Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t look like the typical billionaire. For one, he’s worth an estimated $16 billion and hasn’t even turned 30 years old. For another, he can’t give his fortune away fast enough.
A graduate of MIT and alumnus of unconventional e-trading firm Jane Street, by all accounts Bankman-Fried lives his life to make money. Reportedly, Bankman-Fried sleeps only about four hours a night and pushes his small team at Hong Kong-based crypto exchange firm FTX to over $13 billion in daily trading volume. (That’s on top of the $1 million made every day by his quant firm, Alameda Research.)
But that cash doesn’t end up spent on lavish houses or super yachts. In fact, Bankman-Fried still lives with roommates in Hong Kong, giving the bulk of his fortune to charitable and political causes.
According to the people who know him best, it’s precisely this young billionaire’s altruism that feeds his remarkable productivity. With his goal being to fund the next Mother Teresa rather than to enrich himself, Bankman-Fried is working to show what trading talent can do when coupled with a lofty mission.
