Sam Bankman-Fried has come under fire from former FTX US President Brett Harrison for intimidating and manipulating coworkers who suggested changes to the organization’s management structure.
On December 14, Harrison spoke with Bankman-Fried and FTX US about his experiences. He described how he was hired “casually over text” in March 2021 after they had previously worked together at the trading firm Jane Street in New York.
However, he claimed that six months into Harrison’s employment at FTX US, “cracks began to emerge” between the two.
At first, Harrison remembered Bankman-Fried as a “sensitive and intellectually curious person,” but when conflict arose, he saw “total insecurity and intransigence” in Bankman-Fried, especially after Harrison suggested that FTX US establish separate branches for its executive, developer, and legal teams.
15/49 Six months into my time at the company, pronounced cracks began to form in my own relationship with Sam. Around then I began advocating strongly for establishing separation and independence for the executive, legal, and developer teams of FTX US, and Sam disagreed.
— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023
Harrison went on to say that while he “wasn’t sure what accounted for the sudden change” in Bankman-erratic Fried’s behaviour, he felt that mental health concerns may have been a “contributing element.”
When Harrison and other coworkers attempted to fix the corporate mess at FTX US, Bankman-Fried used a number of gaslighting and manipulative techniques against them as part of the illogical behaviour Harrison recounts.
Harrison also recalled his previous attempt to resolve Bankman-organizational Fried’s problems with FTX US, saying he threatened to “destroy my professional reputation” if an official apology wasn’t received:
28/49 In early April 2022, my eleventh month, I made one last try. I made a written formal complaint about what I saw to be the largest organizational problems inhibiting FTX’s future success. I wrote that I would resign if the problems weren’t addressed.
— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023
Harrison claimed that the firm’s alleged commingling and manipulation of billions of dollars in client assets rendered him ignorant of the fraud allegations currently made against Bankman-Fried and other FTX associates:
“I could never have foreseen that multi-billion-dollar fraud was at the root of these kinds of problems, which I’d faced at other, more established organisations in my career and thought weren’t essential to commercial success.”
If even one of us had known the truth, he said, “we would have reported them right away.”
After providing a $250 million bond guarantee and rejecting all eight of the allegations brought against him on January 3, Bankman-Fried was given bail.
About five weeks before FTX’s catastrophic collapse, Harrison announced his resignation as president of FTX US on September 27 and announced that he would transition into an advisory role.