Michael Lewis in Wales in June 2022. The author recently published a new book, 'Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon,' about FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried.
Michael Lewis in Wales in June 2022. The author recently published a new book,"Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon," about FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried.that he was writing a book on Sam Bankman-Fried after spending months with the FTX crypto mogul in the Bahamas, it was anticipated to be the definitive account of an era-defining financial collapse.
I'm just going to tell you the story as I see it, and then leave you the discretion that then you lynch him, acquit him, or don't know what to think of him. I don't want the jury thinking I left anything else they needed to know. I’ll tell you something strange about him, as a character. When I find someone I might write about, and that person is really insistent on knowing what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, I pretty quickly lose interest. So most of my characters kind of leave me to write what I want to write.
There was an operation inside of FTX, or Alameda, whatever, in Hong Kong, to legitimately get the money back without having to go pay the ransom. And they pursued that, and it didn't work. So they went in and paid ransom to the Chinese police department directly to get the money released, and it was released.
So that wasn’t the scandalous bit. The scandalous bit is that they kept the money in Alameda. No one would care about any of that if the money went to the right place; we wouldn’t be here. But nobody would have cared about it. I mean, yes: it's in the book that they open accounts for FTX pretending to be Alameda. Yeah. So I didn't think I was hiding that. , in which Bankman-Fried says “f-ck regulators” and seemed to admit that his caring about ethics was at least partially an act.
But that was a weird moment because I didn't actually feel, actually having been there, that he was actually himself. I didn't feel like, ‘That was true Sam, and every other time you see Sam, he’s false Sam.’ It was an aberration. Except that I do think that the thing he said about conventional ethics being silly: that’s very Sam.
Clearly, they should not have had customer money in Alameda. That’s insane. They clearly should have subjected Alameda to the risk engine. That’s insane. But there is a question of the role of this catastrophic sloppiness that seems to follow Sam Bankman-Fried wherever he goes. But I was kind of there through it. And there was no detectable change in Caroline, Nishad, Sam: their interactions or their demeanors. If they had this sharp, swift loss, they were really, really good with their poker faces.
But when I think about what the material is from him on house arrest, much of what we were talking about had nothing to do with the current moment. I was trying to revisit stuff. And there wasn't much going on. It was him with an ankle bracelet and a German Shepherd.
Ireland Latest News, Ireland Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Louise Redknapp and boyfriend Drew Michael go public at Pride of Britain AwardsLouise Redknapp stepped out at the glittering event her new boyfriend Drew Michael.
Read more »
Kaley Cuoco shares adorable new picture of daughter – with a very surprising new lookKaley welcomed her daughter in March 2023
Read more »
Revealed: The one thing Lewis Hamilton and Helmut Marko actually agree on'What do you do in the race? Do you punish it or not? I hope that there will be a better solution in the future.'
Read more »
Martin Lewis fires £85k warning and advises bank customers to 'know the score''A number of questions coming in about savings protection on the back of news of poor financial results at Metro bank'
Read more »
Asda, Morrisons and John Lewis urgent 'do no eat' warningsMajor UK supermarkets and retailers have pulled a number of food products from shelves over health and safety fears
Read more »