Are you tired of LinkedIn posts filled with clichés like “congratulations” and “well deserved”? Ryan Salame, the convicted former FTX executive, offered something different. He announced the next step in his career: a stint at a federal prison in Maryland.
“I’m excited to share that I’m starting a new position as an Inmate at FCI Cumberland,” he posted on Microsoft’s online networking platform on Thursday, along with a fun digital graphic to go with it. recruitment announcements above LinkedIn.
It’s unusual for someone to openly mock their own predicament.
After all, Salame is considering spending the next seven and a half years in an orange jumpsuit, assuming he serves his full sentence.
But maybe he took inspiration from “pharmacist friend” Martin ShkreliCEO Turing was convicted of securities fraud. On his LinkedIn profile, Shkreli explained his five-year layoff from the New York City metropolitan area simply by writing: “I went to jail.”
His post received more than 7,500 likes, more than 800 comments and was shared nearly 600 times.
‘LinkedIn was invented for this very post’
However, this time the best part was the answers. Too many to count or list here, all of them dripping with the kind of gallows humor rarely seen on a site known for its steady stream of well wishes.
“LinkedIn was invented for this very post and I will not be convinced otherwise,” wrote Igor Khrestinexecutive director of global policy at the George W. Bush Institute.
LinkedIn users dance on Salame’s symbolic grave as FTX has become one of the most hated companies in America.
It marks the biggest corporate fraud since Elizabeth Holmes founded the fake blood diagnostics company Theranos.
Run by self-described altruist Sam Bankman-Fried—who once played host to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair—FTX turned villain after stealing customers’ money to pay for gambling bets by its crypto hedge fund sibling, Alameda Research.
The fall of FTX marks the peak of crypto winter
The collapse of FTX in November 2022 marked the the culmination of a long crypto winterincluding various scandals that have brought disrepute to the entire industry serving the new generation of digitally savvy consumers.
In 2020 and 2021, millions of people around the world sought freedom and safety from the constant noise of central bank printing presses by withdrawing money themselves.
For these people, cryptocurrencies are a refuge from the traditional financial system and paper money is backed only by government fiat.
Bankman-Fried, Salame and other co-conspirators, such as Caroline Ellison, betrayed their trust by conspiring to plug holes in their risk-taking activities with funds that FTX allegedly held with as a supervisor.
Even worse, Bankman-Fried try many times to deflect criticism and portray his cheating in a more flattering light.
Salame’s boss is was finally convicted up to 25 years in prison.
However, not everyone is interested in Salame’s lighthearted humor.
Public relations specialist based in Wisconsin Jeremy Tunis calls this post a case study on “how to create zero empathy.”
Instead of making an “unpleasant and deafening” announcement, he said Salame would be better off publishing a letter to all the victims of the FTX scam acknowledging the pain he caused.
