Why were so many smart people so dumb about FTX? Did they seriously just like Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘vibe’?

The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange will cost investors billions. But why would anyone give money to a man who plays video games in important meetings?

Do you ever get the impression that the entire economy is an elaborate scheme and nobody in charge actually knows what the hell they're doing? I've been getting that feeling a lot lately. In just the past couple of weeks, we've been treated to the spectacle of Elon Musk dramatically running Twitter into the ground and the wild implosion of FTX.

If you haven't been following the FTX drama, a quick summary: in 2019 a twentysomething called Sam Bankman-Fried launched a cryptocurrency exchange that got people who get excited about that sort of thing very excited indeed. All of the big players in venture capital, including Sequoia Capital, whose early-stage investments include Apple, Google and YouTube, basically lined up to throw money at the kid. SBF (as he is sometimes known) was routinely described as the next Warren Buffett" and predicted to be the world's first trillionaire".