Some conversations stay with me long after I finish the reporting. My exclusive interview with former FTX COO Constance Wang @ConstanceWaing was one of them. What moved me was hearing about the young people behind FTX: hardworking, ambitious, full of dreams. People who believed deeply in @SBF_FTX Sam Bankman-Fried and the mission he promised - and were devastated by the betrayal. One detail Constance shared with me touched me a lot - during the collapse, with the office locked and much of the senior leadership gone from the Bahamas, employees began gathering at her home because they needed somewhere safe to be together. She provided food, drinks and whatever updates she could, trying to hold everyone together while struggling to understand what had happened herself. Imagine spending years building something you believe in, only to lose your savings, your work and your sense of whom you can trust. I can understand why she finds the framing of that experience as a “toxic love story” so upsetting. There are so many other lives in this story that deserve to be heard. I also keep thinking about what FTX might have become with honest leadership and financial discipline. Could it still be a major player today? Perhaps even a public company and one of the biggest crypto exchange that might rival @binance? Given its investment in @AnthropicAI, it could have had huge potential, but we’ll never know now. Customers’ money was never SBF’s to gamble with or use to rescue Alameda. Protecting that boundary is a basic responsibility. The mindset that “it’s only a scam if you get caught” is toxic. Integrity matters even when nobody is watching—and no promise of changing the world excuses betraying the people who trust you. Constance struck me as driven and down-to-earth. After devastating personal losses, she is building again. What touched me was her gratitude for something easily taken for granted: she has her freedom, and the chance to start over. Thank you, Constance, for trusting me with this exclusive interview and sharing such painful memories. Wishing you and your team at @pacifica_fi the very best as you build your next chapter. Read my full story for @nypost et @californiapost 👇