'Effective Altruism' Is Neither

Talk of movements makes me nervous. The latest swirling in tech world is effective altruism. Elon Musk had a brush with it. Its biggest proponent is crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, who very quietly was the second-largest donor in support of the Biden campaign at $5.2 million. Be warned, he said on a podcast, he might donate $100 million to $1 billion in the 2024 election cycle.

So who is this guy? Mr. Bankman-Fried, 30, made his first killing doing bitcoin arbitrage, taking advantage of different prices in Japan and the U.S. He also leveraged a kimchi premiuma 30% gap between the American and South Korean prices. Then he created one of the largest crypto exchanges. Profiles of him dutifully note hes a vegan, drives a Toyota Corolla, and sleeps on a beanbag next to his office chair. FTX bought the naming rights to the Miami Heats arena and lots of umpire and referee uniforms. Since May, he has been bailing out failing crypto firms, and he noted recently that FTX has a few billion left to help. Hope thats enough. Oh, and he plans to give away everything except for 1% of his annual income to long-termist causes, guided by effective altruism.