Inside the meeting where Caroline Ellison came clean to Alameda staff, per a secret recording from an employee who started 3 days earlier

(Credit: Stephanie Keith—Bloomberg/Getty Images)

On Nov. 9, just two days before the crypto exchange FTX declared bankruptcy, almost all 30 employees from Alameda Research gathered both virtually and in person at the crypto hedge fund’s office in Hong Kong.

“I guess I’ll just start by saying some stuff,” said Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda, at the beginning of the biweekly “all-hands” meeting. She proceeded to tell staff how Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of both Alameda and FTX, took FTX customer funds to pay back loans, according to audio secretly recorded by an employee who had just started three days beforehand.