In the four weeks that Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was on trial on fraud charges, the tech industry:
Reacted to the war in Israel and Gaza, including protesting a tech conference organizer’s social media posts about the conflict.
Buzzed over a manifesto from a top venture capitalist outlining a list of enemies to technological progress.
Scrambled to invest money in the hottest artificial intelligence company, OpenAI, at triple its valuation earlier this year.
Hotly debated the new features on Threads, a social media site owned by Meta.
All of which is to say that, despite the involvement of many Silicon Valley insiders in FTX, people in tech were not outwardly obsessed over the ins and outs of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trial, which ended when he was found guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy on Thursday. They barely mustered a shrug.
The apathy may have had many reasons, including that FTX’s downfall has been well covered by two books, a documentary and multiple podcasts in the year since it happened. But a simpler answer could be that the tech industry has again done what it does best: move on to the next thing.
The industry hasn’t fixated on Mr. Bankman-Fried’s fate because it is no longer fixated on crypto — or web3, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs and other crypto-fied buzzwords that signified the cutting edge just two years ago. They may come back around in a few years. But for now, they are out of style and therefore irrelevant.
It is the beauty and the curse of Silicon Valley’s innovation machine — so eager to fail fast, so focused on the future and the shiny new thing — that few ever seem to learn from its mistakes.
Hype cycles repeat themselves with a new flavor of technology, and the money quickly follows. Gig economy, daily deals, wearables, meal kits, social commerce, native ads, gamification, augmented reality, metaverse, internet of things, creator economy. Maybe a winner emerges; maybe it was all a big joke. Few get hurt, except perhaps the employees — and those battle scars fade in time, too.
When the crypto industry collapsed last year, setting off a wave of lawsuits and criminal indictments that culminated in FTX’s bankruptcy in November, it should have been a humbling comeuppance for those who had promoted it. The tech industry had poured billions into the promise of a new decentralized internet that could solve society’s ills, and anyone expressing skepticism was labeled a hater. That promise turned out to be a casino that was easily exploited by criminals and hucksters, some of whom fled overseas when it all came crashing down.