Which The Altruists Character Are You?

Learn More About The Altruists

The Altruists is Netflix’s eight-episode limited series about the rise and spectacular collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that went from industry darling to bankruptcy in a matter of days in November 2022. All eight episodes premiere on Netflix on November 19, 2026, and the show frames its two leads, Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, as Gen Z’s own Bonnie and Clyde: hyper-smart idealists who set out to remake the global financial system and ended up accused of losing $8 billion in customer money.

The series was created by Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, who serves as showrunner alongside Jacqueline Hoyt. It is produced in part by Higher Ground, the production company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama, and was inspired by New York Magazine reporting from Kevin T. Dugan and Jen Wieczner. Moore has described the pair as deeply committed altruists who, with the best of intentions, talked each other into a series of terrible decisions — which is exactly the moral tension the show leans into.

Anthony Boyle (Masters of the Air, House of Guinness) plays Sam Bankman-Fried, the mop-haired FTX founder famous for sleeping on a beanbag and evangelizing effective altruism, the philosophy of earning as much money as possible in order to give it away. Julia Garner, an Emmy winner for Ozark, plays Caroline Ellison, the math prodigy who became co-CEO of FTX’s sister trading firm Alameda Research. Garner is also an executive producer on the series.

Around them is a big, chaotic ensemble that mirrors the real FTX inner circle. Matt Rife plays Ryan Salame, the outgoing CEO of FTX Digital Markets; Karan Soni plays engineering chief Nishad Singh; Madison Hu plays COO Constance Wang; Eugene Young plays FTX co-founder Gary Wang; and Alex Lawther plays Sam Trabucco, Alameda’s other co-CEO. Paul Reiser and Robin Weigert play Sam’s parents, Stanford law professors Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, while Terry Chen appears as Binance chief Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and Jennifer Grey plays Caroline’s mother.

The trailer opens with Sam and Caroline bonding over the math of going “all in,” then follows them from idealistic founders who want to change the world to Bahamas penthouses, frantic trading floors and the wave of press and legal scrutiny that ultimately brought the company down. In real life, Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud in 2023, while Ellison, Wang and Singh pleaded guilty and testified at his trial — so the drama here is less about what happened than about how a group of very smart people convinced themselves it was all justified.

That mix of big personalities is what makes The Altruists such a fun fit for a personality quiz. Are you the restless visionary who never sleeps, the bookish strategist who overthinks every move, the life of the party, the loyal builder or the practical operator holding everything together? Each result above is based on how the show portrays its characters, not a judgment of the real people.

If you love stories about money, ambition and moral grey zones, try our Succession character quiz or our Industry character quiz. Julia Garner fans should also take our Ozark character quiz, and if you want more Netflix intrigue, our Black Doves character quiz is waiting.