Could a gamer have saved mighty temasek from losing US$275 million?

According to a blog post from venture capital giant Sequoia Capital, Sam Bankman-Fried played the online game League of Legends during a super high-level video call with their investment team. That it seemed didn’t put them off at all. Sequoia Capital thereafter proceeded to invest $210m in Sam’s now belly up company FTX…….. But had a gamer (novice level) been a fly on the wall in that video call. The scene would have piqued his curiosity to ask casually of Sam – Hey what level are you in League of Legends Mr Bankman Fried? And had Sam replied – Bronze III……. that gamer would have probably thought to himself – There’s something terribly wrong with this picture! How is it possible for another gamer whose so obsessed about LOL that he even plays it during high level business deals to have such an abysmally low ranking! That observation by itself would have set off alarm bells to those who are perceptive enough to know about the power and politics of online gaming……… Infact its such a gigantic red flag, it might have even be grounds to justify another round of fact and background check cum due diligence to determine whether Sam Bankman Fried was even the real Mc Coy. After all, Sam Bankman fried wasn’t just another run of the mill CEO. He was marketing himself as a self styled philosopher king/Messiah of Crypto who was out to save people and planet and who really didn’t care about money…. And if this was all above board – what could possibly account for his low score ranking in the online game league of legends? …… unfortunately. There were no gamers in that video call that day. Now that was USD275 million sad.

The moral of the story, it’s not entirely true to say of Mr Sam Bankman Fried that there was nothing to be really concerned about till the day, the shit hit the fan. In truth, there were enough character contradictions to suggest that he was not entirely honest, authentic or even true to his much publicised ‘effective altruism’ cause, but despite the danger signs, the ‘smart’ folk who bankrolled him just wanted to see what they wanted to see and no more.