AP Photo/Seth Wenig
- FTX hired two architects to design its multi-million dollar Bahamas HQ, per an upcoming biography.
- They talked to uninterested employees to figure out what they might want for their offices.
- That unveiled one anecdote where FTX spent $1 million to settle an argument over a door in its former office.
FTX spent $1 million removing one doorway and adding another when it was headquartered in Hong Kong, according to an excerpt from Michael Lewis' upcoming biography shared by The Times of London.
"Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon," which will be published Tuesday, includes the struggles of the architects hired to design the crypto company's headquarters.
Amid FTX's $256.3 million of real estate in the Bahamas was a 4.95 acre plot where it planned to build a campus.
Lewis writes that the two architects, Ian Rosenfield and Alfia White, were given "several hundred million dollars" and told to "have at it."
"We were supposed to design a mini-city," Rosenfield told the biographer. So with little direction from FTX executives, the architects asked employees how they used the old Hong Kong offices as they tried to figure out what they might want.
"They kept saying: 'you don't need to interview us, just design it how you want to design it,'" White told Lewis.
"I've observed other tech employees and these are different," said Rosenfield. "They care even less about aesthetics and amenities."
But then they learned about a drawn-out argument over the placement of a single door in the Hong Kong office, which Rosenfield called "the million-dollar door."
One employee said it needed to be removed for feng shui — an ancient Chinese practice relating to the energy of rooms or buildings, and often invoked in interior design — but another staffer was intent on keeping the door.
In the end, the doorway was removed and another one was added instead, which cost $1 million, according to Lewis' biography.
Lewis writes that around half of FTX's employees were from east Asia, so the architects had to consider feng shui when they designed the new Bahamas campus as well.
Fortune reports that the headquarters cost $60 million, but construction never started.
Bankman-Fried's spokesperson did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, sent outside US working hours.