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Author Michael Lewis faced criticism for his recent book about Sam Bankman-Fried. However, during Bankman-Fried's rapid ascent to success, he had very few critics, except for his former co-founder at Alameda Research. In April 2018, Bankman-Fried's co-founder, referred to as Mac Aulay, along with others on the management team, left Alameda due to concerns over risk management, business ethics, and millions of dollars going missing at FTX's hedge fund arm. Since then, Mac Aulay revealed that she hadn't spoken to Bankman-Fried. Lewis explored Mac Aulay's perspective on Bankman-Fried, and their initial connection was through her work at the Centre for Effective Altruism, where Bankman-Fried was a major donor.
With half a million dollars from Bankman-Fried's bonus at Jane Street, Alameda Research was launched, attracting wealthy donors who lent them $170 million for crypto trading. However, Alameda encountered problems in early 2018, mainly caused by Bankman-Fried's demanding nature and his insatiable desire to trade. The team struggled to rein him in, with little finance experience among them. Despite attempts to exploit price inefficiencies through crypto arbitrage, Alameda faced financial chaos, losing millions of dollars while struggling to quantify the extent of the losses. A significant incident occurred when $4 million worth of Ripple-affiliated XRP token went missing, leading to further doubts about Alameda's accountability. Ultimately, Mac Aulay and the management team, along with half the employees, left Alameda, receiving severance pay ranging from $1 to $2 million.
Mac Aulay went on to establish Lantern Ventures, a trading firm with $400 million in assets under management, aiming to approach things differently than their experience at Alameda. Several former Alameda employees joined her at Lantern Ventures.