My partner Barry Ritholtz speaks to Michael Lewis, whose latest book is “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon,” on FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Lewis has been the subject of a massive uproar on social media for the way his book portrays SBF and the way he’s spoken about his subject during the promotion tour, specifically on ’60 Minutes’ last Sunday. Michael seems to have a soft spot in his heart for the boy wonder who turned out to be one of the biggest financial frauds in American history. I guess it’s hard for Michael Lewis to make the turn from “This guy’s a genius” to this “This guy’s the new Madoff” after shadowing him for three years. He loves these outsider oddball characters and he apparently isn’t scathing enough in the aftermath of the crime’s discovery. I think he set out to write one book, wrote it, then the whole thing unraveled and he had to adjust what he had written. He probably should have changed the title of the book in light of how much bigger the crime is than anything else about the story. If it were titled “Bahamas Ponzi Nerd Orgy”, he probably wouldn’t be getting this much criticism.
Anyway, listen to the conversation and judge for yourself. Or read the book, get it here.
You can listen to the whole thing below:
