Jeff John Roberts

Finance and Crypto Editor

Diamondhands was the shadowy figure behind BitClout, a crypto project that claimed to be decentralized and run entirely on “code and coins.” According to the FBI, that was all a lie, and Al-Naji ran the whole operation, helping himself to at least $13 million, which he spent on a six-bedroom house in Beverly Hills and lavish gifts to family. He is now facing charges that could land him in prison for years.

The case raises the question of why a young man who had everything—brains, charisma, and an Ivy League education—chose to become an alleged criminal. But it also raises the question of how the smartest guys in Silicon Valley could have bet on what, in hindsight, appeared to be an obvious scam.

That decision has placed one of the Valley’s biggest firms, Andreessen Horowitz, in the uncomfortable position of fraud victim and witness for the prosecution. But the biggest takeaway from the Diamondhands episode is that the venture capital industry’s fondness for “pattern matching”—looking for founders with a similar biography to successful entrepreneurs—can make it vulnerable to con men. You can read the whole Diamondhands story here.

How a Princeton rower became Diamondhands and fooled Silicon Valley’s most famous VC firm—twice

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