Case 1:22-cr-00673-LAK Doc 407-3 Filed 02/27/24
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programming workers used it for a Hackathon. Sam lived in it and – paid lease for that privilege – for
six months-about half of the time he was within the Bahamas. Even when he was formally residing in
the condo, he was extra more likely to be discovered elsewhere – typically sleeping on a bean bag chair in
the workplace. Like every part about Sam, that wasn’t an affectation. He simply does not care in regards to the
creature comforts that almost all of us worth. He’s equally tired of hobnobbing with the wealthy
and well-known and customarily uncomfortable with consideration. He did what he thought he needed to do for
the nice of the corporate, typically at some vital private value to himself. What FTX spent on
promoting, journey, and housing is according to what comparable multibillion greenback corporations
spend, and a small fraction of what many do spend. For anybody who is aware of Sam, the favored
portrayal of him as a high-rolling, celebrity-secking, CEO pushed by greed is just weird.
I’m the son of a small businessman and instructed Sam what I consider my father would have instructed him:
take some cash out for your self and put it someplace secure. Or purchase one thing particular, so that you
can get pleasure from life extra. Others, together with senior counsel, instructed Sam the identical factor. In line with
one enterprise journal, by 2022, Sam had a internet value of greater than $20 billion. He may simply
have offered a billion {dollars}’ value of inventory. He would not try this, although. He wished to depart
each penny within the enterprise to finance its development. He had a wage of $200,000, which was extra
than sufficient for his private consumption wants. He had nothing “salted away” when the crash
got here.
Barbara and I stayed with Sam within the Bahamas for the month following the collapse, and
witnessed firsthand his single-minded deal with getting a reimbursement to depositors, lengthy after there
was any risk he would have the ability to save any of his fairness or wealth. A couple of week after the
implosion, Sam and I had been talking to a potential protection counsel. The lawyer was aghast
when Sam instructed him that he was spending all of his time working with the Bahamian authorities
to get depositors their a reimbursement. The lawyer strongly suggested Sam to deal with his protection.
“Are you conscious,” requested the lawyer, “that at the same time as we communicate, there’s in all probability a room of brilliant,
hard-working and impressive folks someplace whose aim is to place you in jail?”
“Yup,” answered Sam, “and that is just about irrelevant to me in comparison with serving to depositors.”
I acknowledge that the Sam I’ve described is strongly at odds with how the general public sees him, and
could seem unbelievable to the readers of this letter, together with this court docket. I may add tons of of
different examples of his kindness and real and deep concern for others, however I am unsure how
a lot distinction they might make, and doing so would absolutely attempt the endurance of readers. I’ll
add solely that had been the social prices of claiming something optimistic about Sam at this second in time
not prohibitive, I’m assured many others who’ve identified him all through his life would
describe a lot the identical individual.
I would like now to return to the challenges I referred to at first, and their implications for
sentencing. Sam has struggled all through his life to study and management issues most of us take for
granted, equivalent to eye contact, small discuss, and responding to social cues.
There’s a optimistic aspect to this battle. Sam’s life expertise has made him tolerant of
range in the way in which most of us can’t be. Sam employed workers with communication
difficulties so nice that they might not in any other case get or hold one other job. I bear in mind him
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Ex. A-2
