who teach at Stanford Law School, are under scrutiny for their connections to their son’s crypto business.

At the height of its corporate power, cryptocurrency exchange FTX convened a group of athletes and celebrities for a charity event in March at the Miami Heat’s NBA arena. Local high school students competed for more than $1 million in prizes, pitching “Shark Tank”-style business ideas to a panel of judges that included David Ortiz, a former Boston Red Sox slugger, and Kevin O’Leary, an actual “Shark Tank” host.

But the event’s organizer was a figure better known in academic circles — Joseph Bankman, a longtime tax professor at Stanford Law School and father of Sam Bankman-Fried, the now-disgraced founder of FTX.

Wearing a baseball cap with FTX’s logo, Bankman walked onstage to help announce the winners of two $500,000 checks. Behind the scenes, he played the role of FTX diplomat, introducing his son to the head of a Florida nonprofit organization that was helping adults in the area set up bank accounts linked to the crypto exchange’s platform. Two months later, Bankman-Fried promoted the partnership in testimony to Congress, where he was pushing crypto-friendly legislation.

Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/technology/sbf-parents-ftx-collapse.html

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