Fortune has an intriguing new profile of Caroline Ellison, the young woman who was CEO of Sam Bankman-Fried's hedge fund, Alameda Research. Writer Courtney Rubin reached out to 150 of Ellison's friends and associates to create the most complete picture to date of the young woman who is now a cooperating witness in the criminal trial against Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX and her one-time boyfriend.
What emerges is a picture of Ellison that shows her to be utterly brilliant in some aspects of life—especially math and economics—but totally stunted in others, especially when it came to social interactions. We learn that she viewed talking with other people as "unpleasant" and that, in the words of a college friend, “she would marry her math homework if that was legal."
Ellison is an unapologetic nerd, reveling in books and LARPer culture, and, as Rubin reveals, is admirably indifferent to popularity or what others think of her. Her priorities instead revolved around Harry Potter—she began tearing through the books on her own at the age of five—and quirky intellectual pursuits like writing a review of the 1,400-page literary novel A Suitable Boy in rhyming couplets.
This is a person who, in the ordinary course of things, I would be rooting for. It's easy to relate to those who never quite fit in and to cheer for the ones who become wildly successful all the same by relying—as Ellison did—on brains and hard work rather than looks and popularity.
Given all this, it's tempting to view Ellison's undoing as not her fault. Could it be that she was the victim of Bankman-Fried's manipulations and her own poor social skills? And that she faced an impossible situation as a woman in the bro-y world of finance? Rubin cites a blog post where Ellison, looking to muster confidence as a boss, compares herself as the only female general in an all-male Harry Potter army: “If Hermione Granger can be a general in one of Quirrell’s armies, I can send a message asking some guys if there’s been any progress on the thing."
I love the sentiment, but, unfortunately, Ellison's actions speak for themselves. This a young woman who may have been awkward, but who was born with every other advantage—wealth, status, education, and a brilliant mind. Yet she chose to offer the world nothing in return, instead exalting in her own intellect while helping Bankman-Fried carry out a massive fraud. I hope she goes to prison.
Jeff John Roberts
jeff.roberts@fortune.com
@jeffjohnroberts
