How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Elite Parents Enabled His Crypto Empire

Around the Bankman and Fried house, Larry David was a family favorite. So the parents were understandably excited when they got the email from their son Sam. He wrote that his company, FTX, would be airing a commercial during the 2022 Super Bowl and that David was starring in it.

Listen to the story.

The curmudgeonly comedian would play a series of skeptics throughout history, basically Neolithic and Elizabethan versions of his character from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. Someone would present an invention—the wheel, the lightbulb, the Walkman and, finally, FTX—and David would dismiss each one in quick ...