读外刊学英语：​FTX’s failure points to a tech-investing h

导读：FTX的失败。FTX是一家加密货币交易所，目前已破产。风险投资就是冒险。一个投资者可能会期望在十家公司的投资组合中只有两家公司能够成功，希望明星们的巨额回报能够弥补亏损。通常，当公司年轻且廉价时，风险最大。有三个风险领域：治理、尽职调查和不惜一切代价关注增长…

Venture capital
After the party
FTX’s failure and SoftBank’s struggles point to a tech-investing hangover

After the turbocharged years, problems may be emerging for venture capitalists

原文出自：2022年11月19日

THE MEETINGis a dream come true for the screenwriters who are already said to be at work on the film version of events. In 2021 Sequoia Capital, a large venture-capital (VC) firm, made its first investment in FTX, a now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange. To publicise the deal Sequoia published part of the transcript from the virtual pitch meeting on its website. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, explained how he wanted the firm to be a “superapp” where “you can do anything you want with your money from inside FTX”. Sequoia’s investors swooned. “I love this founder,” said one in a chat function; “Yes!!!!” declared another. An FTX executive who sat close to Mr Bankman-Fried during the pitch noticed another detail: “It turns out that that fucker was playing ‘League of Legends’ throughout the entire meeting.”

It also turns out that ftxwas doing more with customers’ money than it had promised. Its demise has forced Sequoia to write down its $210m investment. It will also hurt another embattled backer. On November 11th SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate turned tech investor, reported that its Vision Funds, which focus on VCinvestments, had lost about $10bn in the three months to September. The firm is expected to write down around $100m from its investment in FTX.

This adds to a string of bad news for tech investors. Since the tech downturn began last December plenty of Silicon Valley darlings have gone bust, including Fast, an online-checkout firm, and LendUp, a purveyor of payday loans. There has been a flurry of other blow-ups in cryptoland too, such as the failure of Three Arrows Capital, a hedge fund, and Voyager Digital, a lender.

VC investing is all about taking risks. An investor may expect only two firms to succeed out of a portfolio of ten, hoping that the supersize returns from the stars make up for the duds. Usually the risk is greatest when firms are young and cheap. But FTX’s valuation in January was $32bn. Many think the industry’s failure to notice that something was wrong is symptomatic of bigger problems. “Venture capital is in la-la land”, says one industry veteran. There are three areas of risk: governance, due diligence and a focus on growth at all costs.

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇430/920左右）
原文出自：2022年11月19日《TE》Business版块，仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

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