Abundance by Personal Brand + Clout
Update 12/28/22- SEC counsel Dan Berkowitz resigns after being found to have taken bribes from SBF/FTX. Wining and bribing is essential to the SBF playbook.
So SBF probably bribed the journalists.
The archetype of a tech nerd usually includes not caring about personal appearance or public perception. So there’s this massive ironic intrigue when Sam Bankman-Fried revealed himself as a Machiavellian personal brand and PR architect.
How was this unveiled?
Following his fall, puff pieces from huge publications like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and others spun Sam as an Icarian victim of his own ambitions. The headlines lamented over the lost potential of his patented altruism.
They were too coordinated and strangely neutral to be authentic. There were two implications from this.
1) Journalists can be bought (duh)
2) Sam understands The Clout Game.
After seeing the pretty obviously purchased media, the complete picture of his obsessive PR awareness came together for me.
(Update 12/16) He paid famously skeptical Kevin O’Leary $15m to be a spokesperson.
His interest in Media companies. He wanted to partner with Elon to buy Twitter. He invested in news site Semafor. He tried to start a Substack competitor by attempting to recruit two of the most prominent journalists in the country in Matt Yglesias and Nate Silver.
Months ago a coworker mentioned to NYT that Sam told him his unkempt curly fro was important because “People need to think I’m crazy”
The huge political donations in retrospect. This is a two for one deal because it buys you political clout while also making you a darling of the media.
The constant media promotion of his Effective Altruism philosophy. (more on this in another post)
But to what ends? Sam’s 3D Chess move was successfully portraying himself as a quirky unassuming vegan who should be left unchecked because he was donating everything to charity and politicians anyways. Most importantly, his persona and political donations made him unthreatening to the status quo while being the face of a young industry in crypto that threatens to change everything.
So the actionable advice derived from Machiavellian Sam
Develop personal and financial relationships with Politicians and journalists.
Develop reputation for being altruistic.
Doors open.
Good PR is taking advantage of the virtuous cycle of the snowball effect. Once you develop a little bit of goodwill and momentum in the public eye (maybe you have to pay at first ) more and more people will like, help you, and write about you.