Reading this book is like watching a movie where the storyline and characters seem so unbelievable that you search for something else to watch. But then you get sucked in by the very absurdity of some unkept, introverted twenty-something in cargo shorts and a tee shirt becoming the richest person in the world under 30, and doing it in only three years with a ragtag group of colleagues, billions of other peoples’ money and no CFO or chief risk officer. Unbelievable as it is, Lewis' story of FTX is fascinating, the numbers are staggering and the failures of corporate governance and business management—both at FTX and its investors and customers—are stunning. The only thing harder to believe than the storyline and the characters is the number of seemingly smart people who failed to do the slightest due diligence needed to see just how unbelievable the whole morass was. Their gullibility alone makes the book worth reading. Lewis says he spent more than a year with “unparalleled access” to Bankman-Fried, watching him amass a $22.5 billion fortune in record time. He also watched FTX crumble, remaining with Bankman-Fried as his employees fled and the authorities moved in on FTX’s headquarters in the Bahamas. Some critics have suggested that Lewis became too close to Bankman-Fried and foolishly bought into his claims that the FTX crash resulted from innocent lapses of management and not intentional efforts to defraud anyone. Many of Lewis' excellent earlier books focus on underdogs who make contrarian bets and become heroes in the end. It's easy to believe that Lewis expected Bankman-Fried to be vindicated. You can make your own judgment about whether Lewis' time with Bankman-Fried unduly influenced the author's journalism. The jury in Bankman-Fried's fraud trial this month was clear about its judgment. After only four hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Bankman-Fried of seven counts, including fraud and money laundering. Five of those counts carry a maximum of 20 years of prison sentence each, while two others could earn him maximum jail time of 5 years. Regardless of what Lewis may have concluded about Bankman-Fried, his book makes clear how the global hype surrounding Bankman-Fried and FTX caused investors, customers, celebrities and politicians to blindly hitch their stars to a story that, at best, was a disaster waiting to happen. Besides being an interesting, well-researched read, this book is a valuable reminder that hype and wishful thinking cannot overcome the age-old needs for investor due diligence, competent business management, transparency and honesty.

“Going Infinite” is the story of the people behind the crash of the crypto exchange FTX around November 2022. FTX was founded by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), who at one time was reported to be the wealthiest person under age 30 in the world. At that time, he reportedly was worth about 23 billion US dollars. Michael Lewis embedded himself for almost 2 years into SBF’s world and was able to observe the complex financial business of digital currency and in particular the financial empire SBF created (and eventually destroyed). Lewis has an exceptional ability to observe, study, and provide analysis of complex institutions and the highly specialized individuals who create and work in such institutions. Good examples of Lewis’s penchant for such chronicling would be his books Liar’s Poker (Wall Street Investment Banking) and say Moneyball (How metrics evolved into analytics and were introduced into sports). Lewis is exceptionally effective in interpreting the jargon and technical language of a specialized complex social/economic/scientific entity and writing about it in a way that a lay person can comfortably understand. For example, there are few uses of the term “blockchain” in Lewis’s narrative of the crypto business! However, when he does define it, the concept is clear to anyone who has, say has had a bank account. The story is focused on SBF and how he evolved into the King of Crypto. And just since publication of the book (winter 2023) he is now a convicted felon serving a long jail term in a federal prison. The irony is striking. SBF the son of upper-class parents with exceptional mathematical, analytical , and video game skills which set him apart from his peers such that his socialization was nonexistent. His motivations for accruing such huge wealth are not what we would suspect of a person so driven to accumulate an “infinite” fortune. He is a person who cares very much about mankind but has little interest in people. Read the book to understand the implied contradiction. The story traces his journey as a kid growing up in the video-gaming age in California, graduating from MIT with degrees in mathematics and physics and then gravitating to Wall Street, where he becomes professional trader and is encompassed in an environment of similarly smart and sometimes socially maladjusted people. Lewis profiles the team SBX assembled around him to build FTX. Most of these people were somewhat different (almost all with high intellect) but maybe a couple of standard deviations (socially) from the norm. SBF’s management style was not just unorthodox but almost non-existent. His lack of attention to US government trading regulations and laws eventually led to his downfall. Lewis meticulously details the events and the people dynamics immediately prior to the downfall of FTX.