corewin casino Why Did We Put So Much Faith in the Crypto Whiz Kid?

Disheveled, young and exceedingly brainy, Sam Bankman-Fried perfectly fit the role of a Silicon Valley mogul in the making. Mr. Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, leaned into the Silicon Valley stereotype and then some, playing video games while pitching investors and wearing a T-shirt and shorts onstage with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Blue-chip investors fell for his persona, and Mr. Bankman-Fried profited greatly, with his estimated net worth reaching over $26 billion at one point.

That net worth is now close to zero. In last week’s sudden collapse of FTX — which nine months ago was the star of a Larry David Super Bowl ad — billions evaporated as revelations emerged of questionable transfers between FTX and Alameda Research, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trading company. Law enforcement is now investigating, which could lead to criminal charges.

We’ve seen this movie before: A casually attired whiz kid emerging from seemingly nowhere is proclaimed both savant and savior, and takes the world by storm. Growing concern about Big Tech’s power and intense criticism of onetime wunderkinds like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos set the stage perfectly for a figure like Mr. Bankman-Fried. Amid power-hungry moguls and crypto hustlers, here was a white-knight superhero in the perfect costume, championing philanthropy and pledging to make the world a better place — for real, this time.

But even Mr. Bankman-Fried’s collapse probably won’t kill the whiz kid archetype. This all-American notion has fueled some spectacular meltdowns but also scored big wins. The willingness of U.S. investors and customers to take bets on the young, untested and brainy has delivered world-transforming innovations and companies — a computer on every desk, a smartphone in every hand.

But the whiz kid fixation also reflects a less healthy societal tendency to overstate the importance of individual “genius” and gloss over other things critical to any whiz kid’s success — especially connections, timing and luck. It also devalues experience and maturity. We invest so much in the ideal that it excludes those who don’t fit the part and places too much faith in those who do.

Silicon Valley’s whiz kids owe their mythology to America’s very beginnings. Ben Franklin, who conducted electrical experiments in lightning storms in the 1750s, shocked the bewigged and bejeweled French court in the 1770s by arriving in a homespun coat and frontiersman’s fur cap. Thomas Jefferson, Virginia planter and perpetually tinkering inventor, padded around the White House wearing the early 1800s version of work-from-home sweatpants.

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