FTX; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
- FTX cofounder Gary Wang was a critical player during the rise and fall of SBF's crypto empire.
- Wang also served as FTX's former chief technology officer but kept a low profile.
- Wang has been cooperating with prosecutors and is set to testify in Sam Bankman-Fried's trial.
Gary Wang, the cofounder of FTX, has been a mysterious but critical player in the rise and spectacular fall of the crypto empire.
After pleading guilty to fraud in December, Wang has been cooperating with the prosecutors and is set to testify in Sam Bankman-Fried's trial that begins Tuesday.
Despite serving as FTX's chief technology officer, Wang maintained a limited online presence and steered clear of media interviews, leaving the limelight to his cofounder Bankman-Fried. He was the company's second-largest shareholder.
Here's what else we know about the mysterious cofounder:
A prolific coder with degrees from MIT
Wang reportedly met Bankman-Fried at a math camp in Oregon when the pair were teenagers.
Wang, who was 15 at the time, lived in a suburb of Cherry Hill in New Jersey. His family had emigrated to the US from China when he was eight years old, Bloomberg reported.
In January, Wang's father told Cherry Hill East's student newspaper, Eastside Online, that Wang was a trusting but naïve person.
"From a young age, he was very quiet and solely focused on his strongest interest in math and coding," Wang's father said. "He was very naïve, believing everyone around him was good."
"He was an idealist and full of care toward the world," he added.
Bloomberg reported that at high school Wang was part of the math club and chemistry club. He also joined the chess team and played violin in the symphony orchestra. The math club nicknamed him Hector after the warrior from Greek mythology and by his sophomore year he was studying multi-variable calculus, per Bloomberg.
After high school, Wang and Bankman-Fried both attended MIT and pledged the same fraternity, MIT's Epsilon Theta, according to the news outlet. The two cofounders were reportedly roommates for three years at college and later lived together in a Bahamas house that was home to several other FTX employees.
After graduating from MIT with degrees in mathematics and computer science, Wang worked at Google. He was an engineer at the company, building systems to aggregate prices across millions of flights, per Forbes.
When Bankman-Fried cofounded Alameda Research in 2017, Wang reportedly left his role at Google.
A reclusive figure
After founding FTX with Bankman-Fried in 2019, Wang became the company's chief technology officer — establishing himself as a key member of the crypto empire's inner circle.
A report, filed in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, alleged that FTX and Alameda Research were "tightly controlled by a small group of individuals" who "stifled dissent." The tight group of executives reportedly included Wang, Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison, who was formerly Alameda's CEO, and Nishad Singh, FTX's former director of engineering.
Although Bankman-Fried was said to have the final say in company decisions, one FTX executive was quoted in the report as stating that "if Nishad got hit by a bus, the whole company would be done. Same issue with Gary."
Singh, who was mentored by Wang, once described him as brilliant "beyond belief" in a 2020 podcast cited by the Sydney Morning Herald.
But at FTX, Wang was a somewhat reclusive figure, per reports. The executive's profile picture didn't show his face when it appeared on company systems, The Block reported.
Sources told the publication that he was one of a few employees who worked from home and liked to get stuck into coding. "Gary always struck me as someone who was like, 'just tell me what to do and leave me alone,'" a source familiar with both Alameda's and FTX's operations told The Block.
The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that Alameda Research's chief executive and senior FTX officials knew that FTX had lent its customers' money to Alameda to help it meet its liabilities.
Fraud charges and guilty plea
Unlike his cofounder, Wang has largely disappeared from view since he was fired from FTX after the company's implosion.
Beyond Bankman-Fried telling a Vox reporter in November that "Gary is scared," not much has been reported about the elusive cofounder.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Bankman-Fried said he originally thought he and Wang were on the same page with "the right next steps for customers" after FTX collapsed.
"All of the sudden that snapped into he was leaving that day, back to the US and implicitly mostly stopped working," Bankman-Fried told the news outlet.
In December, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that both Wang and Ellison had pleaded guilty to fraud. The pair were said to be cooperating with the prosecutors, according to a statement from US attorney, Damian Williams.
He has since testified that he was directed to alter FTX's code between 2019 and 2022 despite knowing that it would give Alameda Research "special privileges."
Wang had been charged with "a multiyear scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX" by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ilan Graff, Wang's attorney, told Insider in December: "Gary has accepted responsibility for his actions and takes seriously his obligations as a cooperating witness."
Sindhu Sundar contributed to this story.