SBF Told Cleaning Lady to 'Shut the F*ck Up' After She Greeted Him in His Office
SBF never learned a very important lesson about character. It’s important to treat people well regardless of what they can do for you or to you.
Sam Bankman-Fried is behind bars, and reports say he is ready to “face the music” for whatever crimes he may have committed as leader of FTX, the now bankrupt crypto exchange.
It’s clear that SBF is a fraud. My previous writings explored how he used the language of effective altruism—while living in a $40 million penthouse—to manipulate media, politicians, and clients.
“I feel bad for those who get [expletive] by it,” he told Vox reporter Kelsey Piper, “by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say the right shiboleths [sic] and everyone likes us.”
SBF’s response was honest, so much so that it caused me to remind myself not to judge him too harshly too fast. While he’s clearly a liar, it’s also true that people freely gave resources to him. This isn’t the same as robbing someone at gunpoint, and I know many who argue the any crimes SBF may have committed should not actually be considered crimes (even if he clearly broke federal laws). Maybe he just got caught up in the spotlight and action of running a billion-dollar company.
Any good I might have been able to gin up for SBF is gone after listening to a leaked audio recording, in which SBF brags about berating a cleaning lady who had the temerity to speak to him while he was in his office one day.
“Shut the f*ck up is what I told,” SBF said he told her. “Who are you? I’m not looking for the help…I could buy your family like 300 million times over, and I’d still be a billionaire.”
SBF explained that she “kind of took that weird,” but added that people were not letting him do what he wants to do (whatever that means).
Call me old-fashioned, but SBF’s treatment of this woman angers me more than his crypto shenanigans with Kevin O’Leary and Tom Brady.
As Jeffrey Tucker observed, how powerful people treat "the help" can tell you a great deal about their character.
Nearly 20 years ago, I was lowly intern in the White House speech writing office. I remember how intimidating it was, and I remember how differently I was treated by different people who had seniority.
Some acted like they didn’t know I existed. I wasn’t particularly bothered by this, and I wasn’t the only intern treated this way. Some people just made it clear they didn’t know your name if you were one of the little people and they didn’t care to; they had more important things to worry about.
Others treated interns like people. They’d share a smile and a word with you. I’ll always remember one such person—John McConnell. Despite being a senior speechwriter, he treated everyone warmly and with respect. Once in a while he’d even invite junior staff or lowly interns out for a cup of coffee.
That experience taught me something. At some point, I don’t know exactly when, I decided to make it my goal to treat the lowest intern or employee the same way I treat the president of the company, no matter what position I held. (I probably don’t always succeed in this, but I try.) Why? because I think it’s important to treat people well regardless of what they can do for you or to you. People are not a means to an end, after all.
SBF never learned this lesson, and I believe he’s a worse person for it. For better or worse, he’ll likely have a long time behind bars to think about the many mistakes he made.
I hope while he’s there he’ll reflect on how he treated the cleaning woman who was so impressed with this young man being the CEO of FTX that she tried to exchange a few words with him.
If he does, and he takes a way the right lesson, he’ll be better for it.
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“The Golden Rule” Do on to others as you would have them do onto you.