Here's a better journo calling out Lewis' shameless SBF peepeeriding
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2023/10/sam-bankman-fried-going-infinite-book-michael-lewis/675609
Archived in case of paywall:
https://archive.is/v38jt
!r-slurs and !bookworms I'll tag both because this book is bad enough to get ridiculed by both.
Choice Lewis Apologia
>Sam dindu nuffin!! He was just a wittle boy who was just misunderstood. All the evil Wall St bros just didn't let him win.
>They didn't have any polycule you guys. They just lived in close quarters.
>If FTX's assets were properly assessed, we would all find the missing amounts. I don't think any of them would ever lie.
>SBFs parents are just big mama and papa taking care of their wittle boy
>SBF is a super savant bro. You just don't get it. He fidgets with board games and plays Vidya during press conferences, wears cargo shorts and flip flops and wears a wrinkly suit when he meets big DC people. He's so humble!!
>When asked whether he'll go to Vegas, he says 60%. OMG! Did you see the nuance? He just sees the world in an absolute quantifiable way!! Woah!!
>"I don't feel anything. Emotions are a hindrance." Woah Sam is so intelligent. (I wonder how emotionless he would be if I broke his arm)
>Effective Altruism totally works bro. You just don't get it. Consider a doctor in Zambia working against malaria. He can only spend 10 months there because he has family to feed. Let's say there are 50 doctors like him. So in total they can spend 500 hours to fight malaria in Zambia. However if I become an billionaire by defrauding investors I can hire doctors who can spend 501 hour there. Therefore it is ethical for me to become a billionaire. Lewis says, no cap, it sounds good in theory.
Fricking BIPOC.
And many more.
Worst book of 2023 by far.
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I read it and I thought the picture it painted of SBF was strikingly negative. He comes off as a low-functioning menace who cannot assess risk and who harms every person in his life. Over and over, it shares stories of SBF being a complete dumbfrick, and the EA stuff gets derided as sci-fi stories which help nobody at all.
So like a lot of readers, I was baffled when Lewis suddenly began advancing Sam's obviously false defense at the end. He talks about doing envelope math and finding all the money is still there, which doesn't make any sense because there were no real books and the money wasn't there. And then Lewis kept doing it after the book came out, and now after the trial. A big
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My understanding is that the books do show the money is there. Unfortunately for those FTX owes money to, it was in the form of its own crypto stabe coin which of course was completely illiquid. It's price would never survive long enough to offload it for value. Anyone with even an elementary knowledge of finance would know the situation for what it is. Why Lewis is selling throwing his credibility away for SBF could be its own investigative book at this point.
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Wait, do you really?
Can I just have a couple?
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