Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried plans to give away wealth
Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire founder of crypto exchange FTX, plans to give away the majority of his personal wealth.
At just 30 years old Bankman-Fried, who turned his back on a job in traditional finance for crypto, is worth an estimated $24.4bn. He plans to donate the majority of his wealth to charitable causes saving one per cent of his earnings or a minimum of $100,000 per year to ensure he has ‘a comfortable life’.
“You pretty quickly run out of really effective ways to make yourself happier by spending money,” Bankman-Fried told Bloomberg. “I don’t want a yacht.”
Bankman-Fried is a follower of effective altruism, a school of philosophy which proposes using reason to work out how to benefit others the most. Before starting up FTX, he was briefly the director of development for the Centre for Effective Altruism.
According to one line of thought people can maximise the good they do for others not by joining a non-profit organisation, but by earning as much money as possible and donating it.
When asked whether he questions the decision to amass as much money as possible only to give it away Bankman-Fried said it was “not a decision that I constantly re-evaluate”.
“It doesn’t, minute-to-minute, feel to me like a decision anymore,” he added.
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