The inner circle of FTX was a web of close friends. Sam Bankman-Fried met Gary Wang, FTX’s chief technology officer, at math camp when they were growing up, and engineering chief Nishad Singh was close friends with Bankman-Fried’s brother.
Prosecutors have exploited that intimacy in their criminal case against Bankman-Fried, which began on Tuesday with jury selection. After calling a French cocoa trader and FTX victim as its first witness, the government turned to one of Bankman-Fried’s closest acquaintances as its second: Adam Yedidia, a former senior developer for FTX and Bankman-Fried’s housemate at MIT.
