Former FTX staffers are calling Netflix’s new show about the company’s collapse more fiction than fact.
Constance Wang, the former chief operating officer of FTX and co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, said watching the trailer for “The Altruists” made her “physically throw up.”
Premiering on November 19, “The Altruists” is an eight-episode series dramatizing the rise and fall of the cryptocurrency exchange under former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Bankman-Fried is now serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud after siphoning away billions from FTX customers. Caroline Ellison, who previously led FTX’s affiliated crypto trading firm, Alameda Research, pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy and also served time in prison for her role in the scheme.
The show is called “The Altruists” because the pair initially said they were members of the effective altruism movement, which advocates earning as much money as possible to help improve the world.
“I was COO from before FTX even had a name, it was my baby, and I was the last one out of the Bahamas after Sam got extradited. I lost everything I had on it and it took me a long time to get over, so I have zero interest in defending the people who caused this,” Wang said in an X post on Friday. “The media loves the story that FTX blew up because we were all partying in the Bahamas, but the place I worked looked nothing like that.”
Wang said FTX had fewer than 200 employees in the core company at its peak, excluding subsidiaries, so many of them worked 16- to 18-hour days for more than three years.
“Whenever we walked in, day or night, Sam was at his desk,” she said.
Wang also pushed back on the series’ portrayal of Ellison, and the extent to which employees knew about Ellison’s romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried.
“I worked with Caroline and never once saw her get aggressive like she does in this trailer. She’s quiet and mild, and often lost in her own thoughts,” Wang said. “Most of us didn’t even know she and Sam were dating until we read about it after the bankruptcy, and I never saw him so much as put an arm around anyone.”
Ellison, who served 14 months in prison, was released in January. She now works at the grantmaking platform Manifund, where she’s researching how to direct its philanthropic funds effectively.
Andrew Croghan, the former head of business development at FTX, agreed with Wang’s account.
“Constance and I worked alongside SBF and Caroline for years. This is so far from any realistic interaction,” Croghan said on X. “Worse than that, it makes the complicated and tragic reality of their failures look like trivial romantic conflict and tropes.”
“The Altruists” is the latest example of Hollywood turning to Silicon Valley for inspiration.
“The Social Reckoning,” which debuted on Friday, chronicles the fallout from the 2021 Facebook leak.
“Musk,” a documentary examining tech billionaire Elon Musk, also premiered on Friday.
And “Artificial,” a film detailing the tumultuous period when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was ousted from the company, will hit theaters on Christmas Day.
