I read everything Michael Lewis writes. If you haven’t started on his list then start with Flash Boys and The Big Short. His latest effort is “Going Infinite” about the odd rise and incendiary fall of Sam Bankman-Fried, otherwise known as “The crypto Gatsby.” I was initially going to say I was surprised by this book, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t surprised by how someone who could be described as a “sociopathic oddball,” could rise and fall so far and so fast in the world of crypto, but I’m not surprised by that either. I use the term “sociopathic,” due to Bankman-Fried’s inability to feel empathy. He actually admits to not being able to feel anything.
There is no doubt SBF is different, and there is no doubt he maintains a certain level of intelligence that is also somewhat different from your average, higher-than-normal IQ type. He loves and solves complex riddles and puzzles, and is fearless when it comes to risk, but what he has in reserve when it comes to intelligence, he more than destroys with his lack of human skills, lack of professionalism, and lack of interest in doing anything “the right way,” if there is such a thing in the crypto world.
Halfway through this book I found myself saying “Oh, he’s the world’s richest child.”
SBF is a member of the effective altruism world, as are many of the employees of his failed FTX fund. The idea of this crowd is to live your life in a way that benefits the most people. In theory, this is an amazing idea. In the crypto/Bitcoin world, it is not practical. Perhaps when the basis of your life is greed, it doesn’t really matter what your best intentions are.
It is difficult to describe how odd SBF really is. The book does a good job of laying out the history, and the author does spend quite a lot of time with SBF, including time after the fund failed, when the majority of employees have fled prosecution and SBF is waiting to be arrested. Regardless of how unprofessional his actions were, what nauseated me the most was reading about the celebrities, politicians and athletes, among many other world elites, who couldn’t wait to hang with Sam. Talk about disgusting. And, oh by the way, his devotees came from both sides of the aisle. Sam was a nobody, but he was a nobody with billions and that’s all that matters. (DiCaprio sure seems to show up in quite a few of these investigations. I still like the new Prius, however.)
If you think SBF will receive justice and this kind of thing won’t happen again, well, I’ve got some investment property I’d like to tell you about. He won’t. There are charges, but don’t expect the maximum of 100-years, especially in the district of New York where white collar crimes typically receive a slap on the wrist. (Gee, I wonder why.) There are too many fingers in this pie, both from traditional finance and the crypto world. Our world isn’t fair, and it certainly isn’t improving when it comes to ethics. Global finance, whether that be traditional finance or crypto, is in great part driven by unregulated greed and corruption. Sure, you can talk all you want about the Securities and Exchange Commission, but my reply will be, “2008.” We live in a world where it is nearly impossible to get any real punishment for financial crime. SBF will only help illustrate this point.