0:01

Wondering.

0:07

Meet Sam. Sam is thirty

0:09

years old.

0:10

He typically wore T shirts and

0:12

shorts and samples.

0:15

He likes to play computer games.

0:17

He is commanding this army of

0:20

fairies and elves

0:22

in this online game.

0:24

He talks a lot about doing good and

0:27

helping people.

0:28

There really was this idea that he was

0:30

going to change the world.

0:31

Sam may not act the part, but he's

0:34

a billionaire.

0:35

Say for Mark Zuckerberg.

0:36

No one in history has ever gotten so rich

0:38

so young. But

0:40

on December twelfth, twenty twenty

0:42

two, everything changes for

0:44

Sam and what he calls a

0:46

screw up.

0:47

The US government calls one of

0:49

the largest frauds in history.

0:52

They had lost a very significant

0:54

amount of money. Lots of people were hurt

0:56

badly, which left everyone wondering

0:59

who is Sam Bankman

1:02

freed from Bloomberg

1:04

and wondering the makers of the shrank

1:07

next Door comes a new series,

1:09

Spellcaster, The Fall of

1:11

Sam Bankman Freed a story

1:14

of incredible wealth. There was a sense

1:16

of awe when he walked in. It was like a celebrity

1:19

betrayal.

1:20

He would flip a switch with regards

1:22

to a given person, he would

1:25

delete them from his reality.

1:26

And what happens when that talk

1:28

of doing good goes really

1:31

really bad.

1:33

It was basically just everyone racing

1:36

out the door of the burning building

1:38

for the same exit. Right, you realize that it

1:40

was just a big smoking crater.

1:43

Of a company. So that's when I started saying, don't

1:45

trust Sam Bankman Freed.

1:47

I'm Hannah Miller, a reporter for Bloomberg.

1:50

Follow Spellcaster The Fall of

1:52

Sam Bankman Freed on Amazon Music

1:54

or wherever you get your podcasts. You

1:57

can start listening to Spellcaster early

1:59

and add free by subscribing to Wondery

2:02

Plus an Apple Podcasts or

2:04

the Wondery App. I

2:11

asked him what I should ask Sam, and he was just like us,

2:13

where my money is