Gary Wang (American businessman)

Gary Wang (c. 1993) is an American computer programmer who co-founded the crypto currency exchange FTX with Sam Bankman-Fried. At the height of his success in 2022, Wang was ranked the 227th richest American in the Forbes 400, and the 431st richest person in the world by The World's Billionaires. After FTX collapsed into bankruptcy, caused by massive fraud perpetrated by Wang, Bankman-Fried and a few others, Wang plea bargained a guilty charge in exchange for testifying against his former college roommate and business partner, Bankman-Fried. Before co-founding FTX, Wang worked at Google Flights, building systems for the aggregation of ticket prices.

Early life and education
Wang was born in China and moved to the U.S. when he was 8 years old with his parents. He graduated in 2011 from Cherry Hill High School East in New Jersey. He attended Canada/USA Mathcamp, where he met his future classmate and cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried in 2010. After high school, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied mathematics and computer science. At MIT, he was the roommate of Sam Bankman-Fried for three years, and he was a member of Epsilon Theta, a coed fraternity that also included Bankman-Fried. After graduating from MIT, he worked at Google Flights, building systems for the aggregation of ticket prices. When Bankman-Fried cofounded Alameda Research in 2017, Wang reportedly left his role at Google to join his former roommate in that business. In 2019, Bankman-Fried and Wang cofounded FTX.

FTX
At FTX, he was the chief technology officer. He was the second-largest shareholder of FTX at the time of the collapse of the company. Wang owned 17% of FTX and 10% of Alameda Research, a sister firm of FTX and co-founded by Bankman-Fried. Wang was a somewhat reclusive figure, per reports. He was described as brilliant "beyond belief", and so integral that if he left FTX it would collapse. He was happiest when computer programming from home. According to an interview with his parents, Wang "wasn't interested in the communication or management parts of the company. He was only interested in his part of work, [which was] coding.”

On December 18, 2022, Wang pleaded guilty in a plea bargain in the Southern District of New York to wire fraud and three counts of conspiracy involving wire, securities and commodities fraud relating to helping Bankman-Fried defraud FTX customers, for which SBF was later sentenced to 25 years in prison. His lawyer, Ilan Graff, stated that "Gary has accepted responsibility for his actions and takes seriously his obligations as a cooperating witness."

As part of his plea bargain, Wang testified in United States v. Sam Bankman-Fried that "with some simple tweaks to computer code," he helped Alameda Research misappropriate as much as $65 billion from FTX customers and that he "lied about this to the public." He said he was directed to alter FTX's code between 2019 and 2022 despite knowing that it would give Alameda Research "special privileges."