Going Infinite: FTX & Crypto Tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried's Downfall w/ Michael Lewis

Going Infinite: FTX & Crypto Tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried's Downfall w/ Michael Lewis | Technovation 816

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6 ай бұрын

Michael Lewis joins Peter High in a discussion about his latest book, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, and the insights he gleaned from his research into FTX and the disgraced founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. He shares how the topic stumbled into his lap, what interested him about the story, and why luck played a role in the story’s success. Michael Lewis pulls anecdotes from his book and talks about getting to know the crypto tycoon, learning about his upbringing, and understanding how the concept of ‘effective altruism’ set SBF on his eventual path. He talks about the unconventional business structure of FTX, the skepticism he has around cryptocurrency in general, and his unique perspective on whether or not the crypto startup founder is criminally crooked or just chaotically disorganized.
0:00:00 Introduction
0:02:20 Role of Luck and Interviewing Sam Bankman-Fried
0:04:43 The Rise of Crypto and Sam's Journey
0:16:38 ‘Effective Altruism’ and Its Influence on SBF
0:23:19 Intellectualization of Financial Markets
0:28:58 Alameda Research’s Lost $4 Million and Internal Divide
0:36:42 The Chaos and Disorganization of FTX
0:41:40 Is Sam Chaotically Disorganized or Crooked?
0:48:05 Michael’s Future Relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried
0:50:15 Outro
An audio-only version of this interview is available as episode 816 of Metis Strategy’s podcast, Technovation with Peter High. Learn more at bit.ly/Technovation-816.
Subscribe to Technovation on your podcast platform of choice: link.chtbl.com/Technovation
To learn more, visit www.metisstrategy.com/technovation-podcast/
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#crypto #SBF #FTX

Пікірлер: 53

@karaMcg1122 6 ай бұрын

Effective Altruism = stealing money from poor ppl to buy luxury mansions for yourself😂😂 Michael Lewis never got it

@TheDavidlloydjones 6 ай бұрын

One of the things I've always found is that the truly altruistic people go around telling us all how altruistic they are. All the time. And very loud. Not.

@jacquelyndotson3224 6 ай бұрын

Sorry Lewis, but we bought Number Go Up instead.

@DeeWeber 6 ай бұрын

Sam’s totally on the spectrum. But he’s a crook because he knew what he was doing was wrong and doubled down.

@geno43bom 6 ай бұрын

It is amazing to see that after all he saw and despite the undeniable guilty veredict, the author still talks with admiration about the guy as if was a weird but decent person. Thanks for saving me the time and the money to read this book

@NickKautz 6 ай бұрын

What? That's crazy. He provided extremely valuable insight into who Sam is. And it should be hard to hate Sam. Michael just explained that Sam was never motivated by money, he was motivated by providing maximum benefit to humanity.. That was the purpose of FTX and everything he did. He was trying to quickly create a source of funding to solve the world's problems. People assume he was trying to enrich himself because that's what you would expect, but that wasn't happening. Also , everyone is being paid back starting the 2nd quarter of 2024. That's a first in history for a company of that size. That means the money was there, it just wasn't liquid.

@geno43bom 6 ай бұрын

@@NickKautz man, don't get me wrong but I think you should try to change your drug dealer. This shit is not making any good for you. Because I cannot believe that you are still seriously thinking that this guy was trying to "change the world". Not after all that has been said during the trial!

@NickKautz 6 ай бұрын

It's because him stealing and/or enriching himself does not fit the evidence or the circumstances. Reasons why stealing doesn't make sense: He made ~$100m in his first year of trading on his own with Alamada, before FTX. Tell me why someone stupid or intelligent would deliberately steal, risking life in prison, when they can already make as much money as they want legitimately with ease. Actually, that's a mic drop right there, but I'll continue. Let's examine his background for the likelihood of him having criminal intentions. 1. Intelligent academic Stanford professor parents that care dearly about him. 2. Zero criminal history or any hint at criminal behavior. 3. Preoccupation with altruism and contribution to humanity, talked about it constantly. Likely passed down from his parents. 4. Big names liking him and trusting him. 5. $400m in charity donations. 6. All the supposed missing money being accounted for. ... I could go on, but hopefully you get the drift. 7. Why would he steal to make legit VC investments? Wouldn't he be transferring money out of the FTX/Alameda system into some offshore accounts? .... There are so many more reasons but you get the drift. I don't understand why I'm the only one to find this stuff odd. @@geno43bom

@TheDavidlloydjones 6 ай бұрын

@@NickKautz "Michael just explained that Sam was never motivated by money, he was motivated by providing maximum benefit to humanity." Thanks for the explanation, Nick. So he just bought the $35 million apartment by accident, right?

@NickKautz 6 ай бұрын

He bought a place nice enough that his top employees would relocate to it. And gave Nishad Singh the nicest suite. If you have the money, you might as well make the place you spend most of your time be pleaseant. That's mild for a billionaire. What I mean is his primary motivation wasn't to enrich himself. That wasn't the driving force behind him. Of course he was trying to generate money, but for a different purpose. If he was "stealing" there would be offshore bank accounts and large amounts of crypto converted to cash in a sketchy. We would have heard about it. @@TheDavidlloydjones

@chrissheppard5068 6 ай бұрын

Going Felon would be more Apt.....or how about Going To Prison.

@Kawiboy 6 ай бұрын

👊👊✌️😉

@DeeWeber 6 ай бұрын

Unfortunately to make the money you have to step on all of our backs, creating the conditions that impoverish us in the first place.

@scotto7924 6 ай бұрын

Sam 'borrowed' a billion dollars (thousand million) and 'invested' this for himself not to give back any profits. Half a billion went into an AI group which is now worth over 2 billion. He would only ever have paid the initial half billion back.

@jackpitts5561 6 ай бұрын

Someone should write a book about Michael Lewis, he starts off his writing career writing about himself and his apparent favoring of morality vs making money, and now he's writing and talking about glowing reviews of people who favor money over morality as some kind of hero. So strange. It's the story of a transformation from valuing morals to valuing only money accumulation by any means possible. Lewis is the main character in his own book about the decline of morality in business. And such a wierd comment that the Flash Boys character was too GOOD to be a good character. whaaaat?

@tomparker9966 6 ай бұрын

The problem with Effective Altruism is its a feel good about yourself excuse for making obscene amounts of money and telling yourself that as soon as I make a few more dollars for myself I'll start giving some away to help people that need it worse than me. In other words you get rich by stealing from poor people and keeping it for yourself.

@Yotrek 6 ай бұрын

19:20 the flaw in the logic is effective altruism is a function of continually depreciating currencies. In a parallel financial universe without depreciating currencies charities, non profits, and EA cease to exist, because they don’t need to exist.

@Louise-gg4mf 6 ай бұрын

Sam is lacking moral character. His parents failed him. That’s why he’s in trouble. Mr. Lewis fails to comprehend the many lives SBF destroyed.

@williamwade7059 6 ай бұрын

I was in court and watched a judge fine and put a woman on probation for writing a bad check to a grocery store. This guy has drank the kool aid.

@Obiahjones 6 ай бұрын

These writers are great literary characters , they are completely incapable of seeing the moral abyss of their subjects, the fact that they can’t see this guy as a grade A con artist is so entertaining, the kid was clearly clever but was no more than an over stimulated thief

@aladinhussein7487 6 ай бұрын

The guy is just a goober who stole billions of dollars, luckily the jury weren't as stupid as this guy...

@nancydelu4061 6 ай бұрын

Hmmm. Interesting perspective.

@cpking7 6 ай бұрын

Wow! Took me 12 seconds listening in the right spot to see what star-crossed loverbirds Sam and Micheal have in common: they're the two people on Earth who most strongly believe in doubling down on an extinction-level disaster!

@nunyabizness573 6 ай бұрын

SBF Defense was to try and paint a picture of a failed business and a legitimate bankruptcy after all SBFs "best efforts." The jury did NOT agree! This book is going to get the worst reviews ever and Lewis should stop going on these book tours and creating videos to market it and save himself some real embarrassment. The lawsuits against SBF will continue for years, none of it in a favorable light to SBF. Im going to check out the Amazon and Good Reads reviews, anticipating nothing but scorn for this "letter to the jury." In some sense this book is a con like SBF himself, making me wonder if Lewis was bought by SBF like all the other discredited celebrities who duped the gullible.

@SydneySewerat 6 ай бұрын

Michael Lewis fell for the cool aid. The scary thing is that Brad Katsaruma almost fell for SBF. At least Brad dodged a bullet thanks to Lewis, but Lewis didn't exactly, assuming his book tanks.

@neowuwei7851 6 ай бұрын

SBF was found guilty on ALL charges in 3.5 hours. That should REALLY boost sales of his book, lol. Just hope he was paid a good sum to shill for SBF, like Kevin O was. And not paid in FTT either.

@lydiab6063 6 ай бұрын

I read the book. he was not shilling for Sam

@neowuwei7851 6 ай бұрын

@@lydiab6063 won't waste my time. All his interviews seem to show he is making excuses for Sam's embezzlement and theft of customer funds.

@neowuwei7851 6 ай бұрын

@@lydiab6063 what's in the book then? Does he condemn SBF for his theft of customer funds to pay for his lavish lifestyle, purchases of over $100M in real estate, gifts to his parents and almost $1B in personal loans to himself?

@dm55 6 ай бұрын

How to dress up for an interview .

@norarhoads1566 6 ай бұрын

Momentary Tycoon guided by amoral Effective Altruism, apprenticed at high frequency trader uses skills and transparent avoidance of business methods to amass huge quantity of new form of value. The short lived un-business model is to transform customer cash into new form of value cycle new form of value back into cash controlled by the Tycoon.

@F3RACTION 6 ай бұрын

Sam was not wrong about job titles tbf

@kennyr3751 Ай бұрын

As of April 2024...Sam the scammer got 25 years....(should have been 99). A TRULY sad day for justice. 😭😭

@user-xe8jv1fx3l 5 ай бұрын

How SBF guilty if he got all the money back for the customer.

@sjm8510 6 ай бұрын

I find this new found fascination with beta bob ripping of zeta zed weirdly entertaining and boring at the same time.

@abby42525 6 ай бұрын

It’s a slow motion car crash that you hate to see, but can’t look away.

@CarrieCole09 6 ай бұрын

I find it f-ing infuriating that Lewis keeps using "grown-ups" as opposed to what? children??? These were super educated adults - even if we grant that the frontal cortex is done cooking at 25. They had debated ethics amongst themselves and settled on this illegal, selfish, BS. This chaos theory of Lewis's is also garbage. That is not a way to run a business. He was a thief, and I'm glad a jury of his peers (that I feel certain he smugly disdains) found him guilty on every charge.