Michael Lewis is a celebrated author whose work has repeatedly topped the best-seller lists. His most famous book is Moneyball, which chronicles the analytics revolution in baseball. But his most controversial – perhaps even his most hated – book is also his most recent: Going Infinite, which chronicles the rise and fall of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the exploits of its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. The book begins with a brief look at Bankman-Fried’s childhood. He is the son of two Stanford Law professors. He was always bright but related poorly to people and found school boring. He nonetheless went to MIT for college, where he became interested in effective altruism, a movement that encouraged him to make as much money as possible and to use the money to solve the world’s problems. Apparently driven in part by this philanthropic motive, Bankman-Fried joined the world of finance after graduation. He eventually started a cryptocurrency trading company called Alameda Research, believing that the nascent crypto market had huge inefficiencies that he could exploit. Shortly thereafter, he founded a crypto exchange called FTX. He tried to position FTX as the honest, legitimate outpost in the Wild West of crypto. It was supposed to be legal, licensed, regulated, and to keep each customer’s assets safe. However, the whole operation was run by a bunch of inexperienced twentysomethings, apparently with virtually no accounting, auditing, legal compliance, or oversight. Bankman-Fried became an oddball celebrity, jet-setting around in rumpled cargo shorts, giving interviews while playing video games, [...]
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