Sam Bankman-Fried - Creating a Perfect Market

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money.
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**SPEAKER_2** (2:33)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:58)
My guest today is Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of leading cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In a little over two years, FTX has registered 1.2 million users, grown to facilitate 10.9 billion of daily trading volume and reached an $18 billion valuation. Prior to FTX, Sam worked at Jane Street Capital before founding a quant trading firm of his own, Alameda Research.
At just 29, Sam has packed a lot into a short period of time. As I'm sure you'll hear, he has a special ability to harness uncertainty and think deeply across a range of topics.
In our discussion, we cover the building blocks of a perfect market, the key areas of inefficiencies in today's exchanges, and Sam's North Stars of product design and effective altruism. We also talk about the fairness in crypto markets, how FTX thinks about user acquisition, and derivatives as a key enablers of properly functioning markets. Please enjoy my great conversation with Sam Bankman-Fried. So Sam, I figured since this conversation is going to go all over the place, we have to begin with your why or true north, as sometimes scribble down some words that help me frame these conversations. And I wrote down markets, profit, progress, infrastructure and philanthropy. And maybe you can just tell me what's motivating to you. Do you think true north is a useful concept? And if so, what is yours?

**Sam Bankman-Fried** (4:17)
Totally. And I think I maybe have a whole different true north, depending on what level you're talking at.
One thing is basically how much do things motivate me on like the day to day basis? I wake up, I go to work, I get an email after respond to it. And what are sort of the things rattling around my head most frequently in making decisions there? And for that, I think that it's product design, product function, markets, technology, sort of efficient markets, just basically like how do you build a good product and a powerful, efficient exchange and things like that. Things that resonate with me the most are things like does the risk engine work?