Caroline Ellison is a math whiz, trader, and the shadow figure behind FTX's collapse — and now some of her personal notes on her feelings about her job have been revealed
Caroline Ellison was the CEO of Alameda Research, a trading firm launched by Sam Bankman-Fried.
She oversaw many of the risky bets Alameda took with FTX customers' crypto tokens.
Here is her background story — including personal notes that have now been revealed.
Over the past few weeks, a mushroom of secrets about the inner workings of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange, FTX, have come to light.
From that, the once shadowy figure of Caroline Ellison has emerged as an important character behind FTX's seeming success and surprising downfall.
Ellison was the head of Alameda Research — the trading firm through which Bankman-Fried moved crypto tokens in tandem with running FTX. Amidst the revelation that FTX borrowed money from customer accounts to fund bets via Alameda, Ellison has become a subject of online speculation.
Ellison's virtual presence, however, is dwindling by the day. Her LinkedIn, online photos, and contact information have largely disappeared over the past couple of weeks. That's left journalists, investors, and voyeurs of all types scrambling to find information about her.
The curiosity has only heightened since CoinDesk reported via anonymous sources that she was in an on-and-off relationship with SBF.
Right now, the most reliable information about Ellison has been sourced from her Tumblr account, and the handful of media interviews she's given over the years. The bones of her virtual self suggest that Ellison is extraordinarily bright and highly educated as well as a math whiz and a big reader. She speculates often about gender roles and shifts in culture and society on Tumblr.
Here's what we know about Caroline Ellison.
December 22, 2022: This story has been updated to reflect the details of Ellison's plea deal.
Ellison grew up in the suburbs of Boston.
Source: Forbes
Her father, Glenn Ellison, is the department head of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her mother, Sara Fisher Ellison, is a senior lecturer in economics at MIT. Growing up, Ellison and her two sisters "definitely got exposed to a lot of economics," she told Forbes in an interview.
Ellison, who attended Newton North High School, had a special aptitude for mathematics. She said that she and her siblings "did a bunch of math competitions," which she "loved." "I just loved the math team community," Ellison said.
Sources: Gawker, The FTX Podcast
"I've been into math since I was probably a little kid," she said on an episode of FTX's podcast in 2020, adding that she's been "thinking about it a lot from an early age."
Source: The FTX Podcast
When she was eight years old, Ellison reportedly wrote her father an economics paper analyzing stuffed animal prices at Toys 'R' Us.
Source: Forbes
Ellison said she "worked pretty hard" in high school. In 2012, she enrolled at Stanford University, where she studied mathematics. Ellison said she picked the college because she wanted to get away from Boston and "try something different." She told Tristan Yver on the FTX Podcast that she really enjoyed her time at Stanford and had fun living in a dorm. "College is a great time," Ellison said, adding that "you don't really have any responsibilities."
Source: The FTX Podcast
Ruth Ackerman, a math professor who taught Ellison, described her former student to Forbes as "bright, focused, very mathy." Ellison said that she had contemplated studying linguistics or political science when she was a freshman, but opted for math because there were more opportunities to do other classes on the side. She said that in hindsight she wished she did more computer science and programming when she was at Stanford, but that a math major was a "signal that you're smart."
Sources: The FTX Podcast, The FTX Podcast, Forbes
Like her future colleague Bankman-Fried, Ellison began exploring effective altruism in college. It's a philosophical movement that uses calculations to understand how people can use their time, money, and resources to best help others. She eventually joined Stanford's Effective Altruism Club.
Ellison said in a podcast that when she was in junior year, "I didn't really know what to do with my life." She got multiple offers from trading firms for internships and chose to do one at Jane Street, which she said was "incredibly stressful."
Source: The FTX Podcast
Ellison said that she had planned to study for a fifth year at Stanford and do a masters, but ultimately decided against this and accepted a return offer from Jane Street instead. She worked there for around 18 months as a trader on its equities desk. "I loved it," she told Tristan Yver on the FTX Podcast. At Jane Street she met Bankman-Fried, and the two supposedly bonded over their interest in effective altruism.
Source: Forbes, The FTX Podcast
By 2018, Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF, had launched a crypto trading firm called Alameda Research. Ellison said that she went for a coffee with Bankman-Fried when she was visiting the Bay Area, and he persuaded her to join him. "This was very much like, 'oh, yeah, we don't really know what we're doing,'" Ellison told Forbes of her initial impressions of Alameda. But she decided that it ultimately "seemed like too cool an opportunity to pass up," she told Tristan Yver on the FTX Podcast.
Sources: Forbes, The FTX Podcast
Aside from Ellison, the Alameda Research crew included SBF's close friends Nishad Singh, Gary Wang, and Sam Trabucco. They moved from Berkeley to Hong Kong in 2018 where they lived like college students and fiercely traded crypto. Ellison was the only female on the team. While the others played video games, she'd be watching the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Source: Forbes
The switch from Jane Street to Alameda was a challenge, Ellison said on the FTX Podcast. "I wanted to be an expert on everything, but there was still lots of stuff in the crypto world that I knew nothing about," she said, adding that she "had to learn a whole new set of intuitions."
Source: The FTX Podcast
Ellison said that she found Alameda a "super challenging environment" and acknowledged that she spent a lot of time at work but said that it was "a lot of fun." Work "gives her a sense of purpose," she said, though she noted that her ultimate goal was "maximizing" her impact by earning money to give it away to charity.
Sources: The FTX Podcast, The FTX Podcast
After SBF established FTX in 2019, Ellison began taking more responsibility at Alameda Research. Ellison and Trabucco took over from Bankman-Fried as co-CEOs of Alameda in late 2021. The duo were featured in Forbes' 30 Under 30 in 2022.
Source: Forbes
However, Bankman-Fried "remained the ultimate decision-maker" at Alameda, directing investment and operational decisions, the Securities and Exchange Commission has said. "Though Ellison made some trading decisions, she frequently consulted with Bankman-Fried, particularly about strategic issues and significant trades," the regulator said.
Source: SEC complaint
Ellison maintained an active online persona. She tweeted under the handle @carolinecapital. She supposedly had two Tumblr accounts — worldoptimization and worldoptimization-lifeadvice — according to Gawker.
Source: Gawker
Still, Ellison largely remained out of the limelight as FTX rose to fame. FTX employees told Forbes that Ellison was content staying behind the scenes.
Source: Forbes
In April, Trabucco stepped down as CEO. After that, Ellison ran Alameda on her own.
Source: Forbes
Now, amid the fallout of FTX, online investigators ranging from the Twitter account @Autismcapital to media outlets like Gawker have rushed to unearth information on Ellison.
Source: Gawker
CoinDesk, the crypto publication, reported through anonymous sourcing, that Ellison was among the 10-person crew of FTX and Alameda employees who all lived together in the Bahamas. CoinDesk noted that all 10 members were paired off in relationships with one another at some point. Ellison reportedly had an on-and-off relationship with SBF.
On what is assumed to be her Tumblr account, Ellison likened the polyamory in the Bahamas house to an "imperial Chinese harem." She supposedly noted that there was an established hierarchy and everyone knew where they fell within it.
Source: Screenshot of the Ellison's supposed Tumblr provided by Twitter handle @OxHonky.
Ellison along with the other housemates reportedly shared a therapist named George Lerner.
Source: Gawker citing Sequoia Capital's profile of SBF, which was removed after the fallout.
Ellison is a reader and often posted book reviews on her Tumblr. The most recent titles she reviewed include "The Golden Enclaves" by Naomi Novik and "Venomous Lumpsucker" by Ned Beuman.
But her literary tastes range far and wide, from the Harry Potter series…
Source: Ellison's worldoptimization Tumblr.
…to the Substack of Matthew Yglesias, a blogger who writes about economics and politics. Ellison said on the FTX Podcast that her parents read the first Harry Potter aloud to her when she was just three, and that she read the second book by herself age five. She also writes LARPS – live action role play – and said that she planned to work on a novel when she's not working at Alameda anymore or is taking a long vacation.
Source: Ellison's worldoptimization Tumblr, The FTX Podcast
As of 2021, her favorite color was gray.
Ellison's worldoptimization Tumblr.
She often talks about her relationship as being a "trad," which can be understood as one who adheres to conventional gender roles and traditions. Ellison contended on her Tumblr that over time, she's moved away from being a "trad" to becoming "a bit more agnostic on culture/society."
Ellison's worldoptimization Tumblr.
The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reportedly lived in her former home.
Source: Ellison's worldoptimization Tumblr.
Ellison's online presence — including her LinkedIn — has dwindled since FTX's collapse. She last posted online on November 8. While Bankman-Fried has done a round of media appearances, including speaking at The New York Times' DealBook Summit, Ellison has remained silent.
Source: @carolinecapital on Twitter
Ellison pleaded guilty to seven charges in the collapse of FTX, including fraud, according to her plea agreement with the Southern District of New York filed on December 18. She faces up to 110 years in jail, but has struck a plea deal with the Department of Justice and is cooperating with authorities.
Source: Insider
Ellison's Google Doc entries have reportedly surfaced in the course of the case against Bankman-Fried and other top FTX associates.
Those entries describe a sense of alienation and weariness with the enterprise, according to the New York Times, which cited her as writing in 2022 that, "At the end of the day I can't wait to go home and turn off my phone and have a drink and get away from it all."
She also described her difficulties working around Bankman-Fried, whom she dated from time to time, and wrote of him that Alameda "felt too associated with you in a way that was painful," the New York Times reported.
Read the original article on Business Insider
