AT A BLOND-WOOD TABLE IN A SERENE JAPANESE RESTAURANT on a tree-lined street in Murray Hill, Manhattan, the 26-year-old Caroline Ellison was asked a pointed question by one of her friends.
"Are you a millionaire or a billionaire?"
It was July 2021, and Ellison was soon to be appointed co-CEO of cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda Research, in San Francisco's Bay Area. On a visit back to New York City, she had met up with a couple of friends and her younger sister for dinner, followed by a walk and ice cream from Ample Hills.
The question was mostly a joke, the friend recalled to Fortune-but the friend (who has known Ellison since childhood, and asked not to be named) was also genuinely curious. Crypto was still on its pandemic-fueled upswing, nearing what turned out to be its peak valuation in November 2021, and there were plenty of newly minted crypto millionaires and billionaires being touted in the media. Ellison avoided answering, but the friend noted, "My read was that she was flattered I even thought 'billionaire.""
That wasn't because Ellison idolized the wealthy, the friend explained: "She values achievement. If she realizes she can be good at something, she's gonna go into it to win."
At the time of the dinner, Alameda was not widely known outside cryptocurrency circles. But a year later the firm Ellison ran would become notorious for the central role it played in the downfall of crypto exchange FTX, which was once valued at as much as $32 billion. Billions in customers' money was missing in what a U.S. attorney called "one of the biggest financial frauds in American history." FTX's cofounder, Sam Bankman-Fried, who once styled himself as "The White Knight of Crypto," became a public villain-and so did Ellison.
In December, Ellison pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June - July 2023 من Fortune US.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June - July 2023 من Fortune US.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
THE NEW GOLD RUSH
Gold prices have soared amid global uncertainty and a central-bank-driven buying spree. But this time, the gold mining industry looks very different.
A New Season for Giving
As the PGA TOUR kicks off its 2025 season alongside its sponsors in Hawai'i, the organization is continuing to make an impact in local communities.
WELCOME TO ELONTOWN, USA
The small town of Bastrop, Texas (pop. 12,000), has become a home base for Elon Musk's business empire. What comes next is anyone's guess.
100 MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE
Our inaugural, authoritative ranking of the leaders whose innovation and impact have elevated them to the top of the business world.
ARE CEO SABBATICALS THE ULTIMATE POWER MOVE?
WHEN VENTURE capitalist Jeremy Liew and his wife were dating, they talked about how one day they would take a year to travel the world. \"That's how we'd know we'd made it,\" Liew says.
WHAT ARE THE BEST METRICS FOR MEASURING A STARTUP'S POTENTIAL?
IN HIS 2012 ESSAY \"Startup = Growth,\" Paul Graham talks about a 5% to 7% weekly growth rate as table stakes for startup success. If you're growing 10%, he says, you're doing \"exceptionally well.\"
TECH POLYMARKET'S ELECTION ACCURACY MADE SHAYNE COPLAN A STAR-BUT AN FBI RAID POINTS TO TROUBLE AHEAD
IN NOVEMBER, Shayne Coplan had a week he'll remember for the rest of his life: He got a phone call from the highest echelons at Mar-a-Lago. He went on TV for the first time. And his New York City apartment was raided by the FBI.
WHY BIG TECH IS THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY'S NEW BEST FRIEND
OVER THE PAST several years, Big Tech firms like Google and Microsoft have trumpeted ambitious plans to go carbon-neutral, or even carbon-negative, by 2030. But then the generative-AI boom came along and threw a giant wrench in their plans.
WHAT PALMER LUCKEY, THE MAN REVOLUTIONIZING WARFARE, IS AFRAID OF
PALMER LUCKEY, the founder of the $14 billion Al-powered weapons startup Anduril, has become the face of change in the defense industry.
GLOBAL BUSINESS BRACES FOR TRUMP 2.0
AROUND THE WORLD in 2024, voters chose change: in South Africa, France, Britain, and Japan. But nowhere does the anti-incumbent trend matter more than in the United States.
