Gary Wong, Sam Bankman, Caroline Ellison discussed on Bloomberg Daybreak Asia

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For her big take is anime masa investigative reporter for Bloomberg news and her big take piece is essentially an inside look at the relationship between Sam bankman freed and his best friend, I think we can say certainly a business partner his name is Gary Wong. And he thanks for being with us before we get into the nitty Gritty of what's happening as a result of the implosion of FTX, help me understand the relationship between bankman fried and Wong. I mean, who is Gary Wong? Sure, so up until now, very little has been known about Gary Wong, though he played an absolutely essential role at FTX. Not only did he cofounded along with Sam bankman creed, he was the chief technology officer, and as we illustrate in the big take, he was really responsible for most of the technology underlying FTX. And he's now returned on SBS and is working cooperating with the government as it builds a case against Sam. So he's not alone in cooperating and turning, I guess you could say against embankment freed and giving prosecutors what they're searching for, right? Carolyn Ellison is also involved here, right? That's right. So both Gary and Caroline Ellison, who was head of Alameda at the time of the bankruptcy, are both cooperating with the government. And while some more information has been known about Caroline, Gary was a little bit more of a mystery, but we reached back in time into how he built up his relationship with SBS, how they met at math camp and kind of progressed through college together to illustrate just what a dramatic turn this relationship has taken. So you mentioned math camp there. How did this relationship again? It began back in 2008 when both Sam and Gary were high school students and they attended a very prestigious but very niche camp for extremely academically like mathematically gifted students. And they met one summer doing these problem sets and attending these graduate level and undergraduate level math classes as high schoolers over the summer 2008. And then they would go on to overlap again at mass camp in 2010 and Sam trabuco, who also co headed Alameda before leaving at all to Caroline Ellison, attended the same camp as well. So it was kind of a way that they forged these early friendships. So it's a bond there, and I'm sure that bankman fried had a pretty strong reaction when Wong to use your term kind of flipped and sided with prosecutors to try to maybe get less strict punishment if that's a way of characterizing what may be in store for the two of them. Can you tell me a little bit about the reaction that bankman fried had when he learned of mister Wong's actions? To him, it felt like kind of a betrayal in some ways to see this happen. And as we have cited there in this story, lawyers have kind of described the psychological effect of what it's like as the government builds its case. It can be extremely powerful to have a cooperating witness, certainly like Gary and Caroline Ellison. In this case, because someone like Sam might feel the walls closing in on him seeing these very close confidants of his turn. So did mister Wong kind of sense what was happening and act a little preemptively? Did he seek legal counsel beforehand assuming that this is the way in which it was going to unfold? We described the scene that unfolded in the penthouse where Gary had these lawyers fly in and then he dramatically kind of surprisingly to Sam leaves the penthouse. So that was really in some ways the end of the end of their relationship so far. And now it's beginning a new, much grislier chapter. Yeah, very quickly here. What do we know about the timeline of this case? In October, the case will go to trial, Sam bingman fried has pled not guilty to the charges against him and the next chapter will be that trial in October. All right, Danny, thank you so much for being with us. Congratulations on your big take piece. It's an inside look at the relationship between Sam bankman fried and his friend and business partner Gary Wong as the trial of mister bankman freed as you just heard from any he is set to unfold this fall around the collapse of

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