Going Infinite

The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

De: Michael Lewis

Narrado por: Michael Lewis

Duración: 8 h y 56 m

Resumen del Editor

From the number one best-selling author of The Big Short and Flash Boys, the story of FTX’s spectacular collapse and the enigmatic founder at its center.

When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?

In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking listeners into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system. Both psychological portrait and financial roller-coaster ride, Going Infinite is Michael Lewis at the top of his game, tracing the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own—until it all came undone.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Michael Lewis (P)2023 Audible, Inc.

How did Michael Lewis get such access?

Answers so many questions. Well done! SBF trial starts today. It feels less a criminal plot than a Genius confusion

Great Book, Despite Some Negative Reviews

Many reviewers regard Lewis as an apologist for SBF. If you read closely, Lewis has given enough detail to let you form your own opinion.

I picked up the book already thinking that Effective Altruism was a horrible ethic, and I came away with a nuanced, but not really unchanged view of SBF.

You get what you put into this book - Lewis doesn’t do your thinking for you.

Something missing?

I love Michael Lewis books, but this one just felt like he’d rushed it out for some reason.

I read that he’d written it in six months, so with the trial literally going on as we speak, I’m not sure why he wouldn’t have waited a couple of months to put a bow on the story, by actually hearing the evidence the prosecutors had to present.

The last couple of chapters are basically his back of the napkin calculations of where the money went and what happened, so why not wait to hear where it actually went?

I don’t think he painted SBF as sympathetic, he comes off as a disheveled, disorganized, very smart nerd who is arrogantly self-assured.

Overall it’s disappointing because it just didn’t feel like there was real meat to any of it. There were numerous details that i have read about the whole saga in the New York Times and Bloomberg that he just didn’t seem to address.

Peter Pan lives… But now in jail

It is clear that Mr. Lewis began this book when times were good for SBF. Then things suddenly turned upside down right in front of the author, and in real time. But it appeared to me that Mr Lewis started out thinking he was going to write about Peter Pan, a magical and mysterious creature, who set out to do good in the world and become incomprehensibly, wealthy and influential at the same time. To SBF, it looked like you could have it all, winning the game, using the rules of a game with no more commitment than to a statistical analysis and technology, that was a hair better than the competition, while, for the first time in the history of the world, and only because he was so bright, while at the same time nobody would be the loser because it was just a game. All this ephemeral wealth could be showered with a wave of the hand on those who might do good in the world.

Maybe it is grownups who know that this is always going to be a fantasy and someone is going to pay eventually And so, just as the magical mystery tour was gaining momentum while the entire world watched, the carousel fell off its rotors, and the hitherto gay and now suddenly grim riders abruptly abandoned the horses. The cocksure child had fallen asleep, while being read a fable at bedtime, in which he was the handsome prince, and the rest of the world was the sleeping princess that he would awaken, and all would live happily ever after.

SBF thought he understood the world better than others, Only to be caught in the romance of his own story. Then he is abruptly awakened, and now wants to tell us the whole thing was just a game, and he had no evil intent. The sorry irony is that he may well be telling his subjective truth. He never foresaw all this, because immature children often do not anticipate predictable consequences.

Mr. Lewis had a personal living room chair with SBF, and used the details of what he actually saw to capture how a brilliant, astoundingly disconnected and immature young man, probably on the spectrum, had an idea about who he should be in the world, and proselytized other young people, to join his merrry band. He made no promises, and gave no explanations of how, or for what purpose other than to do good, and not incidentally, to accumulate wealth, that really meant nothing to them, and that they never seem to take advantage of.

Rather than dwelling on the details of the rules of the game or the details by which SPF learned to win the game, Mr. Lewis seemed to me to want to capture the sense of dreamy otherworldliness that these young people seemed to live in. SBF, created Neverland for them to live on, isolated, and they fought the Pirates and the Indians every day, with no apparent purpose, other than to repeat the bloodless fantasy battle again the next day. If only they had had their own Wendy to tell them to make their beds, clean the rooms, wash their clothes, and grow up, look around and ask themselves what they were doing, and how all this money could be made, as if SPF were minting gold in some way that they just did not understand. They were not accountable to him, and he did not deem himself accountable to them or society as a whole.

I thought Mr. Lewis, did a good job of capturing the pointlessness of it all. The Lost Children were motivated not so much by rapaciousness as by enthusiasm for the game and winning the game. They had a secret handle on the tiny statistical truths that would ensure that they would win the game.

Who does not sometimes wish they had a secure and reliable way of winning the game of life, or at least this extremely narrow phase of the game of life, defined in this case as wealth, accumulation? Eventually, each of the Lost Children would have learned the barrenness of wealth by itself, because the players of the game seemed not to be able to see outside the boundaries of the game.

SBF won the statistical game, but forgot about having responsibility to other humans living now. Mr. Lewis made an interesting point that SBF and his brethren altruists weren’t out to help us, but to do something grander for the human race as it were.

This is not a story of greed. It is a story of hubris. Thank you, Mr. Lewis, for helping us see that compelling and pathetic side of the story.

Tony Jeffries

Remarkable insights

Michael Lewis does it again! I went into this book with one set of opinions and leave it with all those opinions challenged— just what I hope for in a Michael Lewis book! And talk about timing— released on the second day of SBF’s trial. Now on to listen to Lewis’ podcast of the trial which I hope will provide the basis for volume 2.

A joy to listen to

Michael Lewis continues to dissect and bring light to what many of us do not understand or have very little idea
Going Infinite continue with an in depth look at the FTX fiasco and what led to it. Much like his book The Big Short, many questions remain about where the money went, but what is clear is what led to the implosion of FTX and a better understanding of the lead up to it.

Meh

I was anxiously awaiting this book… and couldn’t have been more bored and disappointed by this telling.

Great Lewis book on the characters and their motivation.

Excellent written and delivered story - if you are looking for answer it’s not a book for you. If you want to understand the characters and their motivations then its a book for you

Excellence review

Listened to this entire book - told so we’ll. Written with compassion for SBF and those around him. Still clueless about crypto but this is a fascinating and honest account. Definitely read!!

Michael Lewis at his absolute best!

Timely, in-depth, and told with the gripping intensity that is the Michael Lewis trademark.