The Billionaire Who Never Read a Book
I'll admit it: Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) caught me off guard.
Here I was, 32 years old and new to my role as president of our family business, watching this 29-year-old supposed billionaire take over the world. FTX was everywhere.
SBF had the endorsements: Bill Clinton, Larry David, Tom Brady, Kevin O'Leary. The works.
He started FTX in 2019, and within months they were sponsoring stadiums and writing philanthropic checks with more zeros than I'd seen in our company's entire history.
Fortune magazine was comparing him to Warren Buffett.
I felt out of the loop. What was I missing? Then I heard something that made me pause.
SBF was the poster child for "effective altruism" — the idea that you should make money as fast as possible so you can give it away as fast as possible. Speed was everything, with the impact immediate and the results right now.
And when asked about reading, he said: “I would never read a book. I don't want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that …”
(For context: Buffett — the man SBF was being compared to — spends roughly five hours a day reading. Seeking wisdom. Methodically.)
That's when I realized that SBF wasn't building with brick.
Time became the great filter it always is.
While I was questioning whether I was moving too slowly in our family business, SBF's empire collapsed faster than it had risen. What looked like a foundation was actually just clever marketing and borrowed credibility.
Here's what I've learned about the difference between timely and timeless:
Great companies take decades to build. Not months. Not even years. Decades of small, right decisions compounding into something that can weather any storm.
Great leaders seek wisdom before they seek speed. They read books. They learn from the imminent dead. They have slow conversations about big ideas. They understand that invisible progress often matters more than visible progress.
Time reveals what's really there. Virtue shines through. Character compounds. But so does the lack of it.
Some people are obsessed with being timely. They chase trends, optimize for headlines, and measure success in quarterly sprints.
Those of us playing the long game? We're interested in what is timeless.
It's not sexy to do the right thing over and over and over. It won't get you on magazine covers in year one. Or year ten. Maybe not even year twenty.
But you'll be building something that lasts.
You'll become someone worth becoming.
(There's a lesson there for all of us chasing something meaningful.)
As Bill Walsh always said: "The score will take care of itself."
When you focus on the inputs — trust, clarity, character, consistency — the outputs take care of themselves. Brick by brick. Book by book. Day by day.
That's the kind of building I'm interested in.
How about you?
Onward,
Matt