WEBVTT - Part Two: The Last Sam Bankman-Fried Episodes (secretly about Michael Lewis) 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:10.880 Also media a welcome back to Behind the Bastards, our 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:15.960 special edition episodes on Sam Bankman, who is not freed 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.840 because he is still in jail. That's it's the intro 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.920 I've got. It's the same as the last episode. 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.160 No, you're hilarious. It's still very funny. Sophie's favorite. 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.800 This is the only time I've made Sophie laugh in years. 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:37.599 That's not true. Well, okay, Switzerland on this issue. You're 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:42.640 Swiss on this issue. Swiss you Jamie. Speaking of Switzerland, 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:48.720 you also were neutral in World War Two? Is that correct? Yeah? 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:53.760 I was sort of like kidding. You made me laugh again. 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:59.360 Congrats two for two, baby, So we took a couple 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:01.440 of days and tween recording part one and part two. 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.040 Really let it sink in. How are you feeling on 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.600 our technically not a Behind the Bastards on Michael Lewis, 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.920 but basically a behind the Bastards on Michael Lewis, author 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:12.200 of The Big Short. 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.440 I So in the interesting days, I've talked about the 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:19.400 Michael Lewis of it all with a couple of different people, 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.520 just to see if I was like if I had 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:27.240 just missed something. But every single person I talked to 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.600 I found had a similar experience to me, where they 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:35.320 did not know that he wrote The blind Side. Oh good, okay, yeah, 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:36.959 and then when they found out that he wrote the 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.800 blind Side, they were like, oh, yeah, I could see 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.160 that he is a you know, he's an honorary bastard. 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.640 Yeah, maybe he is kind of a hack. Yeah right, well. 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.960 Yeah, they were like, yeah, Michael Lewis Moneyball the Big Short, 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.880 And You're like, and another thing, how did that? How 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.880 how do we collectively forget that he wrote that? It 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.400 feels like he got away with something. 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.400 Yeah, And I guess I've been thinking about what he's 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:05.680 doing with Sam Bankman Freed as I think about the 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.160 upcoming Napoleon movie, which I will have watched by the 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.440 time this comes out, but it's not out yet. So 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:14.960 excited about that time. I'm ready. Everyone, especially like all 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:19.200 of these history Twitter podcast people, are so livid that 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.840 Ridley Scott's basically like, who can say what the truth 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:26.280 of Napoleon's life was, which is it is a ridiculous 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.720 thing to say. He's very well documented. We actually know 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.119 a lot about Napoleon. But also, I don't give a shit. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.399 It's the guy who made Gladiator, like well, and also. 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:39.320 I appreciate because all biopics are you know, nonsense, yeah 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.360 or shit right, And so you're like, well, this is 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:45.200 the one director who's going to say my biopic is kind. 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.800 Of horse, it's just lies, which also very appropriate for Napoleon. 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:51.200 But what is the line with that? Why Why am 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:55.320 I angry at Michael Lewis for what he's doing? And 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:56.320 I don't really care. 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.880 He's a journalist, there is he's a journalist. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.800 One he's not the director of fucking Gladiator, the least 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:05.720 accurate movie about Rome ever made. 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:07.880 It's been a great it's been a great week for 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.880 like weird old guys who we could argue had have 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.359 peaked creatively, although I wouldn't say that for Scorsese. But 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.120 there was a great quote that was floating around in 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.959 the last couple of days where I guess Scorsese said 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.520 on the Killers of the Flower Moon press stor that 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:25.760 he was like always worried about running out of time 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:27.520 and he never knew what his last movie would be. 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.360 And Ridley Scott was asked to like react to that, 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.680 and he said, since he started Killers of the Flower Moon, 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.600 I've made four films. No I don't think about it. 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:39.800 I get up in the morning and say, ah, great, 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:41.520 another day of stress. 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:48.600 Honestly, those are both completely valid answers. Yeah, I refuse 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:51.480 to be a part of some sort of like pretending 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.320 that what Scott is saying isn't as valid as what 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.680 Scorsese's saying. There are two ways to deal with mortality, 0:03:57.720 --> 0:03:58.160 one of the. 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.840 Two genders of creative march Yeah. 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:02.920 Yeah. One is oh my god, I will die and 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.040 I won't have said everything I need to say, And 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:06.760 the other is what the fuck I got I got 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:08.480 shit to do, I gotta move, I gotta have time 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.280 with the answer to this fucking question. Yeah. 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:15.640 Meanwhile, Robert Paul Schrader is on Facebook, and Paul Schrader's 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.520 posting about Taylor Swift in a kind of horny way, 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:20.920 so like, yeah, the old men are just there on 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.520 one this week, and Michael Lewis walks among them. 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.599 There's only one old, great creative who has taken the reasonable, 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:32.520 respect like answer to mortality, and it's John Carperdue, who's like, Nah, 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:36.120 I'm done directing movies. I'm gonna get high, play video games, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.760 watch basketball the rest of my life, and God, bless God, 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:41.920 bless him. Yeah, God bless them. There's a man who 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.240 understands what's valuable in life, a thing that Sam Bankman 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:50.200 Freed never understood. And we're and we're back. Yeah, we're back. 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.280 So one of the things that comes up a lot 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.200 in Michael Lewis's book is he's sort of going into 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.840 the mind and psyche of Sam Bankman Freed, is that 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.919 Sam had this belief that no one ever does anything 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.080 useful after like age forty to forty five, somewhere around 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.280 there is the last time you have a useful thought 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.680 in your entire life, which I guess is relevant to 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.200 our discussion of aging aging powerful men. 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:17.039 I will say that that's true of many stand up comedians, 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.520 but I can't speak of that outside of that. 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.400 Yeah, yeah, I mean I think it's true, especially like 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.280 once you get really rich, it's you tend to like 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.360 lose complete touch with the world and go insane. So 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.520 I think that is somewhat accurate, at least for some 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.840 creative professions. But Sam is not in a creative profession, 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:39.159 and it's actually kind of ridiculous to me the idea 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.599 that like people in business after age forty four, like 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.200 Steve Jobs did all of his best shit like well 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:49.720 after that point, like his most influential like evil things 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.680 and most like really successful businessmen are just kind of 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.080 getting started by their mid forties, right, because it takes 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.040 that much time to get that's momentum. 0:05:58.200 --> 0:05:59.840 You've got a lot of evil like you got. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.040 He's lot of horrible things left to do, plenty of time. 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:04.480 First is in front of you. 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.160 I think he's got three to five ethnic cleansings in 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:11.479 a minimum minimum Jamie, Yeah, maybe eight. You know, I 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.480 could see him having eight more ethnic cleansings. 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.359 He does seem like someone who just will like have 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.719 a kissinger like affinity for life. 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:24.160 Yeah, so bankman Freeds, I understand belief that, like after 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.479 age forty five, he's not going to be capable of 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.680 having any useful ideas. This is what pushed him, you know, 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:31.920 along with his effective altruist idea. This is why he 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.680 felt like he had to he had to continually gamble 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.320 rather than like taking the slow, sustainable path making money 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.120 off of his exchange at like a reasonable pace. No, no, no, 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:43.919 I only have a few more years left before my 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.840 brain shrivels up. And so if I'm going to do 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:48.799 anything good for the world, I have to keep putting 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:53.760 every dollar I've made on a fifty to fifty bet endlessly, right, 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.080 mm hmmm, which isn't it? Which is like, I don't know, 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:59.720 you should probably get help if you feel that about 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.080 the world world, because that's a deeply self destructive way 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.040 to think about yourself and about your assets. This is 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.280 a big part of why FTX did not have a 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:12.160 really crucial thing for any company, particularly a financial company, 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.320 to have, which is a risk officer. 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:14.680 Right. 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.480 A risk officer's job is to analyze the deals the 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.280 company is doing and go, well, that's an insane risk, 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.960 so let's not do that one. Or you know, that's 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.520 an insane risk. We need to offset it with this stuff. 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.360 They also did not have a chief financial officer or 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.320 a bunch of other critical executive positions. 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.960 Yeah, no CSOs, that's one I've heard of. You should 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:36.720 have that one. 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.720 It's a really basic job, and its job is basically 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.240 to know how much money you have, right, Like, there's 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.600 other stuff to it, but it's pretty critical. FTX also 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.040 did not have a board of directors, and they're lacking 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.480 a bunch of other very basic executive positions, and a 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.600 big part of why is that the only people Sam 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.840 feels like he can trust are like his friends, and 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.120 he has this deep aversion to bringing in adults, like 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.720 people who were not in their twenties, like his the 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.280 friends he went to college with. And shit, he said 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.160 in one interview with Michael, we tried having some grown ups, 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.600 but they didn't do anything. This was true for everyone 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.559 over the age of forty five. All they did was worry, which, like, again, 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.280 given what happened, perhaps they auto have been. 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:20.680 Maybe I'm just like sort of on one with the 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.600 idea that very few stand ups have a valuable thought 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:28.200 after forty five. But I would say now reflecting on it, 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.760 like Sam Bankminfried is using the improv troop approach to 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.640 a very high stakes business. Yes, Like he's like, no, 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.280 I will only work with people I went to college with, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.280 we know best. I don't want no fucking crusties in 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:44.920 the room, like if he I mean, And we could 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.360 debate all day about whether Sam bankmdfried would have done 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.520 more evil in his life so far or in his 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.640 life as an improv comedian, because I think they should 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:55.920 all be in forever jail. So it's kind of like, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:57.720 it's difficult, it's difficult. 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.120 This is what Levenworth should be right. Military needs to 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.920 take stand up comedians into custody. I've always had and 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:05.320 I'm on a lot of lists. 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.240 Yeah, you know how many bars have performed in to 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:10.480 know people, I'm on a lot of lists. 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.560 So Sam's response when he was asked by Michael, like, 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.920 why don't you guys even have a CFO? That seems important? 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.559 He says, there's a functional religion around the CFO. I'll 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:23.600 ask them why do I need one? Some people cannot 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.160 articulate a single thing the CFO was supposed to do. 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:28.920 They'll say, keep track of the money or make projections, 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:30.760 And I'm like, what the fuck do you think I 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:32.319 do all day? You think I don't know how much 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.040 money we have? Which is funny because his whole legal 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.320 defense in court was I had no idea how much 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.680 money we had or where it was, and that's why 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.559 I didn't commit a crime, right because I just was incompetent. 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.880 I didn't know where the money was. But it's all 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.720 somewhere Like, very silly thing to say, given what he's 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:56.600 about to say. Okay, So after Sam's life fell apart, 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:00.600 Michael Lewis continued to talk and visit multiple sometimes would 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.840 call like three or four times a day through the 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.439 eight months that Sam was on house arrest. And it's 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.160 interesting to me because, like Michael, if I was a 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.880 journalist like Michael Lewis, and I had had a conversation 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.760 with somebody when they were one of the biggest names 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.520 in an industry, being like a CFO is useless. I 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.120 know where the money is, and then their entire life 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.120 explodes because they didn't know what the money is. I 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:26.440 would at some point asked him the question, Hey, was 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:30.240 that maybe a bad idea? Michael does not bring this 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:32.680 up to Sam after the collapse in any of the 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.480 dozens of conversations that they've had, and in fact, and 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.480 this is why that's weird. The actual villain of his book, 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.040 Going Infinite, the one person that Lewis is super critical 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.480 of in like a really uncharitable way, is the CEO 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.720 brought into takeover the FTX after Sam like leaves and 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.839 declares bankruptcy, a guy named John ray the Third. Now, 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.640 I am not going to go to bat for John 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:02.000 ray the Third because he he's John His name is 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.320 John ray the Third, Like that name. 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:07.960 To go to bat Ford, Yeah. 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:09.280 But he Is. You know, he's the guy who got 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:13.800 brought into liquidate in Ran and he's he's kind of 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.240 a corporate undertaker, right when a when there's a huge 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.760 scandal at a company, when it like collapses, goes into bankruptcy, 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:21.960 and you need someone to kind of do the post mortem. 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.040 You bring in John Ray and he's like, as far 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:25.439 as I know. 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:26.640 Not the first or second. 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.640 No, not the first or second. Those guys are useless. 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.920 No fucking clowns. Okay, you're gonna want to bring in 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:32.240 the third. 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:33.480 You need a j R. Three. 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.280 I'm with you, so yes, sir. 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:42.160 Yeah, it's interesting, like the degree to which he has 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.200 because this guy comes in later and I think because 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:49.720 he's boring, Michael Lewis finds him disgusting. Like I haven't 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.560 run into any info that he's like bad at what 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.640 he does. It's certainly not his fault, but Michael is 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.400 livid because he's this kind of like stodgy old businessman 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.360 and he doesn't understand sam spe playground or like the 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:03.840 wonderful thing that he built, and he's just kind of 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.400 exasperated at how badly it all works. 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.280 See that's fascinating to me because to me that says 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.280 like Michael Lewis is, I mean, either just hates boring people, 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.360 which fair enough, but you know he should know as 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.720 a journalist that boring people are often and maybe most 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:23.760 often tremendously capable of doing bad shit. But it seems 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.240 like he's looking more for like, well, Bradley Cooper can't 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.160 play you in a movie. You're useless to me, your garbage, 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:29.960 you're boring. 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.520 There's nothing. Yeah, there's nothing sexy about him. He's just 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.320 trying to deal up, like clean up after a disaster. 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.160 And there's some really funny lines in the book because 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:40.920 like one of the things that Lewis has to do 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.120 in order to kind of defend Sam as a genius 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.800 is explain how he didn't steal nine billion dollars, right, 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:49.680 And the answer that Lewis has come to is that 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.280 money is all there, that he just didn't know where 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:56.679 nine billion dollars was. Oh yeah, he didn't steal it 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.400 or gamble it away. He just misplaced it, dude, rank 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.800 and competence that he committed because he was too smart 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:05.880 to keep track of things. And there's a I'm going 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:10.640 to read you a very uh yeah, there's a really 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.160 fun quote there he describes like Lewis describes FTX as 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.080 a real business, but he says that John Ray, who 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:20.040 like attacked it as the worst run company I'd ever seen, 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:22.800 was just too much of an idiot to like understand 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.800 it right. He describes Ray trying to figure out what 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.800 company assets actually existed in what didn't, as quote like 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:35.080 an amateur archaeologist who had stumbled upon a previously unknown civilization, 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.200 unable to learn anything about its customs or language. He 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.720 just started digging, right, Like really, he's too dumb to 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.400 understand the brilliant thing that Sam built up, so he 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.000 just starts like churning about in the wreckage without really 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.800 appreciating everything that went into making this monufental edifice. 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.920 And I really wonder, like what I mean, this is 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:56.679 like getting into the weeds a little bit. But I'm 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:02.199 very curious, like what, like who on Michael Lewis's editorial 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:05.560 team is keeping him in check. It doesn't sound like 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.400 he's hired a fact checkers to sound like he has 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.440 a personal Jimminy Crickett, So he's just saying shit like 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:13.920 his personal biases couldn't be more out. 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.200 They wanted to rush this thing out, so you don't 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.800 have much time to edit it, right, True? Yeah, a 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.120 year to write and release a book is not a 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:22.720 long time. 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.560 No, not enough time one might, not enough. 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.040 Time, one might argue. And also Michael Lewis has the 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:33.920 kind of clout to make that not happen. Right, And again, 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.040 I also kind of think that his hatred of Ray 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.400 here is based on the fact that Ray did not 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.520 fall for Sam's bullshit the way Michael did. Right. Here's 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:44.840 what Ray said shortly after taking over and getting a 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.240 look at ftx's finances, and this is from an our 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.160 article in Business Insider. At the hearing, Congresswoman an Wagner 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.000 of Missouri asked Ray to elaborate on the specific ways 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.040 FTX was worse than quote one of the largest corporate 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:00.400 frauds in history. Ray explained that FTX was unused and 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.080 then it had no record keeping whatsoever. He said that 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.600 employees would exchange invoices and expenses on Slack, the ubiquitous 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.000 workplace chat room. They used QuickBooks, he added, referring to 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:14.040 the accounting software quick Books. Congresswoman Wagner asked for clarification, 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:17.400 QuickBooks very nice tool, not for a multi billion dollar company. 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.960 Rake confirmed and that's like basically they're using the kind 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:22.800 of thing that you would use if you're like a 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.880 person keeping track of you, or maybe your small business 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:26.480 is accounting. 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:32.240 Yeah, I've done that and like that. That's nuts. 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.040 Yeah, that is like the close attitude too. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:35.880 Yeah. 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.200 I was like, that's the closest thing I've come to debuting. Like, Wow, 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:40.400 if I was also the tasked with multi billion dollars, 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.240 I'd be like, I don't know, yeah books, Well we 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.800 go to turbo tax, what do we do? I would 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:47.280 hire a CFO. 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.560 Yeah, I would hire someone who's done that before, right. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:52.760 Yeah yeah QuickBooks. Holy shit. 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.800 Yeah. So you can decide whose interpretation sounds more realistic 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.760 John Ray recognize you can. Basically, the two possibilities are 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.320 like either John Ray just recognizes basic incompetence when he 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.600 sees it and gets angry, or he's just not brilliant 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:10.520 and special enough to understand Sam's world, which is is 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.880 what That's what Michael lewis, that's he in caps. That's 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:17.640 what Michael Lewis refers to FTX as is Sam's world, right, 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.520 this is a He basically treats the whole situation as like, yes, 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.320 Sam's Sam lived in this magical world, and you know, 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:29.480 his business was actually secretly good, but it encountered this 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:32.200 temporary issue and he was forced out. And then John 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:34.560 Ray came in and he tore it all apart because 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:36.479 he's just the mean, old, grumpy businessman. 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:36.840 Right. 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.800 That's that's really like the thrust of Michael Lewis's book, 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.520 and part of how he kind of emphasizes the magical 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.640 inner world Sam lived in is this kind of obsession 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.720 with gaming returning to like Lewis is just sort of 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.480 fascinated with like the fact that Sam was an addict. Right, 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.680 Sam is a gaming addict. That's what when you can't 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.720 like handle your basic functions, but because you're too busy 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.800 playing Storybook Brawl, that's an addiction, right, yeah. Yeah. And 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.359 it's interesting both because Storybook Brawl was made by his 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:15.119 childhood friend and he used consumer funds to purchase it. 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.359 It seems to have been a pretty mid game. It 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.200 shut down after he got arrested, so I can't play 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.080 it to tell you if it's actually good. But Lewis 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.120 doesn't describe it as like a middle brow app game. 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.120 He describes it as like better than chess, like more 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:34.720 complex than chess. A greater intellectual expert or exercise than chess, 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.400 and he writes this paragraph about it. Sam didn't care 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.399 for games like chess, where the players controlled everything and 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:45.440 the best move was, in theory, perfectly calculable chess. He'd 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.760 have liked better if robot voices wired into the board. 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.960 Hollered rule changes at random intervals. Nights are now rooks, 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.920 all bishops must leave the board, ponds can now fly, 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.560 or almost anything, so long as the new rule forced 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.520 all players to scrap whatever strategy they'd been pursuing and 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:03.000 improvise another better one. The game Sam loved allowed for 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.359 only partial knowledge of any situation. Trading crypto was like that, 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:08.840 and I think getting. 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:12.360 Fucking ridiculous, Like is there any chance that Sam Bankman 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:15.200 Freed paid Michael Lewis to say this shit? 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.120 Like I maybe I don't know that he was still 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:18.920 the money one of the things. 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.000 Not that there's no proof that he isn't dense, But 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:25.600 this is like above and beyond. 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.360 The reason why I get that a lot that like, well, 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.879 Michael Lewis is obviously bribed, but like Michael Lewis is 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.200 very rich, Like I don't know how you could bribe 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.320 Michael Lewis, especially after you lose your money. 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:40.119 Yeah, and even and even if he wasn't from money, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:40.680 he'd be there. 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:44.199 Yah. Yeah, Yeah, He's always been rich and always will be. 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.920 So I don't know how much I think that's that's likely. 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.640 I think he just this is his first time ever 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.280 hearing about games, and so he thinks Sam is brilliant 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:57.080 and special because he played them obsessively. I also think, 0:18:57.600 --> 0:18:59.680 you know, we just did our episodes on Lord John 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.440 asked and all, who is like this this British gambling 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:07.040 maven who took away who like basically uh got the 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.160 upper class of the England and like the mid century 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.800 to just gamble away all of their fucking money. And 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.240 a big part of why this kind of like old 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.400 generation of the aristocracy lost so much is they were 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.080 into these specifically games of chance like Shamanda fair, which 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:25.359 is a kind of bacca where basically there's no skill involved. 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.200 It's pure it's as close to pure chance as possible. 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:30.720 Because there was this like change in the kind of 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.280 gambling the upper class like to do that I've heard 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.440 theorized it's basically just like, well, these people had nothing 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.080 in their life but gambling, right, They've always been rich, 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:41.760 they're born rich, they've always lived these super safe lives. 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.359 The only thrill they had was throwing a bunch of 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.200 money on like the effectively a complete chance. 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.440 And for understand that, because it's like, what's the worst 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:52.720 that's going to happen. You're going to become marginally less 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.360 rich but still maintain the same quality of life. 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.679 That sounds boring, Yeah, you've just they've they are just 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:03.400 insulated from anything thrilling because they're insulated from any real danger, right. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:07.000 And so I think Sam being this kind of rich, 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:11.040 sheltered kid that's Lewis interprets. It's like he's too smart 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.160 to play a game like chess. He wants a game 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.280 where he doesn't actually know what's going on, and a 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.480 lot of that's random. It's like, well, I just see 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.480 these old British gamblers and Sam Bankman freed, where again, 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:22.960 this kid has nothing but the throw of the dice 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.639 inside him and that's what he liked, right, and he 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.400 put a lot of other people's money on those bets. Yeah, anyway, 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:32.720 this is a little beside the point, but I did 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:34.280 want to read the actual part of the book where 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.679 Lewis describes Magic the gathering because it's it is very boom. 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.480 Magic had been created in the early nineteen nineties by 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.560 a young mathematician named Richard Garfield. It was the first 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.439 kind of a new kind of game, designed perhaps for 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:50.159 a new kind of person. Garfield had started with an 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.080 odd question, could a strategic game be designed that allowed 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.879 the players to come to it with different equipment? And again, 0:20:56.600 --> 0:21:00.480 Games Workshop had started making Warhammer years before Magic came out, 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.840 Like all games have existed forever. 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.240 I couldn't hear you over the sound of imagining Garfield 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:07.440 the cat saying. 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:11.520 That, Yeah, which Garfield? Bill Murray? Are we talking Chris Pratt? 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:16.359 There's also a secret third Garfield Garfield whoever did the 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.480 voice acting on Garfield and Friends, which is my canonical 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.920 Garfield voice, certainly not Chris Pratt Garfield there. I forget 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.760 who tweeted this, but there is a vibe with the 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:29.280 new Garfield that Chris Pratt has been locked in a 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:34.639 room forced to voice every major ip. It's like a 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.600 it's his infinity punishment. He'll be rich, but he can 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:38.760 never leave the room. 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.560 I'm okay with that. Actually, yeah, let's keep. 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:43.720 Him in the room. He doesn't have any good ideas. 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.320 No, No, keep in the room. Every every six years 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.560 he can come out to do another interminable Jurassic World movie. 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:53.399 No, the villain was Locus. 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:59.919 So Lewis is so ignorant of kind of the basic 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:02.040 of youth culture to this day that he sort of 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:05.480 transposes a lot of completely normal millennial and zoomer behaviors 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.680 As evidence of Sam's unique brilliance. Here's another clip from 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:12.160 sixty Minutes where he describes how Sam treated effective altruism. 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:14.280 That that ties into this and this is remarkable. 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.800 What it means in Sam's instance is you can go 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:21.399 out and have a career where you do good. You 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.120 can go be a doctor in Africa, or you can 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:26.239 go out and make as much money as possible and 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:28.480 pay people to be doctors in Africa. If you're a 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:30.800 doctor in Africa, you get you end up saving a 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:31.640 certain number of lives. 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.280 But you're only one doctor. But if you can. 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:38.080 Pay forty people to become doctors in Africa, you're gonna 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.040 save forty times a number of lives. 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:41.560 This is like a strategy game. 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.560 Well, you don't understand sammcmcfreed. Unless you understand then he 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.119 turns everything into a game. Everything is gamified. 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.720 He's describing a pyramid scheme of doctors. 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.240 Yes, am I like, And he's. 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:57.960 Saying this on sixty minutes, I like, I cannot put 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.200 rout my Okay, now I am like taking him being 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.879 paid off like or paid on or off off the 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:06.760 table because you're just like, this is ridiculous. 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:08.160 This is like you stupid. 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:12.040 Yeah, like to like the fact that people somehow collectively 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:15.280 forgot that you wrote the blind Side on fire to 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.000 say this shit on sixty minutes, it just like, is 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:22.119 it's what he's describing a pyramid scheme. 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:25.679 He sure is, he is describing a fucking pyramid scheme. 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:31.200 And also like this hole he turns everything into a game, 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:32.360 like because. 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:35.680 The through like connection there is like Jigsaw for good. 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:39.239 Sure, Sam could have been a doctor in Africa, but 0:23:39.600 --> 0:23:41.840 by making a lot of money, he could hire a 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:45.280 bunch of doctors in Africa. And the through line you're 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:47.320 meant to make is he was He was the guy 0:23:47.320 --> 0:23:50.040 who was best suited making a lot of money because 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:54.919 he turned everything into a game. And man, that's again 0:23:55.119 --> 0:23:58.000 not unique to Sam. A significant percentage of the US economy. 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:00.840 It's based around taking the logic and addictive strategies game 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:04.360 developers use and applying it to every imaginable industry, right, 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:07.919 like that's fucking everywhere, Like Sam is again not unique 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:10.840 in this, And also the it's just such a the 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:13.240 fact that Lewis seems to have bought into the basic 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:15.320 logic of like, well, it's better to pay a bunch 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:20.760 of doctors than becoming one is silly because like, well, 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:23.280 we have a shortage of doctors. We don't have a 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:26.640 shortage of assholes who gamble with other people's money. There's 0:24:26.840 --> 0:24:30.399 there's not actually enough doctors for the people who need them. 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:33.800 And also, I mean to that point, it doesn't sound 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:37.880 like would I trust, knowing what I do, of Sam 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:41.600 Bankman Freed's ability to multitask that would I trust him 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:45.400 doing surgery? I don't think I would. I don't think 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:47.720 I would. I wouldn't trust him doing either of those 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:48.880 in Africa? 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:51.720 Yeah, yeah, no, he would, he would never have right, 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:54.480 like but yeah, anyway, but. 0:24:54.480 --> 0:24:56.639 It sounds like he I mean, maybe I'm like, you know, 0:24:57.440 --> 0:24:59.480 giving him too much credit and he's playing a game 0:24:59.520 --> 0:25:02.080 of forty t but it doesn't seem that way, and 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:04.040 I like, he sounds ridiculous. 0:25:04.400 --> 0:25:08.119 I kind of outside of he's just completely deluded. His 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:10.160 two options are he's just so out of touch with 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:12.840 the youth that he thought Sam was unique in this, 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:17.360 or he he decided from the moment he met him. 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:19.960 This is the framing device I want to use for 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:22.159 Sam's genius in my book because I can think. I 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:24.800 think they could film it easily, right, because I'm sure 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:26.560 he thinks that way about the books he's written. He's 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:29.159 had so many of them adapted, and like, yeah, if 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:30.840 I you know, there's a lot of fun ways you 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:34.520 could film this super genius solving his math problems through 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:38.600 like imagining games out in the real world, right, hmm, yeah, 0:25:38.640 --> 0:25:41.880 So I my guess is that he just couldn't get 0:25:41.960 --> 0:25:44.520 himself off of this idea he had for like the 0:25:44.520 --> 0:25:48.040 inevitable Sam Bankman Freed movie, you know, crafted for the 0:25:48.080 --> 0:25:49.240 Big Bang Theory audience. 0:25:49.280 --> 0:25:51.879 Yeah, Like sure, he's already he's like, oh yeah, who's 0:25:51.920 --> 0:25:55.120 hot right now, Paul Mezcal, Well, well we'll dye his hair. 0:25:55.200 --> 0:25:56.359 It's gonna be fucking great. 0:25:56.880 --> 0:25:59.280 No, I think they should have had Timothy shallomeh I 0:25:59.280 --> 0:26:01.600 think they should have had Timothy Shallo may do like 0:26:01.680 --> 0:26:04.640 a you know, what's his name the Batman guy where 0:26:04.680 --> 0:26:07.280 he would like wildly change his appearance in ways that 0:26:07.320 --> 0:26:08.720 are bad for his health every since. 0:26:09.840 --> 0:26:11.679 Don't talk about Robbert Pattens in that way. 0:26:12.080 --> 0:26:18.240 Or I want to see Timothy do a Christian bale 0:26:18.280 --> 0:26:21.200 to look like Sam Bankman Freed. That's that sounds fun. 0:26:21.480 --> 0:26:23.560 I just worry about Timothy shalmy. It looks like if 0:26:23.600 --> 0:26:25.920 you like touch him, he may shatter. I just worry 0:26:25.960 --> 0:26:27.240 about him. He looks a. 0:26:27.320 --> 0:26:30.200 Frail Yeah, that's the right thing. He looks like he's 0:26:30.200 --> 0:26:33.359 got consumption. Yeah, but like that, they would say that 0:26:33.400 --> 0:26:35.320 about him in the in the in the in the 0:26:35.359 --> 0:26:37.040 distant past. Yeah. 0:26:37.080 --> 0:26:39.840 And it's like if Sam Bankman Freed is looking heartier 0:26:39.840 --> 0:26:41.800 than you are, like you're in trouble my man. 0:26:41.960 --> 0:26:44.359 Uh huh. Yeah, Well I wouldn't say that about Sam. 0:26:44.480 --> 0:26:48.840 But so there's an amusing coda to Lewis's loving descriptions 0:26:48.840 --> 0:26:52.160 of Sam as a compulsive gamer. This paragraph occurs right 0:26:52.200 --> 0:26:54.680 after the FTX customers pull a run on the bank, 0:26:54.720 --> 0:26:57.720 annihilating its cash reserves and starting its collapse. Is like 0:26:58.119 --> 0:27:01.640 the employees are all huddled inside thirty million dollar Bahamas 0:27:01.720 --> 0:27:04.280 suites to try to figure out how to fix things. 0:27:04.960 --> 0:27:07.520 Nishad was agitated with Sam in a way that Romnik 0:27:07.560 --> 0:27:10.560 had never seen, at one point, turning on him and screaming, 0:27:10.680 --> 0:27:15.800 will you please fucking stop playing storybook brawl? And I 0:27:15.960 --> 0:27:19.040 like that anecdote, But it gets to another frustrating issue 0:27:19.040 --> 0:27:21.160 with Going Infinite, which is that Michael Lewis has all 0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:24.720 the ingredients for a great modern Icarius story of Hubris 0:27:24.720 --> 0:27:27.920 and the Fall, but making it work tonally would require 0:27:28.000 --> 0:27:30.600 him to see these things that are obvious warning signs 0:27:30.880 --> 0:27:33.800 as warning signs and structure his book that way, right, 0:27:34.040 --> 0:27:37.000 and then you get some Catharsis in the payoffs. But 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:40.240 these warning signs are just sort of scattered around. They're 0:27:40.240 --> 0:27:42.280 not given the significance he would give them if he 0:27:42.400 --> 0:27:45.520 saw them as warning signs, because he's clearly taken with 0:27:45.560 --> 0:27:48.680 all of this stuff. Another example of a valid through 0:27:48.760 --> 0:27:52.080 line Lewis seems to have missed is Bankman Freed's complete disregard, 0:27:52.160 --> 0:27:54.880 even distaste, for the competence of the women around him. 0:27:55.240 --> 0:27:58.720 Lewis spends a fair amount of time on Sam's relationship 0:27:58.760 --> 0:28:01.560 with Carolyn, and he he prints these letters between them 0:28:01.560 --> 0:28:04.720 that certainly don't make Sam look great. It began with 0:28:04.760 --> 0:28:08.280 a seriously compelling list titled arguments against this is arguments 0:28:08.280 --> 0:28:10.600 against her dating him in a lot of ways, I 0:28:10.600 --> 0:28:12.520 don't really have a soul. This is a lot more 0:28:12.560 --> 0:28:14.520 obvious in some context than others. But in the end 0:28:14.560 --> 0:28:16.760 there's a pretty decent argument that my empathy is fake, 0:28:17.040 --> 0:28:19.600 my feelings are fake, my facial reactions are fake. I 0:28:19.600 --> 0:28:22.040 don't feel happiness. What's the point in dating someone you 0:28:22.040 --> 0:28:24.440 physically can't make happy. I have a long history of 0:28:24.440 --> 0:28:26.760 getting bored in claustrophobic. This says the makings of a 0:28:26.800 --> 0:28:28.879 time when I'm less worried about it than normal, but 0:28:28.920 --> 0:28:31.560 the baseline prior might be high enough that nothing else matters. 0:28:31.800 --> 0:28:34.040 I feel conflicted about what I want. Sometimes I really 0:28:34.040 --> 0:28:35.640 want to be with you. Sometimes I want to stay 0:28:35.640 --> 0:28:37.640 at work for sixty hours straight and not think about 0:28:37.680 --> 0:28:38.320 anything else. 0:28:39.280 --> 0:28:42.000 And so I want to say that I have this 0:28:42.560 --> 0:28:44.800 amount of self love to not fall for this, but 0:28:44.880 --> 0:28:47.280 I can't even say that one hundred percent. I just 0:28:47.360 --> 0:28:50.360 really feel for Carolyn, And at a lot of points 0:28:50.360 --> 0:28:53.840 in this story, because it's oh my god, I feel 0:28:53.880 --> 0:28:57.600 like there's a version of someone who would be like, 0:28:57.760 --> 0:29:00.320 oh I can fix him, where you're like, oh no, 0:29:00.440 --> 0:29:03.280 this is like it's like queen fiction of like there's 0:29:03.280 --> 0:29:07.360 only one and she loves me. I know, I know 0:29:07.800 --> 0:29:10.120 she's a disadvantage. 0:29:09.840 --> 0:29:14.200 And it's it's difficult because like Lewis come discusses kind 0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:19.920 of Sam's inability to be like functional with the people 0:29:19.960 --> 0:29:22.760 in his life because and he clearly has a thing 0:29:22.880 --> 0:29:27.840 like he lets he funds another another exchange by another 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:31.840 woman in Crypto who he tries to date women in CRISTI. Yeah, 0:29:32.040 --> 0:29:34.720 he's got this kind of thing going on. But Lewis 0:29:35.000 --> 0:29:37.840 kind of always writes off his his his behavior is 0:29:37.920 --> 0:29:41.000 like well, you know, he just he was too depressed. 0:29:41.040 --> 0:29:43.560 He was too he can't vooe. He's too brilliant to 0:29:43.680 --> 0:29:44.680 like be it's. 0:29:44.480 --> 0:29:47.160 A torture genius playbook of just like oh, and he's 0:29:47.200 --> 0:29:52.120 horrible to women, but only because his mind. Like there's 0:29:52.280 --> 0:29:56.120 I mean, they did the same and this happens every 0:29:56.160 --> 0:29:58.920 ten years, like that happened with Zuckerberg. They're like no, 0:29:59.080 --> 0:30:03.800 he's like he's a rampant misogynist because like his business 0:30:03.840 --> 0:30:06.280 started off of misogyny because he just had so many 0:30:06.320 --> 0:30:08.880 good ideas that it was like pressing on the woman 0:30:09.000 --> 0:30:13.160 respect Like yeah, it's ridiculous kind of. 0:30:13.240 --> 0:30:16.920 Meanwhile, when Lewis is describing like why Carolyn did what 0:30:17.000 --> 0:30:19.600 she did, he includes Lane, which she's like. He's like, 0:30:19.720 --> 0:30:21.760 he quotes someone as saying she would throw away all 0:30:21.760 --> 0:30:24.280 of her principles to be loved, Like she's the only 0:30:24.320 --> 0:30:26.800 one of the effective altruist kids who doesn't really believe 0:30:26.800 --> 0:30:30.560 in it. She's just so desperate for affection that she 0:30:30.600 --> 0:30:34.600 would like do anything for it, which like, I don't know, 0:30:34.720 --> 0:30:36.840 Like I don't know the person, but it's it's weird 0:30:37.080 --> 0:30:40.760 that Louis is so cynical about her and so full 0:30:40.800 --> 0:30:42.040 of excuses for Sam. 0:30:42.480 --> 0:30:44.600 I would have I would have a fair amount of 0:30:45.000 --> 0:30:48.280 guesses as to why that may be. Uh, And the 0:30:48.320 --> 0:30:50.920 way that it seems like in many ways that you 0:30:50.920 --> 0:30:55.320 know Lewis has seen himself in Sam, and like, if 0:30:55.360 --> 0:30:58.200 you're especially if you're used to like writing profiles of 0:30:58.760 --> 0:31:03.800 very successful, eccentric people, which he is, if this is 0:31:03.840 --> 0:31:06.160 the precedent you've set for the kind of behavior that 0:31:06.200 --> 0:31:11.320 you would excuse, such as clear racism or sexism, why 0:31:11.360 --> 0:31:15.239 would this be any different? Likes it fucking And then 0:31:15.280 --> 0:31:18.480 also on the other end of Carolyn being characterized as 0:31:19.600 --> 0:31:23.720 this like desperate for affection. Person I try to like 0:31:24.760 --> 0:31:28.600 tap into that of like God, if any of my 0:31:28.760 --> 0:31:32.240 personal correspondents came out, I'd be fucking cooked. 0:31:32.400 --> 0:31:33.920 Oh it would be devastating so. 0:31:34.000 --> 0:31:38.720 Many people and being singled out. Yeah, of course, Yeah, 0:31:38.800 --> 0:31:40.320 everyone's desperate for affection. 0:31:41.000 --> 0:31:43.560 So you know, anytime you see Lewis writing about Sam, 0:31:43.600 --> 0:31:46.760 he writes in kind of the terms Sam as one 0:31:46.760 --> 0:31:48.800 of the people in this weird effective altruism cult. He 0:31:48.880 --> 0:31:51.120 uses terms like he talks about his priors, which is 0:31:51.200 --> 0:31:55.360 like it's a way of like bringing Baysian mathematics into 0:31:55.440 --> 0:31:58.040 personal decisions, and all you all you're saying when you're 0:31:58.040 --> 0:32:00.560 saying like, well, these are my priors, is like, well, 0:32:00.560 --> 0:32:03.760 this is the shit I believe without any kind of evidence. Right, 0:32:03.880 --> 0:32:06.840 That's largely what that means. These are like my pre 0:32:06.960 --> 0:32:11.600 existing biases. But saying pre existing biases like doesn't sound 0:32:11.640 --> 0:32:14.760 as smart as my priors. And likewise, Sam would always 0:32:14.760 --> 0:32:16.920 talk about like, well, every decision I make is like 0:32:16.960 --> 0:32:20.160 a mathematical decision, and I calculate what's the expected value 0:32:20.160 --> 0:32:22.040 of this outcomers is this outcome? And then I do 0:32:22.080 --> 0:32:24.760 the thing with the highest expected value, right, which is 0:32:24.800 --> 0:32:26.640 another way of saying I do whatever will make me 0:32:26.680 --> 0:32:29.000 feel good, which is you know, a lot of us 0:32:29.080 --> 0:32:31.920 are like that a lot of the time. That's human nature. 0:32:31.560 --> 0:32:31.960 We are. 0:32:33.680 --> 0:32:36.600 Creatures of comfort in a lot of ways. But there's 0:32:36.720 --> 0:32:40.760 Sam is just dressing up selfishness in lines like this, 0:32:41.560 --> 0:32:43.840 Sam wanted to do whatever at any given moment, off 0:32:43.840 --> 0:32:46.520 her the highest expected value, and his estimate of her 0:32:46.680 --> 0:32:49.440 Carolyn's expected value seemed to peak right before they had 0:32:49.480 --> 0:32:52.600 sex and plummet immediately after. And like, oh, that's no 0:32:52.800 --> 0:32:55.080 different than a lot of guys in their twenties. 0:32:56.160 --> 0:32:58.520 It just sounds like a fucking guy. 0:32:58.800 --> 0:33:01.040 Oh so you're saying he got horny and then he 0:33:01.080 --> 0:33:04.640 didn't care about her afterwards. Well that's not special, Like. 0:33:04.720 --> 0:33:07.360 How I I can't relate? 0:33:07.640 --> 0:33:10.360 Wow, yeah, that is. That's not just millions of men, 0:33:10.440 --> 0:33:11.560 that's millions of people. 0:33:12.040 --> 0:33:16.680 Like it's so, I mean, even just outside of his 0:33:16.800 --> 0:33:20.080 relationships with women, in his relationship with Carolyn, I don't know. 0:33:20.120 --> 0:33:24.160 It gives me sort of like mensa PTSD, where there 0:33:24.320 --> 0:33:28.720 is this like two hander where it's either, uh, you 0:33:28.800 --> 0:33:31.480 can't understand what I'm doing because I am a super 0:33:31.480 --> 0:33:33.480 genius and you are not operating on my level. You 0:33:33.520 --> 0:33:36.680 could never understand why I am fucking up at this 0:33:36.760 --> 0:33:41.120 tremendous rate. And then if they're challenged enough, it's like, well, 0:33:41.160 --> 0:33:44.800 actually I'm you know it. I don't know the correct 0:33:44.800 --> 0:33:47.720 way to like characterize this, but it almost becomes like 0:33:47.760 --> 0:33:50.440 internet speak where it's like, no, I'm actually just like 0:33:51.080 --> 0:33:53.560 I don't give a shit. It's actually I'm using quick 0:33:53.560 --> 0:33:55.680 books because I don't give a fuck. It's like either 0:33:56.000 --> 0:33:59.120 I am a genius or I don't care, and there's 0:33:59.200 --> 0:34:02.960 nothing in but and it's like what is in between 0:34:03.080 --> 0:34:05.200 is just the fact that they're full of shit. 0:34:05.680 --> 0:34:08.600 Yeah. Yeah, and you know who else is full of 0:34:08.960 --> 0:34:22.479 no time to head to ads? Ah? Boy, I sure 0:34:22.520 --> 0:34:26.319 do love ads. Those were some good ones. So yeah, 0:34:26.360 --> 0:34:29.320 so we're back. We're talking about Sam Bakman Free's issues 0:34:29.320 --> 0:34:31.799 with women, as chronicled by Michael Lewis, who does, to 0:34:31.840 --> 0:34:34.400 his credit, make a point of noting that all of 0:34:34.440 --> 0:34:37.480 the company's moves as CEO from the US to Hong 0:34:37.560 --> 0:34:40.080 Kong and then from Hong Kong to the Bahamas were 0:34:40.120 --> 0:34:43.000 prompted by like he and Ellison would have some big 0:34:43.040 --> 0:34:45.840 relationship conversation and she would say like, I want to 0:34:46.120 --> 0:34:48.640 have a closer relationship and then he would move the 0:34:48.800 --> 0:34:52.720 entire company without telling anybody, which, again, like the instant 0:34:52.719 --> 0:34:54.759 you hear that anecdote, you're like, oh, well, this guy, 0:34:55.200 --> 0:34:57.680 there's nothing. This guy is not a super genius, Like 0:34:57.760 --> 0:35:04.719 this guy is just a can't deal with confrontation. Like, yeah, 0:35:04.840 --> 0:35:07.799 that's not special again, millions of us. 0:35:08.400 --> 0:35:13.400 Every conflict avoidant person has their approach. It knows no gender, 0:35:13.560 --> 0:35:17.799 but it skews towards one. Yeah, my last boyfriend bought 0:35:17.840 --> 0:35:25.120 an upright base. That was how bless is sorry? I 0:35:25.160 --> 0:35:25.720 don't think. 0:35:26.440 --> 0:35:30.359 Yeah, the real shame here is that I don't think 0:35:30.480 --> 0:35:33.600 Lewis draws any sort of connection between how Sam treats 0:35:33.640 --> 0:35:36.280 the women at his company and how like Sam treats 0:35:36.360 --> 0:35:39.680 adults with the specialized financial knowledge that might have saved 0:35:39.680 --> 0:35:42.000 his company, because there is a relate. Like, I'm not 0:35:42.000 --> 0:35:44.239 trying to discount his misogyny, which is certainly a thing, 0:35:44.280 --> 0:35:46.880 but like, I think the bigger through line with Sam 0:35:46.920 --> 0:35:49.640 that is present outside of justice dealing with like the 0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:52.319 women that he was in relationships with and worked with, 0:35:52.400 --> 0:35:56.200 is that Sam doesn't think anyone besides him has worthwhile 0:35:56.239 --> 0:35:59.520 thoughts or ideas, and that anything he doesn't understand is 0:35:59.560 --> 0:36:02.279 not worth paying attention to, which is a big thing 0:36:02.440 --> 0:36:05.080 in tech guys, right, this attitude that like you're seeing 0:36:05.080 --> 0:36:07.359 it now with these AI freaks where there they don't 0:36:08.080 --> 0:36:10.600 think that there's any value in the human creation of 0:36:10.719 --> 0:36:13.799 art because they don't understand it. Like they're willing to 0:36:13.840 --> 0:36:16.239 like have an AI just like come up with some 0:36:16.400 --> 0:36:20.160 crap that's vaguely patterned off of a historical See, isn't 0:36:20.160 --> 0:36:23.320 this picture of like, you know, isolation and anomy in 0:36:23.400 --> 0:36:26.320 modern society? Better now that we've turned it into a 0:36:26.360 --> 0:36:28.879 bunch of friends having brunch outside of a cafe. Look, 0:36:28.920 --> 0:36:32.000 it's much brighter now and prettier. It's like, No, that's 0:36:32.000 --> 0:36:33.640 not the point of the art. You don't understand, but 0:36:33.719 --> 0:36:35.880 like they don't. Yeah, it's this thing. 0:36:35.800 --> 0:36:39.279 That a computer could come up with the image of 0:36:40.000 --> 0:36:43.120 Hal Walker and Brian the Dog in a convertible. No, 0:36:43.239 --> 0:36:48.840 that's a uniquely human artistically instinct we would created. Only 0:36:49.160 --> 0:36:50.279 humans would get it. 0:36:50.800 --> 0:36:53.600 This idea that like I am smart, and therefore if 0:36:53.640 --> 0:36:56.919 I don't understand something, it's not important, right, It's it's 0:36:56.960 --> 0:36:59.680 something for like people who are less than me to 0:36:59.719 --> 0:37:02.239 deal with. This is why the company fell apart, And 0:37:02.280 --> 0:37:05.200 it's interesting to me that like Lewis, he clearly does 0:37:05.280 --> 0:37:08.480 see aspects of how Sam treats women unfairly, but he 0:37:08.520 --> 0:37:11.480 doesn't make any sort of leaps between the way Sam 0:37:11.520 --> 0:37:15.400 treats like everybody who's not him and I find that interesting. 0:37:15.800 --> 0:37:16.479 I do too. 0:37:17.120 --> 0:37:20.720 Yeah, yeah, good good stuff. So perhaps the biggest major 0:37:20.800 --> 0:37:23.800 through line in Going Infinite is Michael Lewis not getting 0:37:23.840 --> 0:37:27.520 the joke. That section where he quotes SBF explaining why 0:37:27.560 --> 0:37:30.920 CFOs are dumb is a perfect example. On a casual reading, 0:37:30.960 --> 0:37:32.799 you might even assume that we were supposed to find 0:37:32.840 --> 0:37:35.000 the line what do you think I do? What the 0:37:35.000 --> 0:37:36.880 fuck do you think I do? All day? Do you 0:37:36.880 --> 0:37:38.960 think I don't know how much money we have? Funny 0:37:39.160 --> 0:37:41.399 because Sam did not know how much money they had. 0:37:41.840 --> 0:37:45.320 At the climax of the book, after FTX is crumbled, 0:37:45.440 --> 0:37:47.759 Lewis goes into detail to discuss all the money that 0:37:47.880 --> 0:37:51.200 was recovered by John Ray quote at the end of 0:37:51.280 --> 0:37:54.000 June twenty yeah the third. At the end of June 0:37:54.000 --> 0:37:56.719 twenty twenty three, John Ray filed a report on his 0:37:56.840 --> 0:38:00.239 various collections. Today the debtors have recovered an approximate least 0:38:00.239 --> 0:38:02.920 seven billion in liquid assets, he wrote, and they anticipate 0:38:02.960 --> 0:38:06.399 additional recoveries seven point three billion to be exact. Ray 0:38:06.480 --> 0:38:08.400 was inching towards an answer to the question I'd been 0:38:08.400 --> 0:38:10.480 asking from the day of the collapse, where did all 0:38:10.520 --> 0:38:14.160 that money go? The answer was nowhere. It was still there, 0:38:14.680 --> 0:38:17.360 And that's not true. The reason he's writing this is 0:38:17.400 --> 0:38:20.680 that earlier in Sam's career, a bunch of people leave 0:38:21.239 --> 0:38:25.120 Alameda because he loses four million dollars and they think 0:38:25.160 --> 0:38:28.040 that he's lost four million dollars in investor money, and 0:38:28.080 --> 0:38:30.120 he's a dick about it, and later they find it 0:38:30.200 --> 0:38:34.280 like he had just misplaced it, basically, and so Lewis 0:38:34.360 --> 0:38:36.879 is being like, that's just what happened. They were never 0:38:36.920 --> 0:38:40.000 really in bankruptcy. See, it was a good business. Like 0:38:40.080 --> 0:38:42.560 they just didn't have any record keeping, so they lost 0:38:42.600 --> 0:38:45.600 the money. In this meanie, John Ray thinks it's bad 0:38:45.680 --> 0:38:49.440 to lose several billion dollars, but Lewis is saying is 0:38:49.480 --> 0:38:52.640 not true. He is kind of lying here. Maybe he 0:38:52.800 --> 0:38:55.040 just maybe it's an honest mistake. I don't know, but 0:38:55.080 --> 0:38:59.799 it's not accurate because for one thing, seven ish seven 0:38:59.840 --> 0:39:03.600 point three billion has been found, almost nine billion is missing. 0:39:03.880 --> 0:39:07.480 So that's one and a half billion dollars unaccounted for. Still, 0:39:07.719 --> 0:39:11.120 that's still one of the largest financial frauds in history. 0:39:11.000 --> 0:39:15.319 Right, significant, that's why maybe as much as two billion, yeah, 0:39:15.719 --> 0:39:17.840 does even if you're trying to get through to someone 0:39:17.840 --> 0:39:22.440 who knows nothing about finance, the second number, the missing number, 0:39:22.640 --> 0:39:24.240 is bigger than the first. 0:39:24.719 --> 0:39:28.239 The number if not good. He tries to cut close 0:39:28.280 --> 0:39:29.920 that hole by being like, and a lot of that 0:39:30.000 --> 0:39:31.960 money is in these you know, money they paid to 0:39:32.000 --> 0:39:34.440 these companies that they'll probably get back. And it's like, 0:39:34.440 --> 0:39:36.520 why would you think that a lot of that money 0:39:36.680 --> 0:39:39.319 went to other shady crypto people who don't bank in 0:39:39.360 --> 0:39:41.719 the US. Why do you think the money's gonna come back? 0:39:41.960 --> 0:39:45.080 Well, see, this is interesting because now, ugh, I feel 0:39:45.080 --> 0:39:46.960 back because I know Michael Lewis is not the bastard 0:39:46.960 --> 0:39:50.400 of the episode. However, he's kind of applying Yeah, Sam, 0:39:50.800 --> 0:39:53.239 if we're applying Sam bankman Free's theory that you do 0:39:53.320 --> 0:39:55.680 not do any valuable work after forty five, that may 0:39:55.719 --> 0:40:00.719 in fact apply to Michael Lewis. Yeah, Like, maybe he's 0:40:00.800 --> 0:40:03.600 lost the thread because it's the way that he's talking 0:40:03.600 --> 0:40:07.440 about money. I mean, and I have not read this book. 0:40:07.480 --> 0:40:07.960 Well, you're just. 0:40:10.160 --> 0:40:13.480 That's why they pay you the big buss, But like 0:40:15.120 --> 0:40:17.560 to hear how he talks about money in this book 0:40:17.680 --> 0:40:20.359 and to know that his most famous works have to 0:40:20.360 --> 0:40:25.440 do with finance, with the exception of the of the Blindside, 0:40:25.440 --> 0:40:28.719 which everyone forgets that he wrote like it calls his 0:40:28.880 --> 0:40:29.480 entire body of. 0:40:29.480 --> 0:40:32.919 Work in the question yeah yeah, and it's like, yeah, 0:40:33.200 --> 0:40:36.960 just the ridiculousness of being like, well, look, guys, seven 0:40:37.200 --> 0:40:40.560 you know, they've recovered seven billion out of nine point 0:40:40.640 --> 0:40:44.160 three billion, so things are basically good, Like that's insane. 0:40:44.520 --> 0:40:47.319 But also, as we'll get to later, he is he 0:40:47.520 --> 0:40:49.759 that even that doesn't tell the whole truth, Like this 0:40:49.880 --> 0:40:51.960 idea that everyone's going to get their money back is 0:40:52.040 --> 0:40:56.120 not true. But Lewis in order to continue believing that 0:40:56.160 --> 0:40:58.200 Sam was a super genius, he has to have this 0:40:58.280 --> 0:41:00.520 kind of tragic store where like he didn't really lose 0:41:00.560 --> 0:41:03.440 the money, it was a misunderstanding. It's all unfair. And 0:41:03.480 --> 0:41:05.680 because he needs to believe this, I think for the 0:41:05.719 --> 0:41:08.239 sake of his own ego, bringing up the fact that 0:41:08.280 --> 0:41:11.040 there's a lot of money missing is a really easy 0:41:11.080 --> 0:41:12.600 way to piss him off. And I'm going to play 0:41:12.600 --> 0:41:14.759 you this clip. It's the most revealing clip that I 0:41:14.960 --> 0:41:17.319 found And this is from an interview he did with 0:41:17.560 --> 0:41:21.480 on a YouTube channel called Intelligence Squared after the FTX collapse, 0:41:21.800 --> 0:41:23.719 like after his book came out. So while Sam is 0:41:23.760 --> 0:41:25.160 on trial, basically. 0:41:25.000 --> 0:41:28.000 Okay, seven point three billion, So it's one point three 0:41:28.000 --> 0:41:31.080 billion that's missing plus it, and there's still. 0:41:30.840 --> 0:41:34.240 More to be and it's more than that, it's more thought. 0:41:34.600 --> 0:41:40.919 This is where today today the prosecution, the prosecution sent 0:41:41.000 --> 0:41:43.120 a motion to the court saying, can we please not 0:41:43.239 --> 0:41:45.920 talk about the possibility the customers are all going to 0:41:45.920 --> 0:41:50.080 get their money back? And that in particular, can we 0:41:50.160 --> 0:41:51.040 you're gonna let me finish? 0:41:54.680 --> 0:41:58.440 Oh my god, I think, well, I care. Is the 0:41:58.480 --> 0:42:04.200 fact that I do think it's important. I think at 0:42:04.200 --> 0:42:06.120 the very least he's irresponsible. 0:42:06.200 --> 0:42:09.799 Of course, I'm not saying he's not irresponsible. I'm saying 0:42:09.800 --> 0:42:11.200 it's just different than you think. 0:42:12.440 --> 0:42:15.399 Okay, okay. A few observations. First of all, to pay. 0:42:16.360 --> 0:42:23.719 Second of all, uploaded four second that right, his haird 0:42:23.719 --> 0:42:28.240 does not looking real colors. It's not giving matching color. 0:42:28.719 --> 0:42:34.440 Second observation upload date four weeks ago, gnarly. Third observation, 0:42:34.600 --> 0:42:39.240 obviously he cuts off a woman aggressively to be wrong, 0:42:39.840 --> 0:42:44.200 and then Finally, it's just the because the listeners cannot 0:42:44.239 --> 0:42:47.640 see the size of that venue. It gave me a 0:42:47.800 --> 0:42:50.520 brief like it. I felt it in my stomach to 0:42:50.520 --> 0:42:53.040 be like, wow, that many people will gather to be 0:42:53.320 --> 0:42:57.200 to see Michael Lewis just spew bullshit and yet fifteen 0:42:57.239 --> 0:42:59.600 people show up to watch me but chug a quart 0:42:59.640 --> 0:43:00.280 of milk. 0:43:00.600 --> 0:43:03.719 It's ridiculous, Yeah, Jamie. Though, here's the thing. This is 0:43:03.719 --> 0:43:07.040 the difference between you know, it's the same. This is 0:43:07.080 --> 0:43:10.279 the difference between what I call vulgar art, which is 0:43:10.280 --> 0:43:13.239 the stuff that will be forgotten, you know, within a generation, 0:43:13.719 --> 0:43:17.399 and immortal art, right like the Parthenon. You know, you 0:43:17.480 --> 0:43:21.239 butt chugging the contents of infinite jest was a Parthenon 0:43:21.360 --> 0:43:23.279 level work of art. It will be with us. 0:43:24.880 --> 0:43:27.440 Years time misunderstood it, just. 0:43:27.520 --> 0:43:28.360 Like the Parthenon. 0:43:28.800 --> 0:43:31.680 He's in like a fucking cathedral. Though, I mean it. 0:43:31.600 --> 0:43:36.680 Does look like Sophie. Can you bring up a freeze 0:43:36.719 --> 0:43:39.040 frame of his face at like twelve fifty seven in 0:43:39.040 --> 0:43:40.760 that because he is doing and I think you should 0:43:40.800 --> 0:43:43.680 leave face like he is. He is almost a perfect 0:43:43.800 --> 0:43:46.120 character from one of those fucking sketches. 0:43:46.600 --> 0:43:50.080 Tim Robinson could do this. 0:43:50.680 --> 0:43:53.799 Tim Robinson could do an amazing job of this. There's 0:43:53.840 --> 0:43:56.200 that sketch from the recent season where he's being like 0:43:56.239 --> 0:43:58.720 an on air pundit who like gets on his phone 0:43:58.719 --> 0:44:01.160 and gets real quiet whatever he loses an argument that 0:44:01.280 --> 0:44:04.359 like Lewis is definitely doing that kind of. 0:44:04.280 --> 0:44:09.560 Face in this God right there. 0:44:12.400 --> 0:44:14.399 That's he's doing it, Tim Robinson. 0:44:16.040 --> 0:44:21.160 He's really, oh boy, doubling down on my two on 0:44:21.239 --> 0:44:22.120 the two pay theory. 0:44:22.520 --> 0:44:25.680 Right yeah, that hair isn't to. 0:44:25.680 --> 0:44:27.600 See if we've got the if we've got the veneers 0:44:27.640 --> 0:44:28.160 to match. 0:44:28.280 --> 0:44:31.160 But he's too rich to not have veneers. 0:44:31.480 --> 0:44:34.600 I aspire to the veneers. That's I just want to 0:44:34.600 --> 0:44:36.000 have exactly that much money. 0:44:36.080 --> 0:44:38.560 I wanted to you how angry he gets there, because 0:44:38.560 --> 0:44:41.000 we're going to address the actual facts of his claim. Now, 0:44:41.320 --> 0:44:43.480 even if you take Lewis at his word, which is 0:44:43.520 --> 0:44:46.480 that it's basically fine because they were covered seven point 0:44:46.480 --> 0:44:49.879 three out of like nine point three billion dollars, he's 0:44:49.920 --> 0:44:53.080 he's obfuscating the truth. It is accurate that Ray has 0:44:53.120 --> 0:44:56.520 announced FTX customers will see ninety percent of every dollar 0:44:56.560 --> 0:44:59.440 of recovered assets returned, which I would still call that 0:44:59.480 --> 0:45:02.560 problematic because if somebody stole ten percent of your bank account. 0:45:02.800 --> 0:45:06.120 You'd be kind of miffed. But that is even not 0:45:06.239 --> 0:45:08.920 what it seems like. And I'm quoting from Investipedia here 0:45:09.680 --> 0:45:11.880 To be clear, the ninety percent number refers to the 0:45:11.880 --> 0:45:15.160 funds FTX is able to gain access to, rather than 0:45:15.200 --> 0:45:18.280 total customer deposits at the time of the exchange's collapse. 0:45:18.520 --> 0:45:21.520 That doesn't necessarily mean customers will gain access to ninety 0:45:21.560 --> 0:45:24.359 percent of their assets that were left on the exchange. Rather, 0:45:24.600 --> 0:45:27.000 customers will gain access to ninety percent of the funds 0:45:27.080 --> 0:45:30.600 FTX is able to distribute to their creditors. FTX and 0:45:30.719 --> 0:45:34.120 FTXUS had an estimated eight point seven billion dollars combined 0:45:34.239 --> 0:45:37.960 shortfall by the time the crypto firm filed for bankruptcy, 0:45:38.120 --> 0:45:41.440 roughly six point nine percent roughly six point nine billion 0:45:41.440 --> 0:45:44.600 dollars of that shortfall, including a Bahama's real estate portfolio, 0:45:44.719 --> 0:45:48.359 has been recovered. Let's consider bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by 0:45:48.360 --> 0:45:51.440 market capulation, as a capitalization as a proxy for the 0:45:51.480 --> 0:45:54.880 broader cryptocurrency markets. On November eleventh of last year, the 0:45:54.920 --> 0:45:58.480 petition date, bitcoin was trading at around seventeen thousand. On Friday, 0:45:58.520 --> 0:46:01.359 it crossed thirty thousand. So simply put, if the current 0:46:01.400 --> 0:46:03.680 plan goes through, you'd likely get eighty five percent of 0:46:03.719 --> 0:46:06.520 the dollar value of your cryptocurrency had held on FTX 0:46:06.520 --> 0:46:08.719 as a last November, even if the same points have 0:46:08.800 --> 0:46:11.839 almost doubled in value today. So one of those like both, 0:46:11.880 --> 0:46:14.840 he's kind of overestimating the amount that they're going to 0:46:14.880 --> 0:46:17.719 get back. And also because they lost, like they still 0:46:17.760 --> 0:46:20.560 lost access to that money for it'll probably turn out 0:46:20.560 --> 0:46:22.640 to be two or three years, Like people have had 0:46:22.640 --> 0:46:24.799 to sell their homes and shit, because like they had 0:46:24.840 --> 0:46:27.960 all of their money. Like that, there's harm here, right, 0:46:28.040 --> 0:46:29.839 that's what the courts are taking. Not only is there 0:46:29.920 --> 0:46:32.880 still money missing and not an insignificant amount, but like 0:46:33.000 --> 0:46:35.760 people suffered in the interim where they didn't have access 0:46:35.800 --> 0:46:38.359 to their money, and yeah, they're crypto gamblers. I'm not. 0:46:38.600 --> 0:46:41.239 This isn't the most sympathetic population, but that is not 0:46:41.640 --> 0:46:45.120 relevant to determining whether or not Sam has legal He's 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:48.760 stealing fifteen or twenty percent of a bunch of people's 0:46:48.760 --> 0:46:51.320 savings accounts is a substantial crime. 0:46:51.640 --> 0:46:55.479 The legal question is is it a scam? Which like yes, 0:46:56.040 --> 0:46:59.600 you know, and I'm sure that like everyone who understandably 0:46:59.640 --> 0:47:02.920 because I walk amongst them, like everyone who was seeing 0:47:02.920 --> 0:47:05.640 this happen a couple of years ago up to very recently, 0:47:05.640 --> 0:47:08.920 We're like, yeah, you're what are you talking about? This 0:47:09.040 --> 0:47:11.000 happening is like a very you know, it's like easy 0:47:11.000 --> 0:47:12.680 to cheer it on, but it's also like, yeah, no, 0:47:13.200 --> 0:47:18.440 Sam Bankmintrede was taking advantage of every possible mark he could. 0:47:18.840 --> 0:47:22.640 Yeah, and yeah, and people are still suffering ongoing harm 0:47:22.680 --> 0:47:24.840 as a result of it. He's acting like Lewis is 0:47:24.880 --> 0:47:28.400 acting as if there wasn't really anyone hurt, and it's like, well, no, 0:47:28.960 --> 0:47:31.440 like even if all of them, which will not happen, 0:47:31.520 --> 0:47:34.640 at least about twenty percent of that money of depositor 0:47:34.680 --> 0:47:38.520 money is just gone, probably more. But even if he 0:47:38.600 --> 0:47:40.839 hadn't done that, if you're still locked out of your 0:47:40.840 --> 0:47:43.960 money for two years because a guy illegally gambled with it, 0:47:44.200 --> 0:47:47.120 are you going to be fine that it came back eventually. No, 0:47:47.200 --> 0:47:49.560 you still didn't have that money for years, and that's 0:47:49.600 --> 0:47:52.480 a problem for you. That's a crime, I. 0:47:52.440 --> 0:47:56.680 Mean, And I would be more amenable to that perspective 0:47:57.080 --> 0:48:00.840 if it was coming from someone who isn't as like 0:48:01.520 --> 0:48:04.759 historically fabulously rich as Michael Lewis is, because it's like 0:48:04.960 --> 0:48:08.440 a rich gaming the rich story can be really satisfying, 0:48:08.800 --> 0:48:10.400 but this is not the guy to be making it, 0:48:10.480 --> 0:48:13.160 and he's falling on the wrong side anyways. 0:48:12.840 --> 0:48:15.280 And it's like gaming the rich, gaming the rich because 0:48:15.320 --> 0:48:18.480 like Larry, you didn't they didn't hire Larry David to 0:48:18.480 --> 0:48:22.000 do a commercial so they could scam billionaires, right, they 0:48:22.080 --> 0:48:24.640 hired Larry David to do a commercial so they could 0:48:24.680 --> 0:48:28.680 scam your mom, you know, because your mom likes Larry David. 0:48:28.719 --> 0:48:31.719 I'm not saying the rest of the show. I mean 0:48:31.880 --> 0:48:36.000 most moms do. Right, He's pretty popular amongst the moms. 0:48:35.920 --> 0:48:37.520 In the comments. I don't know if my mom knows 0:48:37.520 --> 0:48:37.960 who I. 0:48:37.880 --> 0:48:41.160 Mean, the women in my family Seinfeld fans. 0:48:41.680 --> 0:48:43.480 Does your mom watch curb Message? 0:48:43.560 --> 0:48:45.360 No? No, no, but Seinfeld? 0:48:45.719 --> 0:48:48.919 Oh yeah, okay, I'm back, come back. 0:48:49.040 --> 0:48:54.120 Yeah. So anyway, Michael Lewis, Yeah, it's interesting to me, 0:48:54.320 --> 0:48:56.600 like the fact that the I the fact that Sam 0:48:56.640 --> 0:49:00.200 bankmin Freed stole money from depositors, because that that's what 0:49:00.280 --> 0:49:02.600 it is. When you take money out of one company 0:49:02.640 --> 0:49:05.840 illegally and use it to gamble in another company, that's stealing. 0:49:06.280 --> 0:49:09.640 Michael Lewis never uses the term stolen to describe what 0:49:09.800 --> 0:49:13.120 Sam did, and he basically goes to great lengths to 0:49:13.120 --> 0:49:17.080 claim that Sam misplaced all this money. This is again 0:49:17.400 --> 0:49:21.160 wildly inaccurate, and a good example of that is Alameda's 0:49:21.640 --> 0:49:24.640 hashtag fiat account, which is like that was one of 0:49:24.640 --> 0:49:26.640 the names for the account where they were putting all 0:49:26.680 --> 0:49:29.960 of the actual US dollars that customers put in the exchange, 0:49:29.960 --> 0:49:34.200 So customers would put US dollars into FTX and then 0:49:34.320 --> 0:49:38.240 use it to buy cryptocurrency, right, But those US dollars 0:49:38.280 --> 0:49:40.040 needed to stay in the exchange so that people could 0:49:40.040 --> 0:49:44.480 cash out their positions, right, Otherwise you're not doing legitimately 0:49:44.520 --> 0:49:47.040 what you're supposed to do as a business. FTX was 0:49:47.080 --> 0:49:49.279 not a bank. A bank is allowed only has to 0:49:49.320 --> 0:49:51.960 keep a certain amount in reserve, right, That's what a 0:49:52.000 --> 0:49:54.760 reserve currency is. This is an exchange. They were supposed 0:49:54.760 --> 0:49:57.640 to keep enough reserve in there to cover the value 0:49:57.680 --> 0:50:01.000 of their deposits. Sam instead took all that money and 0:50:01.000 --> 0:50:04.400 put it into Alameda, and there's evidence that it like 0:50:04.520 --> 0:50:07.680 never it went directly into Alameda. The money people thought 0:50:07.719 --> 0:50:11.880 they were depositing into FTX went into another company entirely, 0:50:12.480 --> 0:50:15.560 I would call that. And in fact, Sam was convicted 0:50:15.600 --> 0:50:19.239 because this is an example of fraud. Lewis depicts it 0:50:19.280 --> 0:50:22.040 as an honest mistake, and here's the New Yorker quote. 0:50:22.600 --> 0:50:25.360 Lewis finds it not only wholly implausible that this was 0:50:25.400 --> 0:50:29.040 in fact a gigantic accounting error, explained by ftx's difficulty 0:50:29.080 --> 0:50:32.839 securing bank accounts. As Lewis concludes, his story implausible as 0:50:32.880 --> 0:50:36.680 it sounded, remained irritatingly difficult to disprove. And Lewis very 0:50:36.719 --> 0:50:39.640 gently insinuates that Ellison, in over her head, might have 0:50:39.719 --> 0:50:43.840 made some very bad decisions. And in court, which again 0:50:44.040 --> 0:50:45.920 is a couple of weeks after his book comes out, 0:50:46.080 --> 0:50:48.880 it is proven with data from the company that Sam 0:50:49.200 --> 0:50:52.080 not only did not like not only knew what he 0:50:52.160 --> 0:50:54.640 was doing, but he ordered other people to obscure this 0:50:54.760 --> 0:50:58.640 fact from customers. Right, he ordered his employees to hide 0:50:58.640 --> 0:51:02.360 from customers that their money going straight into another company. 0:51:02.600 --> 0:51:05.399 This was proven when they like actually, during the court case, 0:51:05.480 --> 0:51:09.240 they had the people who programmed the exchange on Sam's 0:51:09.239 --> 0:51:13.040 behalf like post code. And I found an analysis of 0:51:13.160 --> 0:51:16.520 ftx's code by Molly White, who does a newsletter called 0:51:16.600 --> 0:51:20.160 Citation Needed, which is quite good. Molly knows code and stuff. 0:51:20.200 --> 0:51:24.040 So here's her analyzing that, prosecutors questioned Wang, who was 0:51:24.040 --> 0:51:26.440 the guy who was coding the exchange, about the FTX 0:51:26.480 --> 0:51:29.760 insurance fund, which was ostensibly supposed to protect both FDx 0:51:29.800 --> 0:51:32.680 and its customers from trades that went badly, even more 0:51:32.760 --> 0:51:36.080 quickly than the exchange's risk engine could account for. FTX 0:51:36.120 --> 0:51:38.960 published the funds supposed balance on their website and bragged 0:51:38.960 --> 0:51:43.040 widely about its existence, including a testimony to US Congress. However, 0:51:43.120 --> 0:51:46.399 according to Wang, the numbers showed on the website was falsified. 0:51:46.920 --> 0:51:49.920 And the question is like, is this a real number, Wang, No, 0:51:50.120 --> 0:51:52.560 so it's a fake number. Yes. Was the real number 0:51:52.600 --> 0:51:56.600 higher or lower than the fake number? Lower? And yeah. 0:51:56.840 --> 0:51:58.680 The way that they would do this so like they're 0:51:58.680 --> 0:52:01.680 supposed to have this urance fund, which is part of 0:52:01.719 --> 0:52:04.840 what makes FTX safer than the other exchanges is that 0:52:04.920 --> 0:52:06.959 we keep you can't do a run on the bank 0:52:07.040 --> 0:52:10.520 because our entire like like all of our deposits are 0:52:10.520 --> 0:52:13.279 backed up by cash, right, so we can't collapse the 0:52:13.320 --> 0:52:17.160 way that other exchanges do. And like to make people 0:52:17.239 --> 0:52:20.080 feel comfortable they had, they would show them they had, 0:52:20.120 --> 0:52:23.000 like you could see like what the insurance fund was. 0:52:23.040 --> 0:52:25.280 That they would regularly brag, we have this much money 0:52:25.280 --> 0:52:26.279 in our insurance fund. 0:52:26.800 --> 0:52:28.400 It can number accurate. 0:52:28.640 --> 0:52:33.200 Like No, all they were doing is so the code 0:52:33.200 --> 0:52:36.680 snippets show that, like they had Sam ordered Nashad Singing 0:52:36.760 --> 0:52:39.239 to write some code that would update the insurance fund 0:52:39.280 --> 0:52:43.040 amount randomly by adding it to the daily trading volume, 0:52:43.120 --> 0:52:45.520 like the amount of Basically they would it would calculate 0:52:45.880 --> 0:52:49.160 how much has been traded today, and that would multiply 0:52:49.320 --> 0:52:52.760 that by a random number somewhere around seventy five hundred 0:52:52.840 --> 0:52:55.360 and then divide it by a billion. So it would 0:52:55.920 --> 0:52:59.840 was how it was just describe how you do business. 0:53:00.040 --> 0:53:03.719 They're like bus, there was never an insurance a real 0:53:03.840 --> 0:53:07.319 insurance fund of any like meaningful amount of money. They 0:53:07.400 --> 0:53:10.080 just pretended it was there by having a computer do 0:53:10.239 --> 0:53:12.799 a random equation, so it seemed like it was fluctuating 0:53:12.840 --> 0:53:13.359 over time. 0:53:13.840 --> 0:53:16.960 Yeah, that's that's not legal to do. 0:53:17.160 --> 0:53:19.160 No, that's that there. 0:53:19.640 --> 0:53:22.399 And I feel like this, like this level of like 0:53:23.800 --> 0:53:27.640 splitting hairs in The New Yorker wouldn't happen unless the 0:53:27.680 --> 0:53:31.120 two main players, Michael Lewis and Sam Bak Midfried, weren't 0:53:31.760 --> 0:53:36.279 tremendously privileged like for any other people, you would be like, yeah, 0:53:36.280 --> 0:53:38.799 so this was a lie and then this happened, like 0:53:38.840 --> 0:53:40.479 you wouldn't be splitting hairs like this. 0:53:40.600 --> 0:53:42.919 To be fair. The actual thrust of that New Yorker 0:53:43.000 --> 0:53:45.800 article is like, Michael Lewis is what the fuck is 0:53:45.840 --> 0:53:48.600 happening with this guy? Because he's clearly falling, Like the 0:53:48.600 --> 0:53:50.800 New york article is very critical of him. It's bringing 0:53:50.880 --> 0:53:54.480 up that he is not calling Sam Bankman free to 0:53:54.520 --> 0:53:56.359 fucking con man when he clearly is right. 0:53:56.840 --> 0:54:00.759 So they're like headline, Michael Lewis, low key, he fell off? 0:54:01.000 --> 0:54:04.480 Yeah, looking, he fell off, that's right, Molly. I also 0:54:04.560 --> 0:54:06.960 brings up something else that was left out of court, 0:54:06.960 --> 0:54:09.480 but the prosecution published evidence of it, and I found 0:54:09.480 --> 0:54:12.560 this really telling. Elsewhere in the code, it's possible to 0:54:12.600 --> 0:54:15.200 observe that the amount of FTT, which is the token 0:54:15.680 --> 0:54:19.279 created that represented basically voting shares, was like it was 0:54:19.400 --> 0:54:22.920 ftx's funny money, was actually represented by a hard coded 0:54:23.200 --> 0:54:25.480 value in the user interface and was not pulling from 0:54:25.520 --> 0:54:28.120 an external data source to get a real number. So 0:54:28.160 --> 0:54:31.320 again they're lying about how much money is in this fund. 0:54:31.400 --> 0:54:33.400 And part of how you can tell is when you 0:54:33.440 --> 0:54:36.719 would ask to see the insurance fund, it wouldn't consult 0:54:36.840 --> 0:54:39.719 back to the servers. It was just it was doing 0:54:39.719 --> 0:54:43.480 the calculation on your own machine, right, which is evidence 0:54:43.480 --> 0:54:45.400 that like, there was never any attempt to give people 0:54:45.440 --> 0:54:51.160 accurate information. Wow, it's fun stuff. There's other fund reveals 0:54:51.280 --> 0:54:53.520 during the court case, for example, twists. 0:54:53.600 --> 0:54:53.839 Yeah. 0:54:53.920 --> 0:54:57.200 During ftx's days as a functioning business, a lot of 0:54:57.239 --> 0:54:59.920 crypto people notice there was a potential conflict of entr 0:55:00.280 --> 0:55:03.320 between FTX and Alameda. They were like, hey, it seems 0:55:03.320 --> 0:55:07.319 like you run both these companies, and traders on Alameda 0:55:07.360 --> 0:55:11.040 are our trading on FTX. Is it possible that they're 0:55:11.080 --> 0:55:14.360 getting preferential treatment on the exchange that you also owned. 0:55:14.719 --> 0:55:17.799 There's a really telling Twitter conversation on Molly's blog where 0:55:17.800 --> 0:55:21.880 someone asks this and SBF says, Alameda is the liquidity provider, 0:55:21.880 --> 0:55:24.360 but their account is just like everyone else's, and the 0:55:24.400 --> 0:55:27.440 respondent rightfully says, I guess we're just supposed to trust you. 0:55:27.840 --> 0:55:29.560 And it turned out they were right to be worried. 0:55:29.920 --> 0:55:31.840 One of the chief selling points about FTX is that 0:55:31.880 --> 0:55:35.600 it's crash proof. Right. Crypto exchanges have this weird habit, 0:55:35.800 --> 0:55:38.120 like twenty years old now, of getting really big and 0:55:38.160 --> 0:55:41.320 then collapsing, taking everyone's money with them. Sometimes this is 0:55:41.400 --> 0:55:44.000 due to hacks, but also there's a lot of because 0:55:44.040 --> 0:55:47.040 there's no regulation, a lot of times major traders will 0:55:47.040 --> 0:55:50.400 go bust and that causes losses for the whole exchange, 0:55:50.600 --> 0:55:53.879 which gets socialized. Right, everybody loses money because one bad 0:55:53.960 --> 0:55:58.960 gambler gambled too much. One of ftx's like selling points 0:55:59.000 --> 0:56:01.560 was that it was different. They had an algorithm to 0:56:01.640 --> 0:56:04.839 automatically freeze trades on an account once that account had 0:56:04.920 --> 0:56:07.600 suffered losses equal to the amount of money they'd put 0:56:07.600 --> 0:56:10.560 in the exchange, right, So you can't lose more money 0:56:10.880 --> 0:56:14.520 than you put in is the basic idea. So that's 0:56:14.560 --> 0:56:16.360 how it was supposed to work, and that's how it 0:56:16.360 --> 0:56:20.120 worked initially. But the limit that Alameda had for its 0:56:20.160 --> 0:56:22.160 gambling to make sure that it couldn't get in over 0:56:22.200 --> 0:56:26.120 its skis, was removed later on Sam Bankman Freed's orders, 0:56:26.400 --> 0:56:29.759 and in court, Gary Wang, Sam's business partner, explained how 0:56:29.840 --> 0:56:33.759 Sam directed them to do this. Wang explained that Alameda 0:56:33.800 --> 0:56:35.799 had not started out with such a high credit limit, 0:56:35.840 --> 0:56:38.280 but that periodically the trading firm had run into issues 0:56:38.320 --> 0:56:41.600 placing trades because they didn't have enough collateral. Sam Bankman 0:56:41.640 --> 0:56:43.920 Freed kept asking him to increase their credit limit to 0:56:43.920 --> 0:56:46.520 prevent it from happening. According to Wang, the limit was 0:56:46.520 --> 0:56:49.239 originally set to a few million dollars, but then it 0:56:49.320 --> 0:56:51.600 was increased to a billion. After they ran up against 0:56:51.600 --> 0:56:53.640 that limit too, bankman freed asked him to set it 0:56:53.640 --> 0:56:55.799 to a number so large they wouldn't likely hit the 0:56:55.800 --> 0:56:58.480 limit at that point. Wang set it to around sixty 0:56:58.480 --> 0:57:00.480 five billion. And when I read that, what I see 0:57:00.520 --> 0:57:03.280 is this is a gambler in Vegas who's like taking 0:57:03.320 --> 0:57:06.120 out loans to keep gambling because he's run out of money. 0:57:06.280 --> 0:57:09.120 Like he's like, hey, you just imagine like someone like 0:57:09.239 --> 0:57:13.040 on their knees in like shitty pinstripe. Ye can't being 0:57:13.080 --> 0:57:14.680 like come on, man. 0:57:14.440 --> 0:57:16.800 Yeah, give me, just give me some credit. Man, I'm 0:57:16.840 --> 0:57:17.520 good for it. 0:57:17.920 --> 0:57:21.000 But he got up to sixty five billion in credit. 0:57:20.960 --> 0:57:23.880 Yeah yeah, which is insane. Now, when you pair all 0:57:23.920 --> 0:57:26.880 this with the stories that SBF tells that Lewis tells 0:57:26.880 --> 0:57:30.200 of SBF's gaming addiction, you might conclude was this kid 0:57:30.320 --> 0:57:32.880 just a fucking gambling addict, Which is, by the way, 0:57:32.920 --> 0:57:34.479 that's my interpretation there. 0:57:34.600 --> 0:57:37.560 I mean there. To me, it sounds like this shit 0:57:37.640 --> 0:57:40.760 is Neo points to him, Like it really is. Like, 0:57:41.120 --> 0:57:44.880 if there's anything that got the millennial generation hooked on 0:57:44.960 --> 0:57:50.880 capitalism and random gambling, it was Neopets. And if anyone 0:57:50.920 --> 0:57:53.760 has proof that Sam Bankminfreed was a Neopets user, he 0:57:53.920 --> 0:57:56.880 just sounds like the worst version of a Neopets user. 0:57:57.200 --> 0:58:00.680 To me, the worst endgame for a neo Pets user 0:58:00.840 --> 0:58:03.960 is what you've been describing to me for for several hours. 0:58:04.240 --> 0:58:06.400 And I think you and I were not invested in 0:58:06.480 --> 0:58:10.160 Sam Bankmanfreed ever being particularly smart, So we can see. 0:58:09.960 --> 0:58:14.160 This, Lewis, he's a Neopets users. I bet it was 0:58:14.240 --> 0:58:15.240 better at it than him. 0:58:16.160 --> 0:58:18.000 Well, that's the other thing. He was never very good 0:58:18.040 --> 0:58:20.960 at games. Like people found his like League of Legends 0:58:20.960 --> 0:58:23.439 account and were like, yeah, he was mid Like I'm 0:58:23.480 --> 0:58:26.200 sure he wasn't good at Storybook Brawl, right, Like he's 0:58:26.280 --> 0:58:27.800 just he was never good at this. 0:58:28.200 --> 0:58:30.040 But it was the first time that Michael Lewis had 0:58:30.080 --> 0:58:33.000 heard of story But yeah, so Sam bank Fred said 0:58:33.000 --> 0:58:35.640 he was the best at it. Why not believe him? 0:58:35.720 --> 0:58:38.240 Yeah, and that's just the idea. Like again, Lewis can't 0:58:38.240 --> 0:58:40.920 be like, yeah, this kid had a gambling problem and 0:58:41.000 --> 0:58:44.920 he also owned a bank, so it became everyone's issue. 0:58:45.080 --> 0:58:48.040 But like, you're not a bank man. It's hard to 0:58:48.080 --> 0:58:51.280 portray someone as smart if they're just addicted to gambling, right, 0:58:51.320 --> 0:58:53.400 because that's not a smart person thing. It Actually a 0:58:53.400 --> 0:58:55.520 lot of smart people are horrible addicts in a variety 0:58:55.560 --> 0:58:58.240 of ways. But like, but it's a serious press in 0:58:58.240 --> 0:59:01.000 the Hollywood way. Make it look like somebody's a genius 0:59:01.040 --> 0:59:04.080 if they just can't control themselves, right. 0:59:04.040 --> 0:59:06.360 Yeah, it's a serious, serious problem. 0:59:06.560 --> 0:59:08.960 Yeah. Yeah, and again no shame on people who have 0:59:09.040 --> 0:59:11.880 that problem. But like that that does not work with 0:59:11.920 --> 0:59:16.400 how Lewis wants to portray him, right, And yeah, speaking 0:59:16.440 --> 0:59:18.120 of things that don't work. 0:59:20.240 --> 0:59:23.800 Shit, everything you're about to advertise, we. 0:59:23.800 --> 0:59:26.560 Won't have to work if you purchase these products. 0:59:26.800 --> 0:59:30.520 Okay, good good self crush. Yeah, I actually will continue 0:59:30.560 --> 0:59:32.880 to work more accurate. 0:59:34.000 --> 0:59:45.760 Yeah, both both true. We're back. So you know, I 0:59:45.800 --> 0:59:47.520 think it's clear from the stuff that came out in 0:59:47.560 --> 0:59:49.439 the court case that I just read some of there's 0:59:49.440 --> 0:59:52.560 no way Alameda NFTX would have done the things that 0:59:52.800 --> 0:59:55.560 I just described if they hadn't meant to disguise the 0:59:55.600 --> 0:59:58.240 reality of their business from the world, which is fraud. Right. 0:59:58.440 --> 1:00:01.080 The reality is that Sam Bankman Freed used to positor 1:00:01.120 --> 1:00:04.120 money to gamble, and he was gambling in part on 1:00:04.200 --> 1:00:06.720 his own chances. He wasn't just gambling. This is the 1:00:06.720 --> 1:00:09.560 thing that is important to understand past a certain point. 1:00:10.120 --> 1:00:13.600 Most of his gambling was not him betting on cryptocurrencies. 1:00:13.760 --> 1:00:13.920 Right. 1:00:14.280 --> 1:00:15.920 The big shit he did that made the news, the 1:00:15.960 --> 1:00:19.720 billion dollars that he pumped into naming, renaming that stadium 1:00:19.720 --> 1:00:22.400 in Florida, to bringing in all these celebrities to these 1:00:22.480 --> 1:00:25.520 high dollars Super Bowl ads, that was a gamble. He 1:00:25.600 --> 1:00:28.560 was pulling a slot machine on his own chances of 1:00:28.600 --> 1:00:33.000 ascending to the halls of power. Right, sounds like him, Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1:00:33.040 --> 1:00:35.520 One of my favorite aside bits from the court case 1:00:35.600 --> 1:00:38.080 is that on the stand when she was being questioned, 1:00:38.160 --> 1:00:41.400 Carolyn Ellison told everybody that Sam confided in her he 1:00:41.480 --> 1:00:44.160 thought he'd had a five percent chance of becoming president 1:00:44.200 --> 1:00:45.640 of the United States. 1:00:45.520 --> 1:00:50.280 Which, well, I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but also like, 1:00:50.720 --> 1:00:53.040 look at some of the dumbasses we've got. He's probably 1:00:53.080 --> 1:00:55.040 not wrong that he eman. He at least could have 1:00:55.120 --> 1:00:58.920 been like, who is that fucking loser from Starbucks? He 1:00:58.960 --> 1:00:59.840 could have only s been. 1:00:59.800 --> 1:01:01.720 That, Yeah, he could have. I think he could have 1:01:01.760 --> 1:01:04.520 had a failed presidential but no, like yeah, oh yeah, 1:01:05.160 --> 1:01:08.040 they're all dumb, Like Joe Biden and Donald Trump are 1:01:08.040 --> 1:01:11.440 both have both done very stupid things, different kinds of 1:01:11.560 --> 1:01:14.600 very stupid things, but they both have charisma. 1:01:14.840 --> 1:01:16.000 Right, that's true. 1:01:15.840 --> 1:01:18.520 That's they But like, like you could again say what 1:01:18.560 --> 1:01:20.080 you will about Joe Biden, he wouldn't have been in 1:01:20.160 --> 1:01:23.240 politics this long if you couldn't make enough people like him. 1:01:23.400 --> 1:01:27.320 And obviously Donald Trump is very charismatic, Sam Bankman free 1:01:27.360 --> 1:01:29.800 just isn't like you don't become the president if you 1:01:29.840 --> 1:01:31.840 are avoid of charisma. 1:01:32.000 --> 1:01:34.200 No, we and we've learned that time and time again. 1:01:34.440 --> 1:01:36.680 Yeah yeah, yeah, And that's the thing, like he was 1:01:36.720 --> 1:01:39.920 always all of his his his sudden rise to public 1:01:40.000 --> 1:01:43.080 prominence was not based on him actually being interesting. It 1:01:43.160 --> 1:01:45.640 was based on him spending tens of millions of dollars 1:01:45.680 --> 1:01:47.960 to get like Bill Clinton, to pretend to be his buddy. 1:01:48.520 --> 1:01:50.840 Like that was all there ever was to it. You know, 1:01:51.320 --> 1:01:54.480 in my general research on the crypto industry, and if 1:01:54.480 --> 1:01:57.560 you're looking for actual good reading, don't buy Going Infinite. 1:01:57.560 --> 1:01:59.720 You won't get anything valuable at it. If you do 1:01:59.760 --> 1:02:02.480 want to get something valuable in a deeper understanding about 1:02:02.520 --> 1:02:05.000 like how grifty this whole industry was, and also how 1:02:05.040 --> 1:02:07.960 grifty Sam was. There's a book called Number Go Up 1:02:08.000 --> 1:02:13.320 by Zeke Foe Zeke Faux really good book, Number Go Up, 1:02:13.320 --> 1:02:15.880 which I do recommend to people curious for the dark 1:02:15.920 --> 1:02:19.960 side of crypto. Zeke also spent time with Sam in 1:02:20.000 --> 1:02:22.479 the Bahamas, and I found this passage from his book 1:02:22.520 --> 1:02:25.200 relevant to what I just mentioned. A few hours into 1:02:25.240 --> 1:02:27.520 our conversation, Bankman Freed told me he had to make 1:02:27.520 --> 1:02:29.120 a call. I had asked him if there was anyone 1:02:29.120 --> 1:02:31.680 who'd support his version of events, and he said I 1:02:31.720 --> 1:02:33.880 could talk with one of his few remaining supporters. While 1:02:33.880 --> 1:02:36.640 I waited, in walked a haughty man with a long, 1:02:36.760 --> 1:02:39.920 scraggly beard, a pot belly, and mismatched socks, one of 1:02:39.920 --> 1:02:42.360 them with a pac Man design who was an employee 1:02:42.400 --> 1:02:45.200 of FTX who'd stuck around to help Bankman Freed try 1:02:45.240 --> 1:02:47.720 to find an investor to rescue the exchange. I threw 1:02:47.720 --> 1:02:50.360 out an easy question, why are you still here? I asked. 1:02:50.560 --> 1:02:54.600 He started off by saying he wanted to help ftx's customers, Then, unprompted, 1:02:54.640 --> 1:02:56.200 he told me he thought there wasn't much of a 1:02:56.280 --> 1:02:58.680 risk that bankment freed would ever get in trouble. I 1:02:58.760 --> 1:03:01.400 firmly believe once somebody he becomes a certain level of rich, 1:03:01.440 --> 1:03:04.040 they're never poured again. He said, they don't go to jail, 1:03:04.200 --> 1:03:05.600 nothing bad happens to them. 1:03:06.080 --> 1:03:10.040 Wait, he has his own Zuckerberg quote. He has his 1:03:10.160 --> 1:03:12.560 own You could be unethical and still be lad. That's 1:03:12.560 --> 1:03:14.680 the way I live my life. Haha. Wait, read it 1:03:14.720 --> 1:03:16.840 again for me so I can really take it in again. 1:03:17.360 --> 1:03:20.240 This is Sam's friend who stuck by him after his 1:03:20.320 --> 1:03:23.959 business collapsed. I firmly believe once somebody becomes a certain 1:03:24.040 --> 1:03:26.360 level of rich, they're never poured again. They don't go 1:03:26.440 --> 1:03:29.200 to jail, nothing bad happens to them. 1:03:29.440 --> 1:03:30.000 Poetry. 1:03:30.280 --> 1:03:32.760 Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to think in 1:03:32.880 --> 1:03:35.240 that moment too, where all of the smarter people have 1:03:35.360 --> 1:03:38.400 just fled the island, and in that moment he was. 1:03:38.400 --> 1:03:41.760 Infinite that yeah, wow, wow. 1:03:41.720 --> 1:03:44.680 Yeah, I'm speechless. It's so funny too, because like I 1:03:44.680 --> 1:03:47.600 don't know, man, just historically, do you remember, like Marie 1:03:47.600 --> 1:03:50.640 Antoinette was pretty rich and like that didn't end well, 1:03:50.880 --> 1:03:54.480 you know, like like there's a lot christ had a 1:03:54.520 --> 1:03:57.840 lot of money. It didn't go well for him. You know, 1:03:58.000 --> 1:04:00.600 bad things happened to rich people too. 1:04:01.040 --> 1:04:04.920 And that's that's your main political stance, as I recall. 1:04:04.800 --> 1:04:07.360 Yeah, yeah, I will hang out with anybody rich because 1:04:07.400 --> 1:04:12.480 nothing bad can happen to them, obviously untrue. I kind 1:04:12.480 --> 1:04:16.560 of suspect that that that sort of I don't know, 1:04:17.400 --> 1:04:20.280 you know, the fact that so much of what was said, 1:04:20.440 --> 1:04:22.840 like Zeke foe Is probably is clearly someone who's smart 1:04:22.960 --> 1:04:25.600 enough to like understand when he's being lied to by 1:04:25.640 --> 1:04:28.280 these people and understand their fundamental absurdity, and that comes 1:04:28.320 --> 1:04:32.040 across in his book. I don't think Lewis got that right. 1:04:32.120 --> 1:04:36.040 He believed fundamentally in the fundamental honesty at the center 1:04:36.120 --> 1:04:38.919 of Sam Bankmin Freed, and I kind of suspect that's 1:04:38.960 --> 1:04:41.240 why he covered his face with his hands that day 1:04:41.280 --> 1:04:44.120 in court. He's not a dumb man, and he must 1:04:44.120 --> 1:04:46.480 have realized by that point the evidence that came out 1:04:46.520 --> 1:04:49.320 in the trial was undenied and made it undeniable that 1:04:49.360 --> 1:04:52.200 he got conned too. One of the most remarkable things 1:04:52.240 --> 1:04:55.160 about Going Infinite is how much detail Lewis provides about 1:04:55.200 --> 1:04:59.040 ftx's collapse without ever calling Sam a liar. The Guardian's 1:04:59.120 --> 1:05:02.160 review noted this too. He thought Bankman Freed hadn't lied 1:05:02.160 --> 1:05:03.760 to him at all, or at least that he'd only 1:05:03.800 --> 1:05:06.439 lied by a mission, not by commission. Late in the book, 1:05:06.480 --> 1:05:08.880 Lewis asks bankman Freed, what would you have done if 1:05:08.920 --> 1:05:12.120 I'd ask you specifically about FTX customer funds being used 1:05:12.120 --> 1:05:14.760 by Alameda. Bankman Freed admits that he would have changed 1:05:14.760 --> 1:05:17.600 the subject or rustled up a word salad and whatever 1:05:17.640 --> 1:05:21.280 the facades erected by other effective altruists. Lewis considers bankment 1:05:21.280 --> 1:05:24.480 Freed to be enigmatic, but essentially genuine, and certainly not 1:05:24.560 --> 1:05:26.960 out to enrich himself because he has no desire for 1:05:27.000 --> 1:05:30.440 the things that money can buy. Lewis's refusal to believe 1:05:30.480 --> 1:05:32.480 that Sam Bankman Freed is a liar in the most 1:05:32.600 --> 1:05:35.640 venal base sense of the word is based, I think, 1:05:35.720 --> 1:05:38.440 on a sense of professional pride. That explains why he's 1:05:38.440 --> 1:05:40.560 so adamant about pushing the line that there was no 1:05:40.720 --> 1:05:43.560 money missing, and it's why he continued to defend Sam's 1:05:43.600 --> 1:05:46.640 dissembling as a fun, quirky character trait while the trial 1:05:46.760 --> 1:05:49.560 was going on. See as part of the Cash in 1:05:49.640 --> 1:05:54.640 Ongoing Infinite Michael Lewis launched a podcast Judging Sam the 1:05:54.720 --> 1:05:56.480 Trial of Sam Bankman Freed. 1:05:56.840 --> 1:06:01.080 Oh it was a dough is he and oho? But 1:06:01.440 --> 1:06:05.080 everyone on this call knows that the first sign that 1:06:05.160 --> 1:06:09.160 your life is about to be fucking torched, yes, is 1:06:09.200 --> 1:06:10.200 starting a podcast. 1:06:10.840 --> 1:06:13.840 That's right, right, it's the last refuse, refuge of fools 1:06:13.840 --> 1:06:17.920 and scoundrels. Yeah, please pay for the cool sound free 1:06:17.960 --> 1:06:22.200 subscription at what do we call it, Sophie so uh. 1:06:22.240 --> 1:06:24.840 The trial Judging Sam is part of Lewis's Against the 1:06:24.920 --> 1:06:27.600 Rules podcast on Pushkin, and I can't speak for the 1:06:27.600 --> 1:06:30.200 regular episodes of that podcast. I have not listened to 1:06:30.320 --> 1:06:33.160 any of the other ones, but I can say his 1:06:33.240 --> 1:06:37.320 Sam Bankman Freed Trial podcast is an uneven effort at best. 1:06:37.720 --> 1:06:40.080 Most of the work is done by Lydia Jean. She's 1:06:40.320 --> 1:06:43.800 a journalist, she's okay. I don't have any huge issues 1:06:43.800 --> 1:06:45.720 with her. I think we get a little too much, like, 1:06:45.800 --> 1:06:48.440 here's what the court kitchen is like, here's anecdotes from 1:06:48.480 --> 1:06:50.480 the fun lives of the journalists covering it. 1:06:50.760 --> 1:06:53.880 That also gets Yeah. Then it's like my least favorite 1:06:53.920 --> 1:06:56.600 part of every public radio and I love public radio, 1:06:56.680 --> 1:06:59.640 but the broadcast where it begins with six minutes of 1:06:59.680 --> 1:07:02.640 a guy stepping on leaves, and you're like, oh my god, 1:07:02.680 --> 1:07:04.640 I get it. You're in fucking New Hampshire in. 1:07:04.600 --> 1:07:10.120 October fall, where you NPR people leave. We understand, yes, 1:07:11.000 --> 1:07:13.440 but every podcast on this trial does something like that. 1:07:13.480 --> 1:07:15.080 I think it's just because they have to. They were 1:07:15.080 --> 1:07:18.240 doing like basically daily episodes and needed to fill run time, 1:07:18.440 --> 1:07:21.400 and like, look, is that lazy? Yes? Have we all 1:07:21.400 --> 1:07:25.760 been there? Yes? So I simply can't throw stones at 1:07:25.800 --> 1:07:26.600 this classhouse. 1:07:26.640 --> 1:07:32.080 What are what are you talking about? As someone who's 1:07:32.120 --> 1:07:35.640 never had a daily podcast, I condemned this behavior because 1:07:35.720 --> 1:07:37.080 I've never had to do it. 1:07:38.000 --> 1:07:42.640 So LUs Lydia takes most of the have the lifting 1:07:42.680 --> 1:07:45.880 on this show because Lewis was on tour for his book, right, 1:07:45.960 --> 1:07:48.480 and so he couldn't be there for most of it. 1:07:48.520 --> 1:07:49.760 He was barely at the trial. 1:07:49.880 --> 1:07:52.360 Yeah, he was screaming at women in cathedrals. 1:07:52.400 --> 1:07:56.280 He was busy, Yeah, But he does occasionally come on 1:07:57.320 --> 1:08:00.960 and one of the episodes that does like he shows 1:08:01.040 --> 1:08:03.200 up to court on the day that Sam takes the 1:08:03.240 --> 1:08:05.800 trial or it takes the stand in his own defense, 1:08:07.040 --> 1:08:09.480 and you know during this portion where he's like Sam's 1:08:09.480 --> 1:08:11.920 being cross examined, he says, I don't recall more than 1:08:11.920 --> 1:08:14.640 one hundred times. Here's how a right up from the 1:08:14.760 --> 1:08:18.599 verge summarizes his time on the stand. Bankman Freed's demeanor 1:08:18.640 --> 1:08:21.559 suggested a spoiled child complaining he didn't get the biggest 1:08:21.560 --> 1:08:23.840 scoop of ice cream at his birthday party. He didn't 1:08:23.880 --> 1:08:26.719 want to answer the prosecutor's questions or his lawyer's questions. 1:08:26.720 --> 1:08:29.519 He wanted to answer his own questions, which he liked better. 1:08:29.720 --> 1:08:32.480 He often replied to yes and no questions with nonsense. 1:08:32.920 --> 1:08:35.320 We were getting introduced to a document where bankman Freed 1:08:35.320 --> 1:08:39.320 listed his priorities, including getting accounting right on FTX. Cohen 1:08:39.360 --> 1:08:42.000 and Bankman Fried, Cohens's lawyer and bankman Freed used this 1:08:42.080 --> 1:08:44.200 to show how devoted bankmn Freed was to getting to 1:08:44.280 --> 1:08:47.400 the bottom of the general fiasco with Alameda's money. The 1:08:47.520 --> 1:08:50.759 idea was to display in real time ftx's revenue in expenses, 1:08:50.760 --> 1:08:53.120 where its bank accounts were, how much investor money it had, 1:08:53.160 --> 1:08:56.360 and so on. This did reveal Bankman Fried's priorities. Getting 1:08:56.360 --> 1:09:01.559 accounting right was ranked ninth oh for the stories Bankman 1:09:01.600 --> 1:09:04.320 Freed wanted to tell, we had to rely on Bankman Freed. 1:09:04.640 --> 1:09:07.240 We moved on to bankman Freed's argument about hedging, which 1:09:07.280 --> 1:09:09.120 I still do not understand except as a way for 1:09:09.200 --> 1:09:11.760 him to say he's a smarter trader than his ex girlfriend, 1:09:11.960 --> 1:09:14.520 the former Alimeter Research CEO Carolynellis. 1:09:14.640 --> 1:09:16.680 God, this is more stand up behavior. 1:09:17.720 --> 1:09:20.160 The actual evidence suggests that Ellison is both a better 1:09:20.200 --> 1:09:23.320 trader and much savvier than Bankman Freed. She modeled out 1:09:23.320 --> 1:09:26.360 her risk scenario that matched almost exactly what happened to FTX, 1:09:26.360 --> 1:09:28.320 for instance, to try to keep him from sinking two 1:09:28.360 --> 1:09:32.479 billion into venture investing. And like, what happens is he's putting, 1:09:32.680 --> 1:09:36.360 you know, all this money and advertising into like playing celebrities. 1:09:36.360 --> 1:09:38.800 He's putting like two billion dollars into these random series 1:09:38.840 --> 1:09:42.320 of investments. And she's like, hey, we've taken depositor money 1:09:42.320 --> 1:09:44.800 to gamble with. We have to keep more cash on hand, 1:09:44.840 --> 1:09:48.559 otherwise the whole exchange could collapse. Sam ignores her, the 1:09:48.600 --> 1:09:52.240 exchange collapses, and then he blames her for not hedging right. 1:09:52.600 --> 1:09:54.759 And a hedge is when you take like a bet 1:09:55.080 --> 1:09:57.760 that one thing will happen, you take the opposite bet 1:09:57.800 --> 1:10:01.320 at a smaller amount of money, so that no matter 1:10:01.320 --> 1:10:04.680 what happens, you can't lose too much money, right, But 1:10:05.080 --> 1:10:07.840 there's no hedging the kind of risks that FDx was 1:10:07.880 --> 1:10:10.280 taking because the fundamental risk was we don't have enough 1:10:10.320 --> 1:10:12.000 money if there's a run on the bank, you. 1:10:11.960 --> 1:10:14.160 Know, well, it was like there risk goes, We're never 1:10:14.240 --> 1:10:17.519 gonna die, Like you can't, you can't hedge that. 1:10:17.960 --> 1:10:18.160 Yeah. 1:10:19.200 --> 1:10:21.600 What is wild to me is like everything you're describing 1:10:21.920 --> 1:10:25.840 is ridiculous, and it makes total sense that it fucking 1:10:25.880 --> 1:10:28.800 imploded in the catastrophic way that it did. But then 1:10:28.840 --> 1:10:32.360 you also, I mean, so much of it sounds like 1:10:33.040 --> 1:10:36.000 the kind of stuff that, for example, Michael Lewis might 1:10:36.040 --> 1:10:40.040 report on is a tremendous scam that worked out great 1:10:40.160 --> 1:10:41.040 for everybody. 1:10:41.479 --> 1:10:45.760 Yeah, and it's so you know, again, that quote from 1:10:45.760 --> 1:10:49.639 the Verge is pretty similar to how most reporters who 1:10:49.640 --> 1:10:53.240 were there at the trial described it. It is wildly 1:10:53.360 --> 1:10:57.240 different from how Michael Lewis describes how Sam reacts on 1:10:57.320 --> 1:11:01.120 the stage, right, Oh okay, Yeah, And it's interesting because 1:11:01.160 --> 1:11:03.240 like obviously most people were able to see, Oh yes, 1:11:03.280 --> 1:11:06.040 Sam is just lying on the stand, he's obfuscating, he's 1:11:06.080 --> 1:11:09.920 refusing to answer the question. But Michael Lewis not only 1:11:09.960 --> 1:11:12.840 does Michael Lewis like being lied to by Sam Bankman Freed. 1:11:13.120 --> 1:11:16.160 He thinks Sam's defensive cloud of bullshit right this like 1:11:16.280 --> 1:11:19.439 word salad, is better than the truth. And he says 1:11:19.520 --> 1:11:22.879 this in his fucking podcast Jamie, You're gonna love this clip. 1:11:24.040 --> 1:11:26.360 Today he didn't get in as much trouble as he 1:11:26.479 --> 1:11:27.639 got yesterday, though. 1:11:28.120 --> 1:11:31.280 Not as nothing, but still a little bit more than 1:11:31.400 --> 1:11:32.240 other witnesses. 1:11:33.040 --> 1:11:35.760 That's true. The bigger point is the judge is sitting 1:11:35.840 --> 1:11:39.240 there listening to see if Sam is actually answering. 1:11:38.840 --> 1:11:41.240 The question because he knows he doesn't do that yet. 1:11:41.200 --> 1:11:43.559 Or generating a word salad for us all to consume. 1:11:44.040 --> 1:11:46.679 And I was thinking about this again to day. Why 1:11:46.800 --> 1:11:49.439 Sam's word salads are so. 1:11:49.600 --> 1:11:52.639 Fun, like why he gets waiting Like most people when 1:11:52.640 --> 1:11:55.760 they don't answer a question, your alarm bells go off 1:11:55.800 --> 1:11:58.679 pretty quickly, like that you just redirected in some way. 1:11:59.439 --> 1:12:02.600 He's really really good at starting the answer in a 1:12:02.640 --> 1:12:05.080 place where you think, oh, that's where the beginning of 1:12:05.120 --> 1:12:08.479 the answer belongs, and then making a little jump into 1:12:09.200 --> 1:12:12.400 things are actually interesting to know about, so you're not bored, 1:12:12.840 --> 1:12:14.320 You're actually interested in what he's saying. 1:12:14.360 --> 1:12:16.240 You're saying like there's substance to it. He's not just 1:12:16.240 --> 1:12:19.080 saying nothing. He's saying something that's substantive and makes you 1:12:19.120 --> 1:12:22.160 think it's just not what you asked. But then you're 1:12:22.200 --> 1:12:23.920 thinking and you forget what you asked. 1:12:24.280 --> 1:12:25.679 That's exactly what happens. 1:12:26.360 --> 1:12:31.000 Yeah, so that's like he's he's just saying that, like, yeah, 1:12:31.040 --> 1:12:35.080 Sam's lies. He's really good at lying, like and it's 1:12:35.080 --> 1:12:37.640 fun to listen to him lie as if that's a 1:12:37.680 --> 1:12:40.439 defense right where they're saying, like, well, they really painted 1:12:40.439 --> 1:12:43.880 a different picture of Sam because they you know, he 1:12:43.960 --> 1:12:46.679 got to get up on the stage and bullshit, that's good. 1:12:46.960 --> 1:12:49.720 That's a very interesting exchange to listen to as well, 1:12:49.760 --> 1:12:52.200 because it's like, you know, because it's very clear that 1:12:52.200 --> 1:12:55.280 Michael Lewis has very little to do with this podcast. 1:12:55.840 --> 1:12:57.960 I don't know, like I can think of a number 1:12:57.960 --> 1:13:01.880 of examples of a like big name a podcaster coming 1:13:01.920 --> 1:13:04.080 on their show to like be combative with the people 1:13:04.080 --> 1:13:06.000 who are actually making the show for them, and that 1:13:06.200 --> 1:13:08.280 like exchange too is like no, like I know what 1:13:08.320 --> 1:13:12.800 you're saying, but yeah, and even in what she's describing, 1:13:13.040 --> 1:13:16.240 like the court approaches either he's a genius or he's 1:13:16.320 --> 1:13:20.559 like an incompetent sweetie pie, but you're just like or 1:13:20.680 --> 1:13:23.320 he's a malevolent dumb ass, or he still seem to 1:13:23.360 --> 1:13:23.599 be the. 1:13:23.600 --> 1:13:26.600 King con Man. Yeah, but like, yeah, I love this 1:13:26.760 --> 1:13:31.559 idea that like, yeah, we're getting to see the real Sam, 1:13:31.600 --> 1:13:34.639 who is a guy who never answers your actual question. 1:13:35.000 --> 1:13:37.639 But like I want to continue the clip because Lewis 1:13:37.680 --> 1:13:40.240 says something very very ridiculous right after this. 1:13:40.560 --> 1:13:44.360 Okay, he's really really good at starting the answer in 1:13:44.439 --> 1:13:46.839 a place where you think, oh, that's where the beginning 1:13:46.920 --> 1:13:49.880 of the answer belongs, and then making a little jump 1:13:50.120 --> 1:13:53.760 into things are actually interesting to know about. So you're 1:13:53.760 --> 1:13:56.240 not bored, You're actually interested in what he's saying. 1:13:56.280 --> 1:13:58.160 You're saying like there's substance to it. He's not just 1:13:58.160 --> 1:14:01.000 saying nothing. He's saying something that substantive and makes you 1:14:01.040 --> 1:14:04.080 think it's just not what you asked. But then you're 1:14:04.120 --> 1:14:05.839 thinking and you forget what you asked. 1:14:06.200 --> 1:14:11.040 That's exactly what happens. It's engaging. It's like, maybe it's 1:14:11.120 --> 1:14:13.960 even better than the answer to the question. 1:14:14.680 --> 1:14:17.439 Right, Maybe it's what you should ask Yes. 1:14:17.240 --> 1:14:19.200 Maybe it's not even what you should have asked. That's 1:14:19.280 --> 1:14:20.080 exactly right. 1:14:20.840 --> 1:14:24.040 Yeah, it's Sam. The answer the question Sam answers that 1:14:24.080 --> 1:14:26.960 aren't what he's being asked or what you should have asked, right, Like, 1:14:27.040 --> 1:14:29.400 he's smarter than you, the interviewer, and he knows what 1:14:29.439 --> 1:14:31.680 you actually should have asked, which I just thought was 1:14:31.720 --> 1:14:35.120 a wild thing for a journalist to say. This is 1:14:35.160 --> 1:14:36.600 you know, we're getting to the end here. But the 1:14:36.640 --> 1:14:38.840 last thing I wanted to bring up was maybe the 1:14:38.880 --> 1:14:42.160 most interesting case of Michael Lewis following Sam's crap, which 1:14:42.200 --> 1:14:45.920 is him believing that Sam's outfit, his hairstyle, his poor 1:14:46.000 --> 1:14:49.519 hygien oral evidence of his brilliance. Right, Sam just didn't 1:14:49.560 --> 1:14:52.600 have time to like take care of his appearance in 1:14:52.640 --> 1:14:54.880 any way. He was too smart to waste any of it, 1:14:55.000 --> 1:14:58.000 like his brain power on that And that article in 1:14:58.080 --> 1:15:01.240 Jacobin gives a really good summary of the actual testimony 1:15:01.280 --> 1:15:03.960 of Sam's former friends in court blew this idea out 1:15:04.000 --> 1:15:07.639 of the water. The prosecutor followed with questions about Sam's 1:15:07.680 --> 1:15:11.000 approach to public relations. Ellison explained he was trying to 1:15:11.040 --> 1:15:13.080 cultivate an image of himself as a sort of very 1:15:13.080 --> 1:15:16.200 smart competence somewhat acentric founder. I was sitting in an 1:15:16.200 --> 1:15:18.800 overflow room on that day. So when the prosecutor asked, 1:15:18.800 --> 1:15:21.360 how would you describe the defendant's personal appearance through twenty 1:15:21.400 --> 1:15:23.960 twenty two, the room was allowed to erupt into laughter. 1:15:24.280 --> 1:15:26.519 Ellison replied, he looked like he didn't put a lot 1:15:26.560 --> 1:15:29.679 of effort into his personal appearance. He dressed sort of sloppery, sloppily, 1:15:29.720 --> 1:15:31.760 and didn't cut his hair often. He said he thought 1:15:31.800 --> 1:15:33.840 his hair had been very valuable. He said ever since 1:15:33.920 --> 1:15:36.400 Jane Street. He thought he had gotten higher bonuses because 1:15:36.439 --> 1:15:38.160 of his hair, and it was an important part of 1:15:38.280 --> 1:15:39.879 fdx's narrative and image. 1:15:40.520 --> 1:15:46.160 God yeah, first embarrassing, but also I think, you know, 1:15:46.600 --> 1:15:52.040 clearly predicated on the dipshit billionaires that came before him, 1:15:52.240 --> 1:15:56.640 Like there is a clear aesthetic and a clear like 1:15:56.840 --> 1:15:59.360 you know, slovenly genius thing that he'd like. 1:15:59.360 --> 1:16:02.960 It's strategic and that's interesting, right, the fact that Sam 1:16:03.040 --> 1:16:06.240 is standing on the shoulders of giants of Steve Jobs, 1:16:06.360 --> 1:16:11.880 unwashed shoulders like you know, Mark Zuckerberg's hoodie and whatever. 1:16:12.960 --> 1:16:14.599 Genocideary that he wears. 1:16:14.800 --> 1:16:17.960 Yeah yeah, and it's like yeah. Lewis describes it as 1:16:18.000 --> 1:16:20.559 like everything in Sam's appearance felt less like a decision 1:16:20.600 --> 1:16:22.960 than a decision not to make it decision and no, 1:16:23.120 --> 1:16:26.000 what everyone says at FTX is like he was obsessed 1:16:26.040 --> 1:16:28.720 with like his hair. When they were spending trying to 1:16:28.720 --> 1:16:31.480 build their two hundred million dollars or whatever new headquarters. 1:16:31.760 --> 1:16:34.320 His only design note was that it should be shaped 1:16:34.360 --> 1:16:36.600 so it looked from the side like his hairs do, 1:16:37.280 --> 1:16:39.519 because he thought that, like he thought it was iconic, 1:16:39.720 --> 1:16:40.760 right like. 1:16:41.120 --> 1:16:43.880 Which is also based on the what we were just 1:16:44.320 --> 1:16:48.559 listening to. What the like logo to that podcast is 1:16:48.560 --> 1:16:50.800 is the shape of his hair. Everyone's playing into it. 1:16:50.880 --> 1:16:54.680 It's yeah, fuck, it's fucking wild. Anyway, Jamie, that's my episode. 1:16:55.040 --> 1:16:57.599 Do you think we should fire Michael Lewis into the sun? 1:16:58.600 --> 1:17:00.960 Well, I was, I was thinking earlier. I am very 1:17:01.000 --> 1:17:03.719 curious because you know, I think it's like a waste 1:17:03.720 --> 1:17:06.439 of time to ask, like, well, Michael Lewis have another 1:17:06.520 --> 1:17:08.840 opportunity to course correct his career. Of course he will, 1:17:09.120 --> 1:17:09.800 of course you will. 1:17:10.120 --> 1:17:13.759 Yes, He's gonna write seventy more books. 1:17:14.240 --> 1:17:17.120 Well, what I'm curious about is like where he goes 1:17:17.200 --> 1:17:19.200 from here. I feel like it's pretty telling if you've 1:17:19.240 --> 1:17:22.400 been con to this fucking degree, because no one clocked 1:17:22.479 --> 1:17:25.559 him in the blind Side, But now he's been pretty 1:17:25.600 --> 1:17:31.040 severely clocked as like giving in to his worst biases 1:17:31.479 --> 1:17:34.320 and reporting it as fact. And I do wonder, like, 1:17:35.200 --> 1:17:37.880 if that's the position you're in, and you will absolutely 1:17:37.960 --> 1:17:42.000 read another book because you're unkillable financially, Like, I wonder 1:17:42.080 --> 1:17:44.559 which direction he's going to go in. Is he going 1:17:44.600 --> 1:17:47.160 to be hyper cautious, is he going to play it safe? 1:17:47.360 --> 1:17:49.559 Is he going to be self reflective at all? Or 1:17:49.600 --> 1:17:52.160 is he going to double down on the falling for 1:17:52.280 --> 1:17:55.120 it kind of stuff? I genuinely don't know, because I 1:17:55.200 --> 1:17:57.439 just like it's very hard to discern what kind of 1:17:57.439 --> 1:18:01.400 person Like it seems like he's certainly, you know, like 1:18:01.520 --> 1:18:03.920 high in his own supply and is like, well, you know, 1:18:04.000 --> 1:18:06.400 of course anyone could have fallen for it, but he 1:18:06.640 --> 1:18:09.160 is sort of conceding to the fact that he fell 1:18:09.200 --> 1:18:11.320 for it. I just am curious what happens to someone 1:18:11.320 --> 1:18:11.920 from there. 1:18:12.120 --> 1:18:14.640 My suspicion, and maybe I'll be wrong about this. I 1:18:14.640 --> 1:18:16.960 think we'll know pretty soon. I think he's going to 1:18:17.040 --> 1:18:20.839 do another SAM. I specifically think he's going to yeah 1:18:20.880 --> 1:18:24.800 a second, a second SAM has hit the Michael Lewis bibliography, 1:18:25.200 --> 1:18:27.439 and it's going to be Sam Altman, like he's going 1:18:27.520 --> 1:18:29.679 to do with Sam Altman, the open AI guy who 1:18:29.760 --> 1:18:32.280 just got fired from his job. He's going to do 1:18:32.320 --> 1:18:36.960 a book on Sam Altman. I suspect you're probably right. 1:18:37.000 --> 1:18:39.519 You're probably because then he'll be like and I would 1:18:39.640 --> 1:18:42.719 know I can see through Sam's now having been conned 1:18:42.720 --> 1:18:45.160 by one. I certainly won't becoming. 1:18:45.040 --> 1:18:48.479 Sammy wants Sam on you, Sam me twice, won't get 1:18:48.520 --> 1:18:50.599 Sammed again. You know, I am just like. 1:18:50.720 --> 1:18:55.280 Other Sam Sammy chit Wow, Yeah no, that. 1:18:55.800 --> 1:18:58.880 That's my guess as to where this goes is Sam Altman. 1:18:59.439 --> 1:19:02.599 What why is Michael Lewis being presented with a second 1:19:02.640 --> 1:19:04.280 Sam doesn't seem fair? 1:19:04.720 --> 1:19:06.840 Second Sam? Is it that? Well, I've already done that 1:19:06.920 --> 1:19:10.759 joke once and it worked and all. It always works, 1:19:10.840 --> 1:19:13.560 j it always works. Yeah. 1:19:13.760 --> 1:19:19.040 Yeah, Well I don't feel well. You know, I've I 1:19:19.600 --> 1:19:22.479 would say that this is like in the top twenty 1:19:22.520 --> 1:19:26.120 percentile of Bastards episodes. I've come out feeling like, you know, 1:19:26.200 --> 1:19:29.599 I don't feel that bad. I usually feel like really dire. 1:19:30.000 --> 1:19:33.120 I feel pretty good. Yeah, he's in forever. He's in 1:19:33.200 --> 1:19:33.880 forever jail. 1:19:34.920 --> 1:19:39.040 He's in he is in forever jail, right, Yeah, speaking 1:19:39.040 --> 1:19:43.640 of forever jail, Jamie talent is like a jail that 1:19:43.800 --> 1:19:48.559 locks you into, for example, making a weekly podcast. And 1:19:49.080 --> 1:19:51.000 I am happy that you and I are about to 1:19:51.000 --> 1:19:51.759 be cell mates. 1:19:52.680 --> 1:19:56.120 We are I'm so excited. Yeah, we get to do 1:19:56.200 --> 1:19:58.080 the fun thing where we're like, we can't talk much 1:19:58.120 --> 1:19:59.280 about it yet, but there's. 1:19:59.080 --> 1:20:02.320 A weird podcast about it. But Jamie Loftus Weekly is 1:20:02.360 --> 1:20:05.240 coming to the cool Zone Network. You were going to 1:20:05.360 --> 1:20:08.480 be the cool hand Luke of our podcast. 1:20:08.560 --> 1:20:12.040 Pure welcome God. I would love to be the cool 1:20:12.040 --> 1:20:14.960 hand look of the podcast. I gotta get some new outfits. 1:20:15.160 --> 1:20:17.559 Gotta get some new outfits. Gotta No, that's not the one. 1:20:17.680 --> 1:20:19.120 Is that the one where he throws a baseball at 1:20:19.120 --> 1:20:20.639 the wall or is that the Great Escape? 1:20:22.000 --> 1:20:24.120 I feel like that was cool hand a long time. 1:20:24.240 --> 1:20:26.400 Neither of I not since I was like seven, So 1:20:26.600 --> 1:20:27.040 I don't know. 1:20:27.520 --> 1:20:29.639 Why are you a cool hand look when you were seven? 1:20:30.080 --> 1:20:31.599 Yeah, my mom loved that movie. 1:20:32.000 --> 1:20:32.320 Nice. 1:20:32.880 --> 1:20:35.479 My mom had very strict rules on like what I 1:20:35.479 --> 1:20:38.320 could watch on as movies as a kid unless it 1:20:38.360 --> 1:20:40.479 was a movie she liked, which is why I was 1:20:40.520 --> 1:20:42.799 in first grade when we watched Alien. 1:20:43.600 --> 1:20:47.840 So that explains so much about you too. 1:20:49.920 --> 1:20:52.960 She was so excited that all the men die and 1:20:52.960 --> 1:20:55.400 and and the woman didn't. But like, yeah, she wanted 1:20:55.439 --> 1:20:57.519 me to see that movie at a very young age. 1:20:57.760 --> 1:21:02.080 What a legacy, truly, The sentence because men are stupid 1:21:02.200 --> 1:21:04.599 was uttered two or three times during that. 1:21:04.520 --> 1:21:09.160 Movie, which does unpack a lot of the plot intended 1:21:09.240 --> 1:21:12.360 or not there. My mom would let me watch soap 1:21:12.400 --> 1:21:14.640 operas very young, and would I would be like, what 1:21:14.680 --> 1:21:16.920 do they mean when they say making love? And she 1:21:16.920 --> 1:21:18.920 would say, what do you think? 1:21:19.040 --> 1:21:19.519 I don't know? 1:21:19.600 --> 1:21:20.320 I'm seven? 1:21:21.800 --> 1:21:24.360 Yeah you haven't. You have not equipped me to answer 1:21:24.400 --> 1:21:24.960 that question. 1:21:25.080 --> 1:21:25.280 Mother. 1:21:28.200 --> 1:21:32.000 Well, yes, weekly podcast coming soon early next year? Was 1:21:32.040 --> 1:21:35.240 it about you? Guess? But don't contact me about it 1:21:35.240 --> 1:21:36.000 because you're wrong? 1:21:36.520 --> 1:21:41.400 Yeah? Yeah, A second Jamie has hit the cool zone. 1:21:41.600 --> 1:21:43.920 I mean, you've done more than two podcasts. This joke 1:21:44.000 --> 1:21:44.680 never worked, But. 1:21:46.360 --> 1:21:50.519 A first Jamie has hit the cool zone. Weekly. That's right, Amy, 1:21:50.800 --> 1:21:55.120 What podcast is this of ours? Oh? God? How many? 1:21:55.280 --> 1:21:55.679 How many? 1:21:55.720 --> 1:21:56.040 This is? 1:21:56.240 --> 1:21:56.640 This will be? 1:21:56.680 --> 1:21:56.760 What? 1:21:56.920 --> 1:21:57.559 Oh my god? 1:21:57.680 --> 1:21:59.840 Oh it's possible to say it's impossible. 1:22:01.200 --> 1:22:04.800 I think it's like six. Yeah, I think it's like six. 1:22:05.280 --> 1:22:07.880 We've entered the half dozen range. It's getting dangerous. 1:22:08.000 --> 1:22:09.360 That's so cool for us. 1:22:09.640 --> 1:22:13.000 I know we're forever wives, Sam Bankman freed forever, Jill 1:22:13.360 --> 1:22:15.600 ever jail us forever wives. 1:22:16.080 --> 1:22:20.200 Oh uh so, Jamie, anything else you wanted to plug 1:22:20.280 --> 1:22:22.880 before we ride on out of here, like Michael by. 1:22:22.920 --> 1:22:27.080 Raw Dog bitches. Yeah, it's the holidays. Are you looking 1:22:27.120 --> 1:22:30.240 for something to get for your loved or hated one? 1:22:30.360 --> 1:22:33.080 I won't know. Buy a copy of Raw Dog. It's 1:22:33.080 --> 1:22:35.439 my book about hot dogs. And if you don't like 1:22:35.520 --> 1:22:38.320 hot dogs, the title's funny, and I think that's you know, 1:22:38.360 --> 1:22:41.080 about sixty percent of the purchases I've gotten have been 1:22:41.160 --> 1:22:43.439 off that alone, So you should buy Raw Dog. 1:22:44.000 --> 1:22:48.800 And yeah, buy raw Dog. And now I'm not going 1:22:48.880 --> 1:22:50.439 to make a raw Dog jake. That's just gonna get 1:22:50.479 --> 1:22:55.040 me in trouble anyway. Buy a Cooler Zone Media subscription 1:22:55.240 --> 1:22:58.200 and you won't have to hear ads, Or don't buy 1:22:58.200 --> 1:23:01.519 a Cooler Zone Media subscription and continue to listen to ads. 1:23:02.040 --> 1:23:04.960 It's I don't care, live your life. I'm not your 1:23:04.960 --> 1:23:05.639 fucking dad. 1:23:06.200 --> 1:23:10.400 If you really want to hear the advertisings that Robert's disparaging, 1:23:10.560 --> 1:23:12.760 I personally think it's more fun to imagine it. So 1:23:12.800 --> 1:23:14.840 you should get a cooler Zone Media subscription. 1:23:15.200 --> 1:23:18.120 Yeah, once everyone's on cooler Zone Media, then we can 1:23:18.160 --> 1:23:22.760 finally get that sweet Lockheed Martin subscription that I've or 1:23:22.840 --> 1:23:24.760 whatever ad deals that I've been wanting to have. 1:23:26.439 --> 1:23:29.639 Robert can finally live inside a grenade like it's always 1:23:29.680 --> 1:23:30.240 been his dream. 1:23:30.280 --> 1:23:33.719 That's been my dream, that's been my dream, Jamie. Yeah, 1:23:34.880 --> 1:23:36.200 all right, we're done. 1:23:36.200 --> 1:23:41.080 We did it. Behind the Bastards is a production of 1:23:41.120 --> 1:23:44.160 cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit 1:23:44.160 --> 1:23:47.760 our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out 1:23:47.800 --> 1:23:50.760 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get 1:23:50.760 --> 1:23:51.560 your podcasts.