As I mentioned in another comment, I think it's not accidental that SBF was pumped full of delusions of being a boy genius.
This worked great as a marketing gimmick for sure, as people love the mythos of a revolutionary company run by a tech prodigy.
But it also works when everything falls apart because SBF's delusion driven ego sucked up every morsel of attention and responsibility.
I also wouldn't be surprised if, through various means, many of his investors ultimately walked away with far more money than they started. And nobody bothers asking questions about that because SBF does such a great job of drawing all the attention.
I've always felt this was probably the case. Take an idiot that needs to feel important, tell him he's a "boy genius" who can do no wrong and is always going to be misunderstood, and you basically have the perfect patsy. Till the end SBF just could not let go of that idea that he was smarter than everyone else, never realizing that this was always just a marketing gimmick.
At least Caroline Ellison had the sense to realize that she was living a delusion and quickly did what she could to walk away with minimal harm done to herself. In a few years she'll probably find herself making book deals and getting paid outrageous consulting fees once memory fades enough.
OCLC is a parasitic company masquerading as a "membership cooperative".
Libraries (often publicly funded) produce all the work, OCLC claims ownership of the results of that work, Libraries pay to get it back (but they do get a discount if they contribute).
The only reason OCLC continues to exist is because libraries don't have the support or resources to fight them. It's very similar to the Elsevier issue in academic publishing, but OCLC does a better job with PR.
This worked great as a marketing gimmick for sure, as people love the mythos of a revolutionary company run by a tech prodigy.
But it also works when everything falls apart because SBF's delusion driven ego sucked up every morsel of attention and responsibility.
I also wouldn't be surprised if, through various means, many of his investors ultimately walked away with far more money than they started. And nobody bothers asking questions about that because SBF does such a great job of drawing all the attention.