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Sam Bankman-Fried
A crypto exchange that treated customer deposits as a revolving credit line for its own hedge fund didn’t fail — it functioned exactly as designed.
Fraud
The confidence trick, scaled to institutions.
- 5
- in business
- 10:33
- average
- 53 min
- in total
All briefs
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Bankruptcy of FTX
A crypto exchange built on interlocking debt, not deposits — and bankrupt within nine days of its first public red flag.
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Elizabeth Holmes
Theranos didn’t fail because it was too ambitious — it failed because it never built what it sold.
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Enron
Kenneth Lay & Jeffrey Skilling · 1985
Enron was an American energy, commodities and services company founded in 1985 through a merger of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Before its December 2001 bankruptcy — the largest fraud-related bankruptcy in U.S. history — it claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion in 2000 and positioned itself as a major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper company. Its reported financial condition was sustained by institutionalised, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud. Enron became synonymous with willful, institutional fraud and systemic corruption. It filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, emerged in November 2004 under a court-approved reorganisation plan, and was renamed Enron Creditors Recovery Corp. to focus on liquidating pre-bankruptcy assets and operations.
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Theranos
Elizabeth Holmes · 2003
Theranos was a health technology company founded in 2003 in Palo Alto, California, that falsely claimed to perform rapid, accurate blood tests using minimal blood volume via proprietary devices; investigations revealed it relied on conventional machines, produced inaccurate results, voided two years of Edison data, and misrepresented its capabilities to investors, partners, and regulators.