Sam Bankman-Fried was just 24 when he delivered what looked to be the most profitable day in history for his employers, Jane Street Capital. He had devised an intricate system to predict electoral college votes in different states in the 2016 US election faster than they were called on CNN. He nailed it, but the next morning, everything changed. The market rallied on the back of a Trump victory. Jane Street had bet the other way. They lost $300 million. Bankman-Fried feared the worst. He didn’t receive so much as a slap on the wrist.
Yet the next time his big judgement calls went south, Bankman-Fried would not find it so easy to get off the hook.
