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Hello! Dan DeFrancesco checking in on this brisk NYC morning.
Today we’ve got stories on more layoffs in crypto, a secret 9/11 memo, and the people best positioned to be Bob Iger’s top deputies at Disney.
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But first, he speaks.
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1. SBF speaks.
There was Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Andy Jassy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke, as did BlackRock’s Larry Fink. Even Ben Affleck showed up.
But the main attraction at The New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday was Sam Bankman-Fried.
While SBF has done interviews in the wake of his crypto empire’s downfall, the conference marked the first time the general public could see him respond to questions live, albeit not in person. (SBF was on a video call.)
And while the interview perhaps wasn’t the blockbuster event some had hoped for, it was an illuminating look into the mind of SBF.
Donning a black T-shirt with slumped shoulders and a slight hunch, SBF answered questions from Times journalist and DealBook founder Andrew Ross Sorkin for over an hour. The discussion ranged from whether he was concerned about criminal liability — “This sounds weird to say, but I think the real answer is that’s not what I am focusing on” — to whether his lawyers thought it was a good idea he was speaking publically — “No, they are very much not.”
In short, though, it was much of what we’ve heard from SBF for the better part of the past month: He screwed up.
