sarah emerson
@SarahNEmerson
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Tech reporter at @Forbes // semerson @forbes .com // Signal: + 1 510 473 8820
Oakland
Joined March 2009
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Last Seen Profiles
BREAKING: Attorney General of the Bahamas has said
@SBF_FTX
has been arrested following “receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against SBF and is likely to request his extradition.”
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Rewatching Silicon Valley and forgot there's an entire episode about one of them deciding to wear a chain
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being escorted out of TÁR for smuggling a chipotle carnitas burrito bowl into the movie theater
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my entire bluesky recommended feed is just mattyglesias getting bodied lmao
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SCOOP: A Forbes investigation based on leaked documents, former employee testimonies, and blockchain data found that as
@Helium
crypto execs touted the equality of the "People's Network," they quietly amassed the majority of its wealth at the start.
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Famously large man and FTX promoter Shaq has evaded multiple attempts to serve him with an FTX lawsuit by hiding in his house.
That's what lawyers claimed in emails obtained by Forbes which said he's managed to dodge servers for the past four weeks.
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"All 10 are, or used to be, paired up in romantic relationships with each other. That includes Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison...who, at times, has dated Bankman-Fried, according to people familiar with the matter."
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"He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat..."
Are any secret societies cool and clandestine, or are they all just guys in open toe hiking sandals exposing their inner thighs to the sunlight for the first time in 30 years
NEW: Clarence Thomas secretly accepted lavish luxury travel for decades from a billionaire businessman/GOP donor, in apparent repeat violation of ethics law.
Fmr judge: “It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this."
w/
@js_kaplan
@Amierjeski
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Jesus, this Wired investigation into the sexual assault of women working at science stations in the Antarctic
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Huh. There are only a few ways they can go with the Middle-Earth Enterprises rights and they’re all kind of weird.
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The Long Island serial killer suspect was in part identified "by DNA left on pizza crust he threw out in a Manhattan trash can," omg
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Nima Momeni, the tech entrepreneur arrested in connection with the killing of Cash App's Bob Lee, partied hard, worked late (friends called him "Dracula"), liked sports cars and boats (still parked outside his apartment this AM).
@cfarivar
and I report:
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BREAKING: Forbes obtained a draft of the testimony
@SBF_FTX
was scheduled to present before Congress tomorrow, and has published it in full. Just hours ago, Bankman-Fried was arrested and taken into custody by Bahamian authorities. From
@Steven_Ehrlich
:
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you're an underpaid overworked starbucks barista, there's a line out the door, and a customer hands you their phone to please explain how nfts work
Introducing Starbucks Odyssey, a new experience that will offer the ability to earn & buy digital collectibles (NFTs) that will unlock access to new coffee experiences. Join the waitlist to be among the first to explore Odyssey.
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It appears Shaq is still dodging the FTX lawsuit!
Plaintiffs tried serving him eight more times, and have resorted to tracking him based on his tweets and Instagram posts bc "the irony is that O’Neal is extremely active on his social media accounts."
Famously large man and FTX promoter Shaq has evaded multiple attempts to serve him with an FTX lawsuit by hiding in his house.
That's what lawyers claimed in emails obtained by Forbes which said he's managed to dodge servers for the past four weeks.
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"A startup called Istari, backed by Eric Schmidt"
These guys are gonna run out of Tolkien names to call their war machines and we'll end up with a homicidal AI called Tom Bombadil.
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The White House released its findings on crypto mining's energy demands. A new report from the Office of Science & Technology Policy found that mining will use as much power as all home computers in the US, and is asking companies to disclose their data.
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I was fascinated by this tiny effective altruism group that received ~$4.5 million from the FTX Foundation to purchase a castle in the Czech highlands. The luxury estate is now run by people who, like SBF, claim to believe in making money to give it away.
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I can't overstate how much of a radicalizing process it's been to come from three newsrooms that are either dead or dying: BuzzFeed News, Vice, OneZero.
You emerge with a great appreciation for unions and even greater solidarity with your colleagues.
media layoffs in 2024
LA Times (20% of staff)
TIME (15% of staff)
Pitchfork (all of it, pretty much)
Sports Illustrated (all of it)
National Geographic
Business Insider (8%)
NBC News
it's still January
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OpenAI's new CEO Emmett Shear engaged in discussions about rape fantasy statistics, sex and power, and the controversial PUA seduction book, "The Game."
From me and
@ebakerwhite
:
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Though the money + hype poured in, however, we found that Helium only generated $92K from its network being used over the past ~year. Just $1500 for the month of August.
Meanwhile, its community has purchased more than $500M worth of hotspots, and their rewards have plummeted.
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SCOOP: Sam Bankman-Fried has been paying his legal bills out of a multimillion dollar gift he gave his father back in 2021, while CEO of FTX. That gift was funded by a loan from Alameda Research.
From
@Steven_Ehrlich
and me. (Tip
@Techmeme
)
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NEW: For the past several months,
@_IainMartin
and I have been trying to find the Kingdom of Bhutan’s secret sovereign bitcoin mines.
Now, based on sources inside the country and satellite imagery from
@planet
and others, we can show you where they are.
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The tiny kingdom of Bhutan has been quietly mining bitcoin for the past few years, making it one of the only nations to run a state-owned mine.
@_IainMartin
and I learned more about Bhutan's crypto investments after our report on its sovereign holdings.
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Oh my god, the Cabinet of Curiosities ep from
@panoscosmatos
and
@somebadideas
goes so hard
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i love my health insurance deductible and having it and trying to understand it and paying it. it's definitely important that i prove, with thousands of dollars, that yes i would like some healthcare please.
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Many have wondered about FTX's ties to its banks Moonstone and Deltec. FTX was a Deltec client when Alameda invested $11.5M in Moonstone, a rural Washington bank acquired by Deltec's chairman Jean Chalopin (a co-creator of Inspector Gadget!)
@DavidJeans2
and I have some answers.
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ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location using their IP addresses, as first reported by
@ebakerwhite
in October. Specifically, the company tracked my colleagues Emily Baker-White,
@richardjnieva
, and
@SchwabKatharine
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Lahaina 💔
This is what it looked like earlier on Maui. If you've been to my hometown of Lahaina...I fear it is no longer. I dread what it will look like in the morning. An apocalyptic scene is unfolding due to the fires raging across my island. Please pray for us.
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Billionaire tech founder Ryan Breslow is suing the guy who built his crypto project, alleging he stole millions of dollars in company funds.
Breslow claims to have not known the man was a convicted fraudster when he hired him.
From
@_IainMartin
and me:
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I feel like my 30 yr old Bronco is superior to the Cybertruck in every possible way. Even has cool smoke effects when the tape deck and AC run at the same time
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I feel like a quintessential mid-2010s digital media moment was when BuzzFeed News got the Obama interview and Vice got the Biden interview, lol
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For all his supposed soul-searching, Sam Bankman-Fried planned to spend much of his time in front of Congress blaming others for the implosion of FTX, and the situation he now finds himself in. From
@DavidJeans2
and me:
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SCOOP: Eric Schmidt's secret drone project, which we first reported, is called White Stork.
It's working to develop "kamikaze" attack drones that can navigate in GPS-jammed environments and use AI for visual targeting.
From me and
@richardjnieva
:
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Is Sam Bankman-Fried a wayward genius? An admitted Ponzi scammer? Benevolent dictator? Or "the devil in nerd's clothes," as one acquaintance put it?
With
@DavidJeans2
and
@richardjnieva
, we try to separate the man people knew from the myth that was sold.
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I'm walking out with my
@forbesunion
colleagues today through Monday because we deserve a fair contract and good faith bargaining on issues like pay equity, editorial integrity and protection of our most vulnerable employees.
🪧🪧 Please don't cross the picket line! 🪧🪧
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Having to come up with increasingly complex, CIA-grade false flag operations to trick my 100-pound dog into getting in the car
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An AI company claimed its model could detect STIs in men, based on photos it encouraged women to submit of their partners' genitalia.
But after public outcry, its founders have been quietly changing its data practices and removing alleged affiliations.
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Compare these earnings to those of one miner who told Forbes she's lucky to make $5 in three months.
When asked if Helium should have disclosed insider gains, CEO Amir Haleem said, "I don’t know why we would be asked to be in a position to reveal anything about these people."
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@DavidJeans2
SCOOP: We learned that Alameda used a previously undisclosed company controlled by FTX Bahamas co-CEO Ryan Salame to funnel a $50M loan to Deltec's parent group in October 2021. (Three months later, Alameda invested in Moonstone.)
Many have wondered about FTX's ties to its banks Moonstone and Deltec. FTX was a Deltec client when Alameda invested $11.5M in Moonstone, a rural Washington bank acquired by Deltec's chairman Jean Chalopin (a co-creator of Inspector Gadget!)
@DavidJeans2
and I have some answers.
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One of the world's most isolated nations, Bhutan, held millions of dollars in crypto through a sovereign investment arm, which it never disclosed.
This was only revealed in the bankruptcy docs of BlockFi and Celsius.
@_IainMartin
and I report:
@Techmeme
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NEW: Sam Bankman-Fried made the Bahamas the home of FTX. Now, its calamitous downfall has left countless employees, restauranteurs, government officials, and Bahamian locals to navigate the wreckage.
Here's my and
@DavidJeans2
dispatch from Nassau:
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Seeing reports of an unidentified orb-shaped craft. Armed and ready.
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Druk Holding held investments like a local cheesemaker, hydropower plants, and the royal airline.
It also borrowed $30 million USDC from BlockFi with 1,888 bitcoin as collateral, and withdrew $65 million from Celsius right before it went bankrupt.
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Bolt founder Ryan Breslow was the archetype of Silicon Valley success: young, charismatic and worth billions.
But then, "He became the clown in the Valley," said one source.
Lots of new reporting from
@_IainMartin
and I on the $$$, loans and lawsuits.
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We identified 30 wallets that appear connected to Helium employees, their friends and family, and investors. This group mined 3.5M tokens in the network's first three months. Within six months, more than a quarter had been mined by these "insiders," at a peak value of $250M.
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For the past two months,
@DavidJeans2
,
@_pheebini
and I have looked at this company hailed as the best example of crypto's real-world utility. By incentivizing regular people to buy $500 hotspots that also mine tokens, it successfully built a massive global wireless network.
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NEW: For the past few weeks,
@_IainMartin
and I dug into a glossy magazine for female entrepreneurs called “Women of the City” or WOTC.
Our investigation led us to a controversial prosperity church that’s been accused by former members of being a “cult.”
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I like to think this story has it all…… Futuristic tech utopias, Peter Thiel, an heir to the House of Medici, crypto and, of course, the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.
New from
@_IainMartin
and me:
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Helium was founded by Napster's Shawn Fanning and game designer Amir Haleem (and originally called "Skynet Phase 1" lol), and raised $250M in funding + token sale from firms incl. Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Benioff, Google Ventures, and Khosla Ventures. Today it's valued at $1.2B.
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a cool person would've renamed a room "eXistenZ"......... just saying
Twitter's X rebrand is underway at its San Francisco headquarters.
The co. is projecting the X logo in the cafeteria and changed conference room names to words and phrases with the letter X in them. Those new names include “eXposure,” “eXult” and “s3Xy."
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SCOOP: In 2021, Tether held billions of its reserves with offshore banks Capital Union and Ansbacher. After settling with NYAG, Tether moved $37 billion in assets from existing bank Deltec to Capital Union, internal docs show. Story from
@DavidJeans2
& me:
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Please stop what you're doing and read this
@richardjnieva
banger on Worldcoin's latest troubles, including the orb repeatedly telling an Asian woman to "Open your eyes" whilst trying to scan her retina.
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Basically all of the world's biggest tech companies are listed as FTX creditors in a new, 115-page document filed to Delaware bankruptcy court yesterday. We've reached out to all of them for comment.
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NEW: Eric Schmidt has been quietly working on a stealth military drone project that was influenced by his recent missions to wartime Ukraine. Ex-Google moonshot lab founder Sebastian Thrun is also involved, sources tell Forbes.
From me and
@richardjnieva
:
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My ancestors didn't leave England for the shores of America where they were viciously pursued by a local witch and a goat named Black Phillip so that I could one day celebrate the British monarchy
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👀 New lawsuit from FTX lawyers against SBF builds on our March reporting that Sam's legal bills were paid for through a strategic $10 million estate gift made to father Joe Bankman, and that the source of these funds was an Alameda Research loan to SBF
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Who was Caroline Ellison? A "fake charity nerd girl"? Harry Potterhead? Trad blogger? "Crypto Queen"?
Story from
@DavidJeans2
,
@richardjnieva
,
@DelRayMan
, and I, which contains this amazing anecdote for everyone who can't get enough of the beanbags (me).
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We decided to look at how Helium executives + investors were using the decentralized "People's Network." Our reporting relied on info from thousands of pages of leaked internal documents and data accessible via Helium's blockchain. We also spoke to five former employees.
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@DavidJeans2
The company tied to Salame, which has not been named in FTX court or bankruptcy filings, was Norton Hall Ltd. You might recall that a bankruptcy filing disclosed loans to execs, including $55M to Salame. These were the funds loaned to Deltec, sources say
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Of all the details ProPublica revealed about Bohemian Grove, this is perhaps the most disturbing:
"...late at night, members consume clam chowder and chili by the gallon."
Thomas’ relationship with Charles and David Koch developed over years of trips to the Bohemian Grove, a secretive all-men’s retreat in California where the justice stayed in a small camp with Harlan Crow and the Kochs.
(Image: the “Cremation of Care” production at the Grove)
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A data broker called Bazze, which claims to work with US and UK defense agencies, is marketing a platform that can enable the tracking of foreign individuals overseas via "real-time" location data — in embassies, consulates, airfields and military bases
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escorted from the bitcoin factory in handcuffs for stealing little jars of heat to warm myself and cook my food
Bitcoin miners don't consume energy - they generate heat. This heat can be repurposed and used to heat buildings or produce food.
Few.
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NEW: Something is amiss at Eric Schmidt's $1 billion philanthropic org.
We learned the CEO of Schmidt Futures left after an investigation by Hillspire, Schmidt's family office. A dozen programs are now being shuttered or spun out.
With
@DavidJeans2
:
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NEW: Married billionaire Eric Schmidt launched Steel Perlot with 29-year-old entrepreneur Michelle Ritter while they were dating — a venture that has blurred his professional and personal life.
Story from
@DavidJeans2
and I today:
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The half Asian genetic hybrid delegation rejects Kanye’s bid on behalf of elon musk
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NEW: BlackBerry's CEO is sued by a former exec for what she alleges was a pattern of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and retaliation.
Before promoting him to CEO, BlackBerry hired lawyers to quietly investigate several women's claims against him.
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Newly filed disclosures from OpenAI show its lobbyists targeted defense agencies last year, and last month was seeking to hire a Federal Account Director to “begin forming relationships with federal agencies and introducing them to OpenAI products.”
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"She’d postponed the festival’s original June date after the company recalled a product...made some people so ill, more than 130 ended up in the hospital, and some 40 of them had to have their gallbladders removed"
Absolutely demented.
This story truly has it all -- girlboss, regulatory free zone, wellness, food poisoning, magnets that say “Namastay Away From Cupcakes” and so so much more
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so cool how the actor who plays "ole munch" in fargo s5 keeps getting cast as a guy with this type of haircut
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I'll be in the Bahamas to report on FTX + SBF through Friday ✈️ If you're there and want to share things — or otherwise know of things to look into — please get in touch!
The best way to reach me is Signal: +1 510 473 8820. But DM to connect on Telegram.
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Murder suspect Momeni asked one of his neighbors for “all your alcohol” hours after Bob Lee’s killing.
(Text messages viewed by Forbes showed Momeni thanking the person for the alcohol.)
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This lady's really buying human organs on Venmo using the emojis 🧠💀🤪
The manager of Harvard Medical School's morgue is accused of letting buyers come into the morgue to pick what remains they wanted to buy, then stealing parts of donated cadavers like brains, skin and bones.
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Crissy perfect today
Crissy Field, Jan 1964
I'm sure you know that before it was big grassy field and reclaimed marsh, Crissy Field was an airstrip in the Presidio. and yes, that's the decrepit original Palace of Fine Arts in the background.
#sfhistory
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Mullets, Nyn, god, drones and Andreessen Horowitz are fueling a defense tech revival called the "Gundo."
Down in El Segundo, a movement of young (mostly male) founders are trying to make it cool to build hardware for the battlefield.
w/
@DavidJeans2
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One interesting finding buried in a motion from Bahamas liquidators was that FTX held two accounts at Moonstone possessing nearly $50 million in funds. In November, liquidators asked the bank for FTX account and deposit details, and were essentially told no.
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Every paragraph of this investigation into Stability AI by
@kenrickcai
and
@_IainMartin
is more bonkers than the next, but just wait until you get to "a line of emotional support dog NFTs."
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The Lahaina fire was fueled by nonnative grasses that took over land formerly occupied by plantations. Hawaii's plantation history casts a long shadow. It's why my grandparents and thousands of Japanese ended up on Maui to work in the sugar cane fields.
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