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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Robert Evans here with Behind the Bastards, and

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Speaker 2: we've got some kind of sad news today. This is

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Speaker 2: going to hit members of the community pretty hard. But

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Speaker 2: forty eight years ago, on November tenth, nineteen seventy five,

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Speaker 2: the SS Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior, killing

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Speaker 2: all twenty nine crew members on board. This is a

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Speaker 2: hard time of the year for everybody here at Behind

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Speaker 2: the Bastards, for all of you at home, and the

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Speaker 2: only thing that makes it easier is the knowledge that

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Speaker 2: both the Russian Federation and the Chinese government have recently

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Speaker 2: substantially increased the sizes of their nuclear stockpile, while the

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Speaker 2: United States is in the process of renovating its own

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Speaker 2: nuclear weapons. And my hope, I think all of our hope,

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Speaker 2: is that the leaders of our world can kind of

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Speaker 2: band together in this time of conflict and sadness to

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Speaker 2: finally expect into the entirety of their nuclear stockpiles, detonating

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Speaker 2: them over Lake Superior. You know that's my hope. I

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Speaker 2: know it's all of your hope back at home, and

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Speaker 2: I really think what can carry us through this is

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Speaker 2: some classic MAO era propaganda posters sewing, Joe Biden, Zijen

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Speaker 2: Ping and Vladimir Putin walking hand in hand, surrounded by

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Speaker 2: a crowd of little kids in Red Guard uniforms, heading

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Speaker 2: towards the light of a new atomic sun, while a

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Speaker 2: series of mushroom clouds detonate over Lake Superior's debts. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: welcome to the show, Jamie.

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Speaker 3: That's so. I mean, first of all, thank you, thank

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Speaker 3: you for that. I needed to hear it. I think

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Speaker 3: we all the image you described, and I hate that

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Speaker 3: my mind went here conjured the image of Paul Walker

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Speaker 3: in the convertible next to Brian Griffin. That's right, that's right,

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Speaker 3: sort of what I was picturing. The image you described

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Speaker 3: has that exact same and it just acts just throw

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Speaker 3: someone in the back seat, same exact ship.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's the dream, Jamie, that's the dream. God, what

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Speaker 2: a beautiful, beautiful dream.

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Speaker 3: I really think about being a member of Paul Walker's

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Speaker 3: family at the time that image was circular. Well, you're

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Speaker 3: just like.

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Speaker 2: I mean, from your jacuzzie filled with one hundred dollars bills.

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Speaker 3: Yes, even so, my loved one, my dearly departed, being

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Speaker 3: thrown in a convertible next to a cartoon dog. Who

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Speaker 3: to add insult to injury would be resurrected within months,

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Speaker 3: and like Brian the Dog. Not okay, Brian the Dog

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Speaker 3: was resurrecrected, I think on the same timeline as Jesus Christ.

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Speaker 2: It was like, yeah, very similar characters.

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Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, and we can all agree that Bill show

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Speaker 4: they're both mar heads and they also and they both

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Speaker 4: are you know, like middling authors.

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Speaker 2: You could say, yeah, yeah, that's fair to say. So Jamie,

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Speaker 2: speaking of mediocre men, how do you feel have you

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Speaker 2: been keeping up with the story of Bastard's pot alumni,

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Speaker 2: Sam Bankman Freed?

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Speaker 3: Okay, so I have. I I know the broad strokes,

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Speaker 3: but as soon as the joyous news became started coming in,

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Speaker 3: I knew that we were going to be doing this.

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Speaker 3: And I don't know any of the particulars except for

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Speaker 3: tweets of yours that have been algorithm to the top

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Speaker 3: of my feed. I'm just there's no one I would

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Speaker 3: rather be with to let it just wash off for me.

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Speaker 1: Robert Family, Robert, can I ask you to please share

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Speaker 1: your working title for this episode because it's funny.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Sam Bankman, not Freed, and in parentheses because

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Speaker 2: he is in jail.

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Speaker 3: I think it's fun, and I think I think that

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Speaker 3: that is far superior to Sam Bankman jailed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not creative at all. You got to spend

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Speaker 2: a lot of extra words I could create.

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Speaker 3: I'm not interested in other perspectives on that title. I

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Speaker 3: think that you got it exactly right.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, brevity is some bullshit,

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Speaker 2: As a great author once said, so Jamie, speaking of

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Speaker 2: great authors, eighty percent of this episode is shitting on

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Speaker 2: Michael Lewis, the author of The Big Shirt. Oh yeah, no,

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Speaker 2: we're really this is gonna be a great one for

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Speaker 2: the Lewis heads in the audience. Wow, okay, okay, this

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Speaker 2: is gonna be Oh buckle up, yeah, now this is relevant.

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Speaker 3: The man just said buckle up.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, strap the fuck in and down.

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Speaker 3: Fuck ahead, we are.

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Speaker 2: We are starting with Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short.

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Speaker 3: James, We're okay. I feel like when I recently saw

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Speaker 3: a picture of my three year old niece going to

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Speaker 3: a Wiggles concert and I just caught myself smiling in

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Speaker 3: the same way.

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Speaker 2: This is great. Yeah, this is great. So on January fifth,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, Sam Bankman freed send a message to

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Speaker 2: one of his many signal loops. For what It's worth,

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Speaker 2: February eight through sixteenth, Michael Lewis is going to be

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Speaker 2: in the Bahamas profiling us. Now, if you haven't been

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Speaker 2: following this story, and if Michael Lewis is not familiar

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Speaker 2: to you, then you probably do remember like the most

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Speaker 2: famous result of one of his novels, which is the

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Speaker 2: movie The Big Short. This was based on a book

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Speaker 2: Lewis wrote about a group of traders who had the

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Speaker 2: foresight to predict and profit off of the two thousand

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Speaker 2: and eight financial crash. They realized that, like the subprime

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Speaker 2: loan business was like a bunch of hooey, and they

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Speaker 2: shorted it right, made a bunch of money while everybody

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Speaker 2: else lost their jobs.

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Speaker 3: You love to see it.

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Speaker 2: You love to see it. His other best known work

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Speaker 2: is probably Moneyball, which is about a baseball team manager

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Speaker 2: he uses which called saber metrics, which, without getting into it,

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Speaker 2: is basically being Nate Silver but also actually running a

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Speaker 2: sports team. Right.

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Speaker 3: That is also that in twenty twenty I started doing

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Speaker 3: this bit on Cursed Zoom comedy shows called The Boyfriend

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Speaker 3: Criterion Collection, And it's just like blu rays that are

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Speaker 3: in your house against your living. Well, Yeah, money Ball

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Speaker 3: is very much a part of the Boyfriend Criterion collection.

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Speaker 3: It's right up there with Whiplash. It's like a disaster.

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Speaker 1: I must say, if you, if you did not date

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Speaker 1: the worst man you've ever dated in your entire life

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Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen that was obsessed with all things Michael Lewis,

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Speaker 1: then were you really in Los Angeles?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's that's true them.

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Speaker 3: By the way, if your worst boyfriend couldn't read, really.

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Speaker 2: Think you're you're the median American And honestly don't even know.

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Speaker 3: Who I'm talking about, Like it's impossible to say, but

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Speaker 3: I know.

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Speaker 2: The only non problematic piece of physical media that you

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Speaker 2: can have on you in your house as a boyfriend

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Speaker 2: is an original VHS tape of Trimmors. That's just the

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Speaker 2: way it works.

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Speaker 3: I I and I would fight with you if I didn't,

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Speaker 3: if I didn't feel the same way. I think that

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Speaker 3: that is very much as a good sign.

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Speaker 2: Uh huh, that's excellent, thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 3: The more prominently displayed, the better.

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Speaker 2: To say that Michael Lewis is a famous writer or

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Speaker 2: famous journalist. Puts it pretty lightly. He's probably the best

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Speaker 2: known journalist in the country and almost certainly the wealthiest.

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Speaker 2: There's not a lot of competition for that, but like,

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Speaker 2: he's definitely in the running. He's what you'd call an

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Speaker 2: access journalist. Who he is somebody whose stories come from

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Speaker 2: his ability to get close to his subjects and just

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Speaker 2: kind of exist with them during a crucial period of

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Speaker 2: time as a fly on the wall. There's a number

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Speaker 2: of ways to do this. There are a couple of

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Speaker 2: like big Trump administration books written by journalists who basically

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Speaker 2: just got to sit around Trump and his White House

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Speaker 2: while things went insane. The route that Lewis takes is

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Speaker 2: to befriend the people that he's writing about. Right, He

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Speaker 2: is this guy and people who know him will say

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Speaker 2: he just kind of makes people comfortable around him. He

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Speaker 2: is a guy that you want to have at a party.

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Speaker 2: He's a he's pleasant company. Enough people have said this

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Speaker 2: that I assume it's true based on just like how

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Speaker 2: he does his stories people. He's good at putting folks

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Speaker 2: at ease and they don't mind him being around, and

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Speaker 2: that's how he gets a lot of his stories. Now,

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Speaker 2: as general rule, if you are in the position that

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Speaker 2: Sam Bankman freed and his friends who are in circa

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty two running a massive financial shell game, you

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Speaker 2: would be hesitant and welcome very well.

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Speaker 3: I think we can all agree based on Kings talk

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Speaker 3: about a game of four D chess.

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Speaker 2: The last guy you might want hanging around your office

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Speaker 2: is a dude who could literally, like Michael Lewis could literally,

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Speaker 2: in like the space of a phone call, get articles

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Speaker 2: greenlit in every newspaper in the country. Right. He just

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Speaker 2: is he has that kind of pull. He is that

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Speaker 2: reliable a seller for his stories. Like nobody would not

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Speaker 2: want to take a story that he had, so you

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Speaker 2: would want to be cautious. You would think you'd want

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Speaker 2: to be cautious about letting this guy into your house.

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Speaker 2: But there's a reason why they said yes when he

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Speaker 2: reached out to SBF, and it's that Michael Lewis's reputation

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Speaker 2: among people in the finance industry was not oh, he

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Speaker 2: wrote this book that's critical of us. Oh, he's this

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Speaker 2: guy who exposes the diret of the finance industry. It's

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Speaker 2: this is a guy who can make you into a celebrity.

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Speaker 2: And in early twenty twenty two, that was the entire

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Speaker 2: vision of everyone, like connected business wise to Sam Bankman,

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Speaker 2: Freed was, we need to turn this guy into a

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Speaker 2: celebrity who's constantly everywhere to raise the profile of this exchange. Right,

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Speaker 2: They spent something like a billion dollars on a variety

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Speaker 2: of different corporate and celebrity endorsements. Of the nine billion

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Speaker 2: that was missing, about a billion went towards shit to

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Speaker 2: boost FTX and to boost Sam's profile.

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Speaker 3: Right, I'm sorry, where's that. You gotta spend money to

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Speaker 3: make money, I guess you because I spent ten billion

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Speaker 3: to make nothing to go to jail. You have to

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Speaker 3: see this has been ten billion dollars to go to jail.

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Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying, to go to to go to

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Speaker 2: Forever prison, Shamie. Let's be honest about this.

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Speaker 3: He's going to I for every time I've seen Forever prison,

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Speaker 3: very often. For you, I hear it in the cadence

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Speaker 3: of the Forever Purge trailer. You're like, Oh, it's the

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Speaker 3: Forever prison.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that is where he's going. And that's you know again,

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Speaker 2: everyone is kind of cut ties. Everyone legitimate has cut

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Speaker 2: ties with not just Sam, but like Crypto in general.

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Speaker 2: In the wake of Sam's collapse, but there was about

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Speaker 2: a year and a half period where like every bank

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Speaker 2: was looking into it, every tech company was putting shit

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Speaker 2: on the blockchain. The last kind of holdout, and the

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Speaker 2: reason why Sam put so much money into this was politicians. Right.

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Speaker 2: There were a few who would cut but like most

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Speaker 2: people who were in politics would not even take donations

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Speaker 2: directly from crypto, right, you had to launder that shit.

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Speaker 2: And Sam was looking to buy himself a sizable chunk

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Speaker 2: of Congress so that he could make sure that regulations

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Speaker 2: on crypto favored his company specifically, which is why he

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Speaker 2: did stuff like you know, he spent tens of millions

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Speaker 2: of dollars getting Tom Brady and Giselle Bunchen to like,

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Speaker 2: pretend to be his friends. He sat down next to

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Speaker 2: Bill Clinton on fucking stage in a very cringey interview.

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Speaker 2: He paid Larry Davis to make a Super Bowl lad

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Speaker 2: But all of that, the potential, all of that had

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Speaker 2: to legitimize him paled in comparison to having The Big

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Speaker 2: Short dude treat you like a financial genius. Right, if

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Speaker 2: Michael Lewis treats you like Michael Burry, who's one of

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Speaker 2: the characters from The Big Short who became a big

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Speaker 2: name after Lewis wrote this book. If he's like this

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Speaker 2: guy is that kind of financial genius, then everybody's going

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Speaker 2: to start taking your calls, even people who like have

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Speaker 2: been hiding from Crypto because they don't they're worried that

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Speaker 2: what happened would happen right, that you'd get ten million

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Speaker 2: in donations, they have to pay them back because it

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Speaker 2: turned out that it was a con man.

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Speaker 3: You know, there's there's a note of it that it

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Speaker 3: almost reminds me when like Errol Morris like profiled and

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Speaker 3: worked for Elizabeth Holmes. You're just like, it's that level

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Speaker 3: of profile versus l.

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Speaker 2: Yes, this turns you into somebody who's like who can

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Speaker 2: be taken seriously because that's what who Lewis is, right,

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Speaker 2: he is that big a deal. I'm not like puffing

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Speaker 2: him up. He doesn't need it right now.

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Speaker 3: He is people to care about Moneyball the most the

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Speaker 3: most boring ass thing I've ever heard about my life.

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Speaker 2: Well, and that's the thing. He is one of these guys.

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Speaker 2: He's maybe the main character of this episode. I wouldn't

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Speaker 2: call him quite a bastard, but one of the things

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Speaker 2: you have to give him is he is legitimately a

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Speaker 2: very good writer. There's no other way you get people

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Speaker 2: to give a shit about Moneyball. He's like, I read

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Speaker 2: his whole Sam Bankman Freed book. I think it's bullshit,

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Speaker 2: but I didn't. I didn't get bored at any point.

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Speaker 2: You know, is at a pace a piece of writing,

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Speaker 2: you know. So he decides to come knocking. Sam is

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Speaker 2: immediately on board. All of their pr people are on board.

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Speaker 2: Not everyone at FTX is on board. Carolin Edison, who

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Speaker 2: is his on again, off again girlfriend who testified against

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Speaker 2: him repeatedly. She is running Alameda, which is the company

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Speaker 2: that bankrupts everything that he is illegally funneling consumer deposits into.

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Speaker 2: She is basically like the and she does not like

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Speaker 2: the idea of having Michael Lewis around now. She can't

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Speaker 2: really confront Sam Bankman Freed when she has a bad idea.

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Speaker 2: Nobody can, so she just kind of hedges it and says,

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Speaker 2: the signal chat makes sense. I feel like my instincts

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Speaker 2: are more towards under the radar, but I might just

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Speaker 2: be irrationally biased towards that in general. And then like

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Speaker 2: an emoji of a face sticking its tongue out and

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Speaker 2: Sam replies same, except exactly the opposite that, right.

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Speaker 3: Like, you know, you're down bad if you're asking Sam

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Speaker 3: Bankret Freed to make sense. Yeah, it's challenging. Oh god,

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Speaker 3: that's such I mean, I don't know, I know we've

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Speaker 3: talked about her in the past, but that's like a

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Speaker 3: what a mess, what a nightmare.

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Speaker 2: She's in a rough situation, and he will talk a

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Speaker 2: lot about how he treats her in this. But Will

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Speaker 2: mccaskell is also in that signal chat, and Will is

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Speaker 2: basically the founder. He's not like literally the founder, but

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Speaker 2: he is the founder of what is most commonly talked

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Speaker 2: about as the effect of altruism movement, and definitely its figurehead. Right.

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Speaker 2: He is the big guy. He's this Oxford professor who

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Speaker 2: he pills Sam Bankman Freed on the idea, and his

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Speaker 2: response is kind of I think part of why this

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Speaker 2: winds up going down. He says, I think either approach

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Speaker 2: is reasonable, should just be a deliberate, coordinated plan. But

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Speaker 2: if a whole bunch of attention is going to be

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Speaker 2: on FTX, Sam and EA whatever happens, then getting ahead

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Speaker 2: of the game and controlling the narrative is necessary. Yep.

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Speaker 2: Responded Sam, and they did it. Michael Lewis spends like

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Speaker 2: a year with this guy, like he spends a lot

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Speaker 2: of time around them. Everyone's very excited because what happened

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Speaker 2: last year is Sam's world collapses and he gets charged

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Speaker 2: with like seven felonies. And then right afterwards Michael Lewis

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Speaker 2: is like, by the way, I've been basically living with

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Speaker 2: him for a year, and everyone's like, oh shit, this

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Speaker 2: could be pretty good because like this guy can write,

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Speaker 2: he's been front set, he's written about a financial collapse before.

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Speaker 2: He's got front seat tickets to this whole thing. And

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Speaker 2: then the book comes out, and unfortunately for Lewis, the

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Speaker 2: book comes out, he times the release right for when

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Speaker 2: the court case starts, so we get all of this

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Speaker 2: right alongside his book. We get all of these signal

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Speaker 2: texts and stuff that were not in his book book,

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Speaker 2: and kind of the overwhelming thing that you see when

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Speaker 2: you compare what comes out in the court case, what

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Speaker 2: comes out in the testimony of as Friends to the

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Speaker 2: text of Lewis's book, is that like, oh, Michael got

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Speaker 2: kind of fucking conned by this dude, right, Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: like he fell for it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean It speaks to the level of

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Speaker 3: confidence one would have to have in their own reporting

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Speaker 3: to time it with yep the trial, because if you

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Speaker 3: had even a remote feeling that you have got you

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Speaker 3: had gotten it wrong, I would be like release it

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Speaker 3: a year after the trial, like bury it in the area.

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Speaker 2: I can see if you're if you're just some journalists

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Speaker 2: and this is your first book, or you just don't

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Speaker 2: have you're not like a huge hit. So like you

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Speaker 2: are very Your publisher has a lot of power and

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Speaker 2: they're like, we want this to drop when the case does,

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Speaker 2: because that's when it'll sell best. I get that you

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Speaker 2: might not have the suction necessary to move it. Michael

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Speaker 2: Lewis can say we are putting this out this day

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Speaker 2: and like, suck my dick. I'm Michael Lewis. It'll make

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Speaker 2: you money, right, And he doesn't, which which suggests he

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Speaker 2: has the same kind of hubris that Sam Bankman Freed

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Speaker 2: did in a lot of ways. So to give you

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Speaker 2: an example of how emotionally involved Lewis is in this case,

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Speaker 2: here's a good write up on the court case by

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Speaker 2: a journalist who was there during the trial, which was

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Speaker 2: not filmed, writing for Jacobin, and this is how they

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Speaker 2: describe the devastating cross examination of Bankman Freed, who again

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Speaker 2: chose to take the stand in his own defense despite

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Speaker 2: every expert saying absolutely never do this. Quote across the

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Speaker 2: aisle for me and the section reserve for friends and family.

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Speaker 2: I could see Sam's parents growing increasingly agitated, his mom

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Speaker 2: visibly shaking two rows behind them. I couldn't help but

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Speaker 2: notice author Michael Lewis leaning forward, arms draped over the

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Speaker 2: bench in front of him, with his head down between

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Speaker 2: his arms.

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Speaker 3: Nobody expects Michael Lewis in the court.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I you know, I do actually have I

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Speaker 2: don't think they're very good people, but I have sympathy

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Speaker 2: for Sam's parents. This is like a nightmare if like

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Speaker 2: to know that your kid is going to forever prison,

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Speaker 2: even if it's totally their fault.

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Speaker 3: I mean, my empathy only goes so far. But also, like,

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Speaker 3: what a scene, What a fucking scene.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely phenomenal. Yeah, terrific. Can't wait for Jonah Hill to

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Speaker 2: start as Sam Bankman Freed in the movie based on this.

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Speaker 3: No, I really don't want.

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Speaker 2: No, No, there's no one I want to see play

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Speaker 2: him in a movie. Just do him like Maris and

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Speaker 2: Frasier have him always to be off.

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Speaker 3: That would be oh, I love yeah, like the Parents

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Speaker 3: and Charlie Brown, Heather Sinclaire of Degrassi.

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Speaker 2: And you know what, cast David Hyde Pierce as Michael Lewis.

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Speaker 2: Then we got a movie. Then we got a fucking film.

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Speaker 3: Then we got I mean, if if this whole ordeal

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Speaker 3: results in David Hype Pierce winning an oscar in a

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Speaker 3: bad absolutely, absolutely, there's good. There's no way it's good. Yes,

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Speaker 3: you know. And and it's possible that Adam McKay in

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Speaker 3: an effort to course directing or sure Adam McKay is, like,

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Speaker 3: he absolutely could and he's and he would need to

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Speaker 3: course correct on the Michael Lewis in the first place

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Speaker 3: for having directed The Big Short. It's a great move

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Speaker 3: for everyone. We could make everyone's agent in the situation.

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Speaker 2: You're gonna be rich, Jamie, I'm gonna be fucking rich. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: In in interviews he gave after the book came out

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Speaker 2: and the trial started, Lewis framed his book Going Infinite

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Speaker 2: about Sam Bankmanfried as a letter to the jury, which

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00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:49,359
Speaker 2: is like kind of nonsense because obviously the jury is

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Speaker 2: never allowed to read a book about the guy that

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Speaker 2: they're going on a trial about, and the judge specifically

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Speaker 2: instructed them not to. There's an interview with sixty minutes,

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Speaker 2: which is really something we will hear some clips from

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Speaker 2: it later. But in that interview, Lewis explained, I mean,

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Speaker 2: there's going to be this trial, and the lawyers are

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Speaker 2: going to tell two stories, and so there's a story

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Speaker 2: war going on in the courtroom, and I think every war,

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Speaker 2: and I think neither one of those stories is as

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Speaker 2: good as the one I have. And like I on

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Speaker 2: one hand, yes, of course you're right, because you're a

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Speaker 2: better writer than any lawyer is going to be. But

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Speaker 2: on the other hand, this isn't a story. It's just

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Speaker 2: a question of what happened, Michael Lewis, and what happened

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Speaker 2: is massive fraud, and you don't put that in your book.

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Speaker 3: That's so I mean to hear. I mean, I guess

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Speaker 3: I can be of many minds about characterizing it as

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Speaker 3: a story war, because that is like just how history

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00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:42,480
Speaker 3: is written. And it's kind of almost refreshing to hear

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Speaker 3: someone refer it to as like, well, whoever could write

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Speaker 3: the better story, that's will we'll end up having the

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Speaker 3: historical precedent, but interesting that it would be said out

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Speaker 3: loud in that way.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and again I want to reiterate, while Michael is

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Speaker 2: the main character here, he's not like he's He's not

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Speaker 2: a bastard. He's not someone who's like impact on the

386
00:20:02,800 --> 00:20:05,480
Speaker 2: world has been monstrous as far as I've ever heard,

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Speaker 2: He's a reasonably nice person. We'll definitely get him being

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00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:10,560
Speaker 2: mean in a couple of points here, but it's nothing

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Speaker 2: that I would like call someone that, like one of

390
00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:16,720
Speaker 2: history's greatest monster over But this is Bankman free. It

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Speaker 2: is a bastard. And so I think talking about the

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Speaker 2: way in which he kind of has Lewis wrapped around

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Speaker 2: his finger, in the degree to which Lewis tortures his

394
00:20:24,080 --> 00:20:27,199
Speaker 2: own logic and prose in order to ignore that is

395
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Speaker 2: just fascinating. So with that in mind, let's start with

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00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:34,159
Speaker 2: a little bit more of Michael's backstory, because that is

397
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:37,719
Speaker 2: important to understand why he falls for this. Michael Monroe

398
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:42,680
Speaker 2: Lewis was born on October fifteenth, nineteen sixty in New Orleans. Now,

399
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Speaker 2: from the beginning, his life was about as far from

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Speaker 2: working class as you get, and to his credit, Lewis

401
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:50,440
Speaker 2: does not deny this whenever he's.

402
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Speaker 3: Asked to the only thing you can't do, I guess yeah, you've.

403
00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:55,240
Speaker 2: Got to be open about it. Here's him talking to

404
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Speaker 2: the Guardian Lewis's family stat at the very top of

405
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Speaker 2: the Wasp Aristocra in New Orleans. I was so inside,

406
00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:04,680
Speaker 2: he told me. I was literally trained how to sit

407
00:21:04,760 --> 00:21:07,119
Speaker 2: on a throne when I was fifteen years old, because

408
00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:09,399
Speaker 2: it was crowned the king of the Carnival ball, an

409
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:12,720
Speaker 2: organization that didn't allow black people, didn't allow Jews. I

410
00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:15,600
Speaker 2: would go from baseball practice to sceptor waving lessons. I

411
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:18,560
Speaker 2: was born into that world. Being an insider in New

412
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Speaker 2: Orleans made him feel like an outsider everywhere else, and

413
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Speaker 2: not always to his disadvantage. And first off, wow, that's

414
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:28,840
Speaker 2: quite a backstory.

415
00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:31,960
Speaker 3: Thank you, King, I do you, King?

416
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Speaker 2: I do think I want to point out something here,

417
00:21:34,520 --> 00:21:36,760
Speaker 2: which is where I don't think he's obvious skating, but

418
00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:39,520
Speaker 2: I think he's missing something about his own what his

419
00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:42,320
Speaker 2: background has done for him. Because I don't I'm not

420
00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:43,800
Speaker 2: going to question him when he says it made him

421
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:47,240
Speaker 2: feel like an outsider. But I think it's very clear

422
00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:49,520
Speaker 2: that this is a guy whose work is defined by

423
00:21:49,520 --> 00:21:52,840
Speaker 2: his ability to make himself into an insider. And I

424
00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:54,879
Speaker 2: think that's a big part of why he's able to

425
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:57,199
Speaker 2: do that, is he grows up in the middle of

426
00:21:57,200 --> 00:22:00,000
Speaker 2: wealth and power, right where it's the air that he breathed.

427
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Speaker 2: And you don't notice this if like you grow up

428
00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:06,560
Speaker 2: working class and don't know any super rich people. But

429
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:09,880
Speaker 2: when you meet some people who were born crazy rich,

430
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:13,439
Speaker 2: you note that, like a lot of them have this

431
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:16,440
Speaker 2: this way of making of making themselves feel like they

432
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Speaker 2: belong anywhere, right, It's why they can get away with

433
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:21,400
Speaker 2: so much, Like even if they're totally out of their depth.

434
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 2: There's this kind of expectation you get when you grow

435
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 2: up hyper rich that the world is going to show

436
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:28,360
Speaker 2: you a degree of deference when you know people who

437
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 2: have family fortunes behind them, you know what I'm talking about, right,

438
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:33,440
Speaker 2: Like it's the reason they are never going to get

439
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 2: like carded to see if they're a member of a

440
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:38,720
Speaker 2: place that's members only, right, because they they have that

441
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:42,280
Speaker 2: way about them. And I think that's part of how as.

442
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:45,199
Speaker 3: Receptible thing well, And I do think that there is,

443
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:47,719
Speaker 3: I mean, and it sounds like what you're getting at is,

444
00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:51,360
Speaker 3: like there is if you can get someone who grew

445
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 3: up in those circumstances on the side of fucking decency.

446
00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:58,200
Speaker 3: There is a huge value to having someone like that

447
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 3: who knows how to navigate those pass on your side,

448
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:02,879
Speaker 3: but if they're but but also, you know, to an

449
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:06,199
Speaker 3: extent and a liability because you never know, you know.

450
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 3: I'm curious what endears him to Sam.

451
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get to that. So he goes to Princeton

452
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:18,600
Speaker 2: University and he graduates kum laude, which which means pretty

453
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 2: good grades in nineteen eighty two. His senior thesis is

454
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:26,120
Speaker 2: on Donatello, a prominent ninja turtle. And when he's in college,

455
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:28,959
Speaker 2: he's a member of Princeton's Ivy Club, which is the

456
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:31,760
Speaker 2: oldest eating club in the school. Now, if you're not

457
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:33,880
Speaker 2: a blue blood, you probably are like, what the fuck

458
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 2: is an eating club? These are private dining halls that

459
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:39,879
Speaker 2: are also kind of social clubs where upper classmen go

460
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 2: to get nicer food. There's like nine of them, I

461
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:45,399
Speaker 2: think on campus, the Ivy Club at Princeton, or like

462
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 2: everywhere at Princeton. There's other fancy boys schools have these.

463
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:55,080
Speaker 1: Robert, this is full count the clue.

464
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:59,119
Speaker 3: I was like eating club. The like eating club to me,

465
00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:04,959
Speaker 3: is like drive through Taco bell one am starving. Yeah,

466
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 3: wow eating club eating.

467
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,439
Speaker 2: They Sophie, you said this is full cunt but it

468
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:12,680
Speaker 2: did not admit women until nineteen ninety one.

469
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: The addacy to not let a woman got it hut.

470
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,680
Speaker 3: Something that cunty. It just doesn't make sense.

471
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 2: And it's it's also very funny that like or not funny,

472
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,680
Speaker 2: but it's noteworthy. In this interview, it talks about how

473
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 2: he was at the Ivy Club. Right when he talks about,

474
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 2: you know, his upbringing. He's like, yeah, this like this

475
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:37,679
Speaker 2: contest I was in. You couldn't You couldn't be in

476
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 2: this club if you were like black or Jewish. He

477
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 2: doesn't mentioned that the Ivy Club doesn't admit women. I

478
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:46,199
Speaker 2: think that is maybe interesting. It's also worth noting that

479
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,639
Speaker 2: the Ivy Club. F Scott Fitzgerald writes about the Ivy

480
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 2: Club and calls it f Scott Fitzgerald calls it detached

481
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 2: and breathlessly aristocratic, and Scott Fitzgerald says that about your

482
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 2: blue Blood Club, like my god.

483
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 3: I love that. Wow. What a treat? What a treat?

484
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 3: If yeah, if f Scott Fitzgerald is the one experiencing

485
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 3: like moral clarity about about your weird group. That's challenging.

486
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:22,199
Speaker 2: Now. While Lewis had a passion for art history, he

487
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 2: had a bigger passion in life and it's stacking motherfucking paper.

488
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 2: So he goes to the London School of Economics next

489
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 2: and eventually joins the bond desk at Salomon Brothers. He's

490
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 2: in like the London branch of the Salomon Brothers. Uh no, no, no, no,

491
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 2: he's just making Dalla dollar bills, y'all.

492
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: Robert Dalla dollar Bill's time is happening now for us

493
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 1: as well.

494
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, speaking of Dalla dollar bills, buy some of

495
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 2: these products and we.

496
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 3: Think about things.

497
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:58,879
Speaker 1: I have a request for the listeners, which is not

498
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: something that I often. I don't I don't ask, I

499
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: don't ask anything of our listeners, just that just that

500
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: they're happy. But if somebody could please make a dating

501
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: profile for Michael Lewis as an art graphic, I.

502
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 3: Just it, just please for me.

503
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,360
Speaker 2: Oh man, Okay, that's that's good. You've got You've got

504
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 2: two different requests this week, listeners. One is that propaganda

505
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 2: poster and the other is Michael Lewis dating profile. So

506
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 2: Lewis Lewis is you know, an investment banker for just

507
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 2: a few years. Actually you know who he reminds me of,

508
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 2: Oh okay, just.

509
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 3: You know, hoping your toes in it. Then that kind

510
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 3: of doesn't It's like the just the tip of financial crime.

511
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,919
Speaker 2: He's in there at eighty seven, the market crashes and

512
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 2: he makes a pivot away from like doing that as

513
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,399
Speaker 2: a job, and he writes a book called Liar's Poker

514
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:53,440
Speaker 2: about the investment you know, Bang the stockbroker. That like

515
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 2: that kind of life that makes a shitload of money. Right,

516
00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 2: this is we'll talk about it in a second, but

517
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,400
Speaker 2: like I want to he minds me in this trajectory.

518
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 2: Do you know anything about Michael Crichton?

519
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 3: Uh? Oh, I mean I yeah, Peaks and Valleys. I

520
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 3: had no attachment to him, but I know many do.

521
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,679
Speaker 3: And like, yeah, the back half of Michael Crichton pretty

522
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 3: fucking brutal.

523
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm pretty pretty brutal. I'm not talking about like

524
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 2: his actual career as a writer. As much as Crichton

525
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 2: goes to Harvard Medical School and becomes a doctor. Most

526
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 2: people are I don't think I actually know this, but

527
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 2: like he was an actual MD, but he doesn't really

528
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:33,680
Speaker 2: do the job like he gets his MD and then

529
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 2: he quits to write books like some of which have

530
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:38,919
Speaker 2: a medical like he's the creator of ER and he

531
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 2: gets criticized by doctors who are like, oh you just

532
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 2: creator of ER. Yeah, Michael Crichton created a r Yes, oh.

533
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 3: Okay, sorry, I thought we were talking about Michael Lewis. Yes,

534
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 3: I knew Michael.

535
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 2: They have a similar They have a similar kind of

536
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:52,959
Speaker 2: trajectory where they go to school for this thing they

537
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:54,919
Speaker 2: do like a teeny amount of it, just dip their

538
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 2: toes in and then they get famous writing these books

539
00:27:57,280 --> 00:27:58,199
Speaker 2: that are inspired by it.

540
00:27:58,280 --> 00:27:58,440
Speaker 4: Right.

541
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 2: I just find that interesting. So to give you a

542
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 2: further idea of Lewis's family background, Liar's Poker, which is

543
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 2: semi autobiographical, revolves around a scene where Michael Lewis is

544
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 2: invited to a banquet hosted by the Queen Mother while

545
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 2: he's working in London. He gets a seat there because

546
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 2: of his cousin, Baroness Linda von Stauffenberg, and she seats

547
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 2: next to the manager of Salomon Brothers, which is how

548
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 2: he gets his job. Word salad crabs don't have bluer

549
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,160
Speaker 2: blood than this man, Like that is that is the

550
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 2: bluest You fucking get if.

551
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 3: Your cousin's a baroness and you're in your like late twenties,

552
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 3: what if.

553
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 2: You know a baroness, you are like.

554
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 3: That's okay.

555
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So Lewis's depiction of Wall Street guys from

556
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 2: Liar's Poker on because he writes a few books about

557
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 2: Wall Street types because he knows them, right, It's generally

558
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 2: noted as not being flattering, but I think that's by

559
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 2: people who like a very naive view of what's unflattering.

560
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 2: Because his Wall Street guys they curse a lot. They

561
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 2: use phrases like big swing and dick. They're like, they're

562
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 2: like kind of gross, but in a way that's glamorous, right,

563
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 2: Like I.

564
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 3: Mean, I feel like it's like the Glengarry Glenn Ross,

565
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 3: Yes exactly, yeah, talking shit.

566
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah. It like it is a kind of

567
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 2: thing where you can say he's not glamorizing it, but

568
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 2: he's absolutely making it look a way that makes more

569
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 2: young men greeting men when to become stock traders. And

570
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 2: to extend the Michael Crichton comparison, it is Liar's Poker

571
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 2: is generally agreed to have had a similar impact on

572
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 2: its industry to how Jurassic Park influenced paleontology by like

573
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 2: bringing a shitload of people in.

574
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 3: Wow, that's really interesting to me because I like, I

575
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 3: don't know. I have not read Liar's Poker. To be honest,

576
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 3: I have not read any of his books. I have

577
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 3: seen some of the adaptations in movies of his books.

578
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 3: But but yeah, in terms of like anytime someone writes

579
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 3: something about Wall Street, like you have to be so

580
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 3: fucking careful, and also even if you are extremely fucking careful,

581
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 3: it will still bring in the wrong people who refuse

582
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 3: to see the point, like they're like Wolf of Wall

583
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 3: Street is one of my favorite movies, hands down. At

584
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 3: it's great and it is exact time. Yeah, but it's

585
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 3: still like brought people in on the wrong fuck it

586
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 3: because brain dead people are going to be brain dead people.

587
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 2: This is we're going in a more serious direction. But

588
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,320
Speaker 2: if you've read Slaughterhouse five, in the opening of it,

589
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 2: Vonnagat talks about how when he said I'm going to

590
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 2: write my my war book, his wife was like, don't

591
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 2: do it. There's no way to do it without making

592
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 2: it look cool, Like no one has ever managed to

593
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 2: not do it. In a way that makes young men

594
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 2: think it's cool. And she was right, like, for the record, yeah,

595
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 2: I mean one of the problems with even anti war

596
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 2: war fiction is it always makes it look cool because

597
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 2: it's it's cool, right, That doesn't mean it's good. It's like,

598
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 2: Joe Cammel is cool, he still killed one hundred million people.

599
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:59,479
Speaker 3: Joe Cammell gave my father lung cancer and I stand

600
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:04,600
Speaker 3: by that. And to conjure a similar image Joe Cammell,

601
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 3: there's an image that I saw when I worked in

602
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 3: the Playboy archives of Joe Cammel and illustrated gorgeous like

603
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 3: painting essentially of Joe Camil in convertible with smoking, hot

604
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 3: human women. Hell yeah, big old titties, and you're like, no,

605
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 3: wonder this advertisement of killed people, this advertisement kill people

606
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 3: bec like this, you could be this ugly ass camel

607
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 3: with women with huge naturals, like just like.

608
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 2: You can add up all the German generals on the

609
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 2: Eastern Front and they didn't kill as many people as

610
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 2: that act.

611
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 3: Truly like, and it's a beautiful piece of artwork, but like,

612
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 3: let's be fucking honest.

613
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, So today Lewis merely acknowledges that the psychos he

614
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 2: wrote about in Liar's Poker were more fun on the

615
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 2: page than they were in person. This can be if

616
00:31:57,080 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 2: this is your first book and you write it in

617
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two and you really later, oh, this actually

618
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 2: might have made the problem worse. That's not a thing

619
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 2: you have any moral culpability for. That's just like writing

620
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 2: a thing with good intentions and it turns out badly.

621
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 2: But this does become a problem, and one that we

622
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 2: can critique is partly a moral problem when it becomes

623
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: part of a pattern, and it is a pattern with

624
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 2: Michael Lewis. The Big Short is obviously not a Wall

625
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 2: Street puff piece, but it became beloved by exactly the

626
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 2: same people you might assume it was trying to criticize.

627
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 2: And that Guardian article I've quoted from, there's a story

628
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 2: about Michael Lewis attends this big New York party and

629
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 2: he's like warned ahead of time that it's going to

630
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,719
Speaker 2: be full of bankers and other finance guys, and he's like, Oh,

631
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 2: I don't know if they're going to like me, because

632
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 2: he had just not only was The Big Short out,

633
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 2: but he just published an article at a major publication

634
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 2: attacking Wall Street big wigs as being greedy idiots, like

635
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 2: saying it in very unsparing terms, and one of Lewis's

636
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 2: friends later said, quote, but all these former heads of

637
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 2: investment banks, all these current bankers, they ran not walked

638
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 2: to the office just to meet him. One hedge fun

639
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 2: manager walked in with fifteen copies of Lewis's books. Michael

640
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 2: signed them all. And again, if you are a journalist,

641
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 2: that's a bad side, Like.

642
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is your take on that? I mean, like,

643
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 3: what is the game of chess that I'm not seeing here?

644
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's just that he makes he

645
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 2: makes this look sexy, and it's if he writes about you.

646
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 2: Part of a big part of this is that while

647
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 2: he's maybe negative about greed within the overall finance industry,

648
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 2: he cannot write about a person without making them look

649
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 2: cool because he has to like them to write about them. Right,

650
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 2: All these guys in the big short you could say,

651
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 2: profited off of a lot of misery. Now they didn't

652
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 2: cause it. He didn't start this subprime loan thing. But

653
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 2: they profited off of a lot of misery. And that's

654
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 2: at least kind of grimy. But Lewis likes these guys

655
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 2: and he turns them into celebrities because of how good

656
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 2: he is at writing about them and making you see

657
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 2: what's likable in them. Right. And so at this point

658
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 2: he because of how often this has happened, is he

659
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 2: is aware that his books are pr for their subjects.

660
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 2: He has a habit now of connecting people he writes

661
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 2: about in his books to his PR manager so that

662
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: they can set up speaking tours for them, right, because

663
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 2: he knows if I put you in a book, that's

664
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:18,479
Speaker 2: going to be a big business for you, you're going

665
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 2: to be in demand. Yeah, And this is part as

666
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 2: a result of him he doesn't he can't really be

667
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 2: critical about the individuals, right, And this is this is

668
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 2: another quote from that Guardian article. The obverse of Lewis's

669
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 2: approach is that he doesn't write about people he can't befriend,

670
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 2: or about stories that might cost him relationships. Among the

671
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 2: few projects he has abandoned is a biography of George Soros,

672
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 2: who was so unhappy with Louis's portrayal of him as

673
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 2: a financier rather than an intellectual in a magazine profile

674
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 2: that he refused to cooperate. Another is a book about

675
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 2: New Orleans, which would have demanded a level of honesty

676
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 2: about the city's society and about his family's place in

677
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 2: it that might have hurt his parents. He said, I

678
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:58,760
Speaker 2: adore my parents. I couldn't write that part while they're alive.

679
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 2: And you know, again, none of this is like unforgivable.

680
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 2: But if you're admitting that as a journalist, what aren't

681
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 2: you able to admit? And I think in this case,

682
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:09,919
Speaker 2: it's that he is not able to look at Sam

683
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 2: Bankman freed honestly because he found himself taken in by

684
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 2: the kid stick.

685
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 3: Well, that's what I feel like is one of the

686
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 3: complicating factors of And I don't say this in a

687
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 3: way to seem like it's like an unsolvable puzzle, but it's,

688
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 3: like Michael Lewis writes, it seems like, you know, largely accurate,

689
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:36,919
Speaker 3: you know, pieces of journalism. We'll talk about that, well, okay, yeah,

690
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:39,480
Speaker 3: so far right as someone who's never read his work.

691
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,879
Speaker 3: But they're also inherently commercial because I feel like there's

692
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 3: a journalistic value to explaining why someone is appealing, but

693
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,439
Speaker 3: there's also an even more commercial value to explaining why

694
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 3: someone is appealing because that makes it, you know, that

695
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,399
Speaker 3: sells books, that sells movie tales, that sells all this shit.

696
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think it's also part of why

697
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 2: his stuff is successful in a commercial sense, is that

698
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,840
Speaker 2: is this other fact that like it's always kind of uplifting.

699
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 2: Right again, the big short the whole collapse of the

700
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 2: financial industry is dark, but stuff goes well for these

701
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,920
Speaker 2: characters that you've come to light, right. And Lewis himself

702
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 2: is kind of admitted he can't really end on a

703
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 2: not upbeat note. He has a lot of trouble with it.

704
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 2: He said, quote, once you identify yourself as happy, you're

705
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 2: always looking for happiness, and when things come along to

706
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 2: great on that happiness, you find ways to deflect them.

707
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 2: You can force the narrative. And I think what he

708
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 2: doesn't say there, but what is explains his Sam Bankman

709
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 2: Freed book, is that once you get in the habit

710
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 2: of writing about like these geniuses who are hidden in

711
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 2: the middle of systems, right and see more than everybody else.

712
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:47,919
Speaker 2: Once you start doing that, you see anybody you start

713
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 2: focusing on as that kind of genius, even when they're not.

714
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 2: And that's what's happened with Michael here.

715
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 3: So yeah, mess, mess, and it's like, you know, ultimately,

716
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 3: nine times out of ten the person wearing like fucking

717
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 3: X ray glasses is wearing a pair of fucking Imax

718
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 3: glasses to go see Oppenheimer.

719
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 2: Like, it's just embarrassing, exactly, It's just embarrassing. And yeah, yeah,

720
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,360
Speaker 2: So I think the best example of this before we

721
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 2: get into Sam Bankman freed prior in Lewis's history is

722
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 2: a book called The blind Side, which was published in

723
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 2: two thousand and six. Now, The blind Side, like a

724
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 2: lot of Swiss stories, there's a macro in a micro narrative.

725
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 2: The macro narrative is he's talking about the grow, the

726
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 2: explosive growth in the importance of the left tackle in football.

727
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 2: This is an offensive lineman whose job is basically to

728
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 2: make sure the quarterback doesn't get a maimed. The micro story,

729
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:39,320
Speaker 2: which contains the emotional heart of the book and is

730
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:41,320
Speaker 2: the core of the narrative, is the tale of a

731
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 2: guy named Michael Oher who was He was placed in

732
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 2: foster care at age seven because his mother suffered from addiction.

733
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:50,759
Speaker 2: His dad was generally in prison. His dad dies while

734
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 2: he's I think in high school or was dealt a

735
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 2: pretty tough hand in life. But he's also six foot

736
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 2: six and very fast, right, so he is someone who

737
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 2: will like shows an aptitude for football. As a result

738
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 2: of this, he's kind of coaxed through getting into a

739
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,399
Speaker 2: private school and he gets he gets literally adopted by

740
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,760
Speaker 2: this rich white family, oh as a black man, black

741
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 2: child at this time, and they make it their business

742
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 2: to coach him and coax him in through getting through

743
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 2: the academics so that he can be in the NCAA

744
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:23,880
Speaker 2: and college so that he can get an NFL contract.

745
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 3: Right, So I'll be perfectly honest. I before we started,

746
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 3: before you told me that Michael Lewis was a main character,

747
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,760
Speaker 3: I did not know that he wrote The blind Side.

748
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 2: Oh yes he did, because this comes becomes a movie

749
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 2: that's huge, right also, And.

750
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 3: I am very well acquainted with the the ensuing nasty,

751
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 3: fucking cultural narrative associated with the movie. But I didn't

752
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:49,760
Speaker 3: realize that it was a book. I knew liar's poker

753
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 3: moneyball in the big Short.

754
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:54,359
Speaker 1: Holy Robert, Robert, I just want a fact, teck real quick.

755
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: He wasn't adopted by them.

756
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 5: Not.

757
00:38:57,560 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 2: We're getting to that, Okay. That was the narrow that

758
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 2: was the nar in the blind Side, right right right,

759
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:05,720
Speaker 2: that they have basically adopted this guy. Yes, you are correct, Sophie,

760
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 2: but I'm building to that, Okay, So.

761
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:11,920
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, that's just like I don't I don't know

762
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 3: why I didn't know that, and also like who didn't

763
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 3: want me to know that, Michael Lewis, Yeah, I mean Blindside,

764
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 3: a book that is famously bullsh Yeah.

765
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 2: So this family adopts or and they effectively adopt him,

766
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:27,400
Speaker 2: is I think generally how it's framed. And they help

767
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 2: him get through high school, get into a college, and

768
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:32,879
Speaker 2: kind of like help usher him into this NFL career

769
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 2: where he makes a significant amount of money obviously, And

770
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:38,839
Speaker 2: I'm a quote from the La Times here. The administration

771
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 2: at his high school accepts him although he can barely read.

772
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,399
Speaker 2: He secures a full time tutor. When his grade point

773
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 2: average still proves too low for the NCAA. His adoptive father,

774
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 2: a canny former college basketball standout named Sean Touhey, manages

775
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 2: to find a crucial loophole he has over tested to

776
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 2: prove that he's learning disabled, then has him take numerous

777
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 2: easy online courses. Lewis treats these measures genius we are

778
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 2: meant to cheer the fact that Ore has gained the

779
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 2: educational process. And this is a tech. This is from

780
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:09,319
Speaker 2: the book Leanne, who's the wife of Sean, was now

781
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:11,840
Speaker 2: making it her personal responsibility to introduce him to the

782
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 2: most basic facts of life, the sort of thing any

783
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 2: normal person would have learned by osmosis. Every day, I

784
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 2: try to make sure he knows something he doesn't know,

785
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:21,760
Speaker 2: she said. If you ask him, where should I shop

786
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 2: for a girl to a pressure, He'll tell you Tiffany's

787
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 2: if I go, I'll go through the whole golf game.

788
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:28,719
Speaker 2: He can tell you what six under is, and what's

789
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 2: a birding and what's par I love that those are

790
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:32,800
Speaker 2: her two examples of basic knowledge.

791
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 3: This is Sandra Bullocks Oscar talking. Yes, is Sandra Bullocks

792
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 3: Oscar flat? This nasty little mound.

793
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 2: Two things every boy needs to know? Where to buy

794
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 2: jewelry and how to golf works. Really says a lot

795
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 2: about her socioeconomic status, right, not like here's how you

796
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:54,720
Speaker 2: pay your taxes, not like you know literally anything else,

797
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 2: like here's how you cook eggs, but no fucking fucking

798
00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:01,279
Speaker 2: golf and Tiffany's well yeah, and.

799
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,320
Speaker 3: Also like I mean to state the obvious, like conflating

800
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 3: that with like this is what normal people, This is

801
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:10,720
Speaker 3: normal doctoral thesis in the ways that that is okay,

802
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 3: great shit.

803
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we can all see the potential abusive issue

804
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 2: with a wealthy white family adopting a teenaged black boy

805
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 2: to coach him into launching a pro football career. Right,

806
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:23,240
Speaker 2: just if you think about all of the head injuries

807
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 2: and shit involved, there's a lot this problematic here. Lewis

808
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 2: does quote Lane at one point as saying, with me

809
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 2: and Sean, I can see him thinking if they found

810
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:32,920
Speaker 2: me lying in a gutter and I was going to

811
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,319
Speaker 2: be flipping burgers at McDonald's, would they really have had

812
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 2: an interest at me? But the book is ultimately positive

813
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 2: and uplifting. We're left thinking how nice it is that

814
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:43,919
Speaker 2: these people help this kid out. The La Times note

815
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 2: that Lewis seems to be like amused at these rich

816
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 2: people cheating the system to usher this kid into a

817
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 2: dangerous job without like educating him. So the nice parts

818
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 2: of the story ended earlier this year when a now

819
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 2: retired or filed a lawsuit in a Tennessee court alleging

820
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 2: that the two he's never adopted him and instead created

821
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 2: a conservaship. Two he's I don't care, fuck him and

822
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 2: instead created a conservatorship and used it to take his money. Right,

823
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 2: the Twohees or whatever the fuck deny doing this.

824
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 3: They again, Yeah, I think it's actually props. I don't care.

825
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 2: Dick bags deny this, and again I'm not being a

826
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 2: non biased journalist here, but.

827
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 3: Fuck you not referend. It's actually dickman's dick Mans.

828
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,720
Speaker 2: The Dickmans. They call his claims hateful and absurd. Michael

829
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 2: Lewis has defended The Twohees by saying that they only

830
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 2: earned a few hundred thousand dollars off of The blind Side,

831
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 2: the book and the movie that was made off of it.

832
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 2: He's like, they didn't make millions, then they made a

833
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 2: few hundred grand. Now Lewis also does, and I'll give

834
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 2: him this. He also admits, right after saying that that

835
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 2: the two hees biological daughter is married to the son

836
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 2: of the main investor in the film, which might suggest

837
00:42:56,080 --> 00:42:58,920
Speaker 2: that the family made a lot more money off of it. Right, Oh,

838
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 2: that might suggest that because The Blindside makes half a

839
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 2: billion dollars and a thirty five million dollar budget.

840
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,760
Speaker 3: In his own way, Michael Lewis in this.

841
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 2: Kind of Michael Lewis is super rich and always really

842
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 2: there's been buried.

843
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 3: There's there so many articles about like.

844
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:20,959
Speaker 2: It is, there's shady ship.

845
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 3: That's the first time I'm hearing about the daughter marriage

846
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 3: because I read a fair amount.

847
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:30,879
Speaker 2: About that fun stuff. So in his own twenty eleven book,

848
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 2: oh Like expresses issues with the movie based off of

849
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:37,320
Speaker 2: Lewis's book. Primarily there's this part where like the twees

850
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:39,279
Speaker 2: are teaching him how to play football, and he's like,

851
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 2: I knew football before I met them. I'm a teenager

852
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 2: in America, Like, like, what are you fucking talking about.

853
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 2: There are other problematic moments in the book. Uh, and

854
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 2: this is from The Guardian again. Lewis calls Oer big

855
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:55,280
Speaker 2: mic throughout it, despite the fact that Oher is open

856
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 2: about hating that nickname. He also tells this guy's story

857
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 2: almost exclusively through the words of other people talking about him,

858
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 2: even though he had access to Oor. Lewis justifies this

859
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 2: by saying that or was not a strong voice on

860
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,800
Speaker 2: his life. Yeah, this guy's not good at talking about himself.

861
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna listen to everyone else about him.

862
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 3: Out I'm out.

863
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 2: I think what's really going on here is that power

864
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 2: is a black kid from a desperate poverty background, right,

865
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 2: and Lewis cannot identify or get inside of his head

866
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 2: because that is nothing even that even resembles the Michael

867
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 2: Lewis story.

868
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 3: It feels like a very privileged dark take. Yes, like, well,

869
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:38,399
Speaker 3: who do I consider to be a credible voice? Can

870
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 3: I get twenty white people who barely know this guy.

871
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:44,719
Speaker 2: Who just met this kid to profit off him.

872
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 3: To speak to him better than he can speak to

873
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:51,080
Speaker 3: his own life, Because that's who I trust is white people's. Yeah, Oh,

874
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 3: that's so fucking gross.

875
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 2: He doesn't try to get inside o'er his head, and

876
00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:57,240
Speaker 2: he just focuses most of the narrative on the twoees,

877
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 2: who who Lewis understands this is the final shoe. He

878
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 2: understands them for a very good reason. And I'm going

879
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 2: to quote from the La Times here. As I tore

880
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 2: through the book, I kept wondering how Lewis got such

881
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 2: remarkable access to the ties, and I also wondered why

882
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,359
Speaker 2: does he take such an uncritical view of their role.

883
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,279
Speaker 2: The author's note at the end provides the obvious explanation,

884
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 2: stating that Lewis is a friend of Sean Tooey's, and

885
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:21,319
Speaker 2: that they had been longtime classmates at the same New

886
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 2: Orleans school.

887
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 3: No, how is it even ethical to take this fucking

888
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:30,240
Speaker 3: story on if you have.

889
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 2: There's only one kind of ethics that I care about, Jamie,

890
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:35,880
Speaker 2: and it's dolla dolla fucking bills.

891
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: Well, well, Jamie, as you know, things could be unethical

892
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:41,320
Speaker 1: but still be legal legal.

893
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 2: That's how.

894
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 3: I mean, truly, what a gift that we have as that,

895
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 3: Like I am he a force of evil in the world, certainly,

896
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 3: but I am grateful that he gave us that one thing.

897
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:02,200
Speaker 3: Just the way of uh describing juvenile lawless capitalists.

898
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so funny.

899
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:04,239
Speaker 1: Yeah.

900
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 2: One thing I have started to notice watching some of

901
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 2: the more recent and critical interviews with Lewis after the

902
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 2: SBF book is that, well, he's generally a pretty friendly

903
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 2: seeming guy. He starts to get really angry the instant

904
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 2: you question him on anything regarding one of his stories.

905
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:22,720
Speaker 2: And you see this in this story in the Oer story,

906
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 2: because Ower's former coach comes out and like defends the

907
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 2: twohees or whatever. Once the lawsuit goes out, He's like,

908
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think they took advantage of him, basically,

909
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:33,279
Speaker 2: and Ower calls it brave and my.

910
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 3: Professional, unbiased opinion, thank you. Yeah.

911
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 2: Lewis calls the coach brave for doing this and basically

912
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 2: says he's taking a stand against cancel culture. And then

913
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 2: here's the Guardian again. Lewis recalled Oer as a shy

914
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:49,760
Speaker 2: young boy and found it hard to square that memory

915
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 2: with the Oer behind the lawsuit. What we're watching is

916
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 2: a change of behavior. He told me. This is what

917
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 2: happens to football players who get hit in the head.

918
00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 2: They run into problems with violence and aggression. It wouldn't

919
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 2: surprise him. Lewis said. If we were seeing some confluence

920
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,319
Speaker 2: of Ora's history in football with other campaigns that stoke

921
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 2: claims in lawsuits like his, perhaps some lawyer of Ores

922
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:11,279
Speaker 2: figured the time was ripe to sue the twelies, Lewis speculated,

923
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 2: or perhaps Oer realized that people would get behind him

924
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:17,040
Speaker 2: if he makes these accusations. He's just a poor head,

925
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 2: injured boy.

926
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 3: I They're like, no, the perceived exploitation and racism you

927
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 3: experienced was the result of CTE.

928
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 2: That's oh my god, that's fucking wild, right, that's gross

929
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:33,239
Speaker 2: as hell oh, Jamie.

930
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 3: Wow, I just thought he was the guy who wrote Moneyball.

931
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:40,359
Speaker 3: I thought that that was the hard I was thinking too.

932
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 2: Now yeah, so here, I want you to keep in

933
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 2: mind how he wrote about his former subject. Oor Now

934
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 2: hear his him talking in a sixty minutes interview about

935
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 2: Sam Bankman Free, the now convicted former billionaire, and I

936
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:55,399
Speaker 2: just want to I really want to emphasize the contrast

937
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 2: between how he writes about these two different people who

938
00:47:58,560 --> 00:47:59,720
Speaker 2: are subjects of his books.

939
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 6: The story of Sam's life is people not understanding him,

940
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:05,359
Speaker 6: misreading him.

941
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 7: He's so different, he's so unusual.

942
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 6: I mean, I think in a funny way that the

943
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 6: reason I have such a compelling story is I have

944
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,359
Speaker 6: a character that I do come to know, and then

945
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:18,400
Speaker 6: the reader comes to know that the world still doesn't know.

946
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:22,719
Speaker 2: Now, that is not the case. Sam Bakman Freed is

947
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 2: exactly the person he appears to be on the surface. Right.

948
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:28,400
Speaker 2: He is a guy who committed a bunch of financial

949
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 2: crimes and didn't get away with it because he was

950
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 2: too lazy and undisciplined to do with the smart way, Right,

951
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 2: And that's all that going.

952
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 3: I mean, this is like, oh, this is a bummer

953
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 3: this is like a case study and a journalist biases

954
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 3: coming out on there.

955
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 2: Oh it's so, it's so obvious. Yeah, No, story better

956
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 2: illustrates this part of the story than how Lewis wound

957
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:53,800
Speaker 2: up writing Going Infinite in the first place. In twenty fourteen,

958
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:56,359
Speaker 2: Lewis published a book called Flash Boys, which is a

959
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,600
Speaker 2: book about Brad Katsuyama and a small group of rebel

960
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:02,279
Speaker 2: Walst investors who form i ex which is like a

961
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 2: stock exchange that's supposed to. The idea is we want

962
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 2: to protect investors from the unfair advantages that these high

963
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 2: frequency trading firms have on traditional exchanges due to like

964
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of shit, but largely access to a

965
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:18,319
Speaker 2: special fiber optic cable. And with most Lewis books, there's

966
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:20,560
Speaker 2: a lot of insiders that will criticize them foring some

967
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:23,359
Speaker 2: details wrong here and glossing over some issues that don't

968
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:26,399
Speaker 2: conform to his narrative. There's like a market crash that's

969
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 2: largely mitigated by some of these firms that he's criticizing.

970
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:31,520
Speaker 2: But I don't know enough about that to want to

971
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,239
Speaker 2: get into it. What's important is that Katsuyama and his

972
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 2: book of Rogue traders are depicted semi heroically, is that

973
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 2: they're kind of fighting against this rigged financial system, which

974
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 2: you know, the financial systems rigged. I don't know about

975
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 2: his characteristication of them, but the book is a hit

976
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 2: and it makes Katsuyama and his crew celebrities within the

977
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 2: finance world. So Katsuyama reaches out to Lewis when he

978
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 2: is considering an institutional investment in FTX. He's like, we're

979
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 2: considering getting into crypto through these guys putting a lot

980
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 2: of money on there exchange. Would you look into this

981
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:04,600
Speaker 2: guy for me? Right? And this is what Lewis says.

982
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 2: Lewis like basically goes in there and like talks to

983
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 2: Sam Bankman Freed, and he's he's so impressed that he

984
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 2: quotes himself as telling Katsuyama do whatever he wants to do.

985
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 2: What could possibly go wrong?

986
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:16,399
Speaker 3: Right?

987
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:21,479
Speaker 2: That's which bad bet Uh does wind up putting money.

988
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:25,359
Speaker 3: He's a worst person to ask what to go wrong with?

989
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:28,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, And I'm going to continue from the

990
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:31,719
Speaker 2: Guardian here. Okay, he did find himself intrigued, in particular

991
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 2: by effective altruism, the movement to which Bankman Freed subscribed.

992
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 2: Effective altruists believe in giving away most of what they

993
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 2: make to do the most good in the world. Some

994
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 2: of them commit to earning as much as possible so

995
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,319
Speaker 2: as to donate more to their chosen beneficiaries. Having spent

996
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:46,439
Speaker 2: so long on Wall Street, Lewis wasn't used to meeting

997
00:50:46,480 --> 00:50:48,720
Speaker 2: a wealthy young man who claimed to have no interest

998
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 2: in wealth. Unusually for Lewis, he couldn't figure bankman freed out.

999
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 2: Michael just said, this kid is the richest and most

1000
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 2: interesting young person I've ever met. Understand them all the

1001
00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 2: deep possesses of bank Reid's mind. But he knew it

1002
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:03,399
Speaker 2: was a great story. And this was before the shit

1003
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 2: hit the fan. So this is real. Yeah.

1004
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:09,840
Speaker 3: And also it takes someone who grew up in that

1005
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 3: environment to not have alarm bells going off in their

1006
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 3: mind when they hear oh, I, as someone who has

1007
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:20,520
Speaker 3: never not had money, don't really care about money, You're like, well, yeah, no, shit,

1008
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:22,040
Speaker 3: you've never not had it.

1009
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 2: You would really.

1010
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 3: Care if you'd That reminds me of this is like,

1011
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:27,840
Speaker 3: I think about this easily once a week. It happened

1012
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 3: over ten years ago, my freshman year of college. It

1013
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,400
Speaker 3: was my first time really encountering people who grew up

1014
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:37,120
Speaker 3: with like money, you know. And there was this guy

1015
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:40,440
Speaker 3: on my floor and one night everyone was hanging out

1016
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:43,239
Speaker 3: and he like, put a this is the era, this

1017
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 3: is the early twenty tens. He put a skinny scarf

1018
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 3: around my neck because it was cold, and he was like,

1019
00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 3: you can have that, and it smelled and I didn't

1020
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 3: want it. But he's like, you could have that. And

1021
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, don't you like want it back

1022
00:51:57,040 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 3: and he's like, no, I don't care about my material possessions.

1023
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:02,479
Speaker 2: And great.

1024
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:04,879
Speaker 3: I think about that all the time because he could

1025
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 3: just get nine thousand scarves. You just get nine thousand scarves.

1026
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:10,440
Speaker 3: But that was like, but I feel like that is

1027
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 3: so much of what effect of altruism is. It's just

1028
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 3: a fundamental like, yeah, not understanding how the world works.

1029
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a bunch of rich kids who are

1030
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:24,040
Speaker 2: talking through like fucking philosophy one oh one level shit

1031
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:27,840
Speaker 2: and think and so impressed by everyone else's answers to

1032
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 2: like dumb logic puzzles because they've they've never studied enough

1033
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:34,359
Speaker 2: humanities to know that, like, no, man, people have been

1034
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 2: talking about this shit for thousands of years and all

1035
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 2: of their takes are better than yours. Like anyway, we're

1036
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 2: not getting into that as much right now. We are

1037
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 2: about to get into the ads and if you really

1038
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 2: want to do some effective altruism, purchase from the sponsors

1039
00:52:48,560 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 2: of this podcast. Ah. So, we've been talking around the

1040
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 2: book Going Infinite, which is Michael's terrible book on Sam,

1041
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 2: so I think now is probably a good time to

1042
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:10,239
Speaker 2: dig into exactly how it fails. I wanted to start

1043
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 2: by introducing that contrast between Lewis's treatment of o OR

1044
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:15,600
Speaker 2: and SBF first, because it puts things into perspective. Now,

1045
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:18,360
Speaker 2: I think a good anecdote to start on here is

1046
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 2: one of the stories Lewis uses to introduce Sam to

1047
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:23,400
Speaker 2: the reader. This is right at the start of Going Infinite,

1048
00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:26,239
Speaker 2: and it's about a phone call that Sam has during

1049
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:30,560
Speaker 2: his billionaire era with fashion industry icon Anna Wintour before

1050
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:35,880
Speaker 2: the Metgala. No oh yeah, oh yeah, Jamie. This this

1051
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 2: is good.

1052
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 3: So exhausted because Anna Wintour is Bill Nye, He's girlfriend

1053
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:44,279
Speaker 3: right now, and I don't want to think poorly of

1054
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:45,120
Speaker 3: Bill Nye. He does.

1055
00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:48,880
Speaker 2: No, no, it is tragic. My heart goes out to

1056
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 2: Bill Nye, who I'm incapable of feeling badly about No, I'm.

1057
00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 3: Here, I'm sitting my ass down and listening.

1058
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Anna is who Meryl Streep's character in The

1059
00:53:57,120 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 2: Devilwar's product is based on, right, Like, that's who this

1060
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 2: person is.

1061
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 3: Oh, I love when men try to explain what The

1062
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 3: Devil Wears Prada is about. Yes, for all the men listening,

1063
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 3: pause and go watch The Devil Wears pradac. It is

1064
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 3: just like one of the greatest films of I think,

1065
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:18,520
Speaker 3: one of the greatest comedy films and books of Yeah,

1066
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:21,320
Speaker 3: very good, very good, happy essays.

1067
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 1: Half the essays I wrote in college were based off

1068
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:24,840
Speaker 1: of said book.

1069
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:29,480
Speaker 2: Really, the met Gala is an annual event. I think

1070
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:32,800
Speaker 2: Vogue puts it on technically, but like it's where rich, famous,

1071
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 2: and occasionally even beautiful people were insane outfits that cost

1072
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 2: the GDP of a small island nation.

1073
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, and then and then a bunch of YouTubers

1074
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 3: I watch say that they looked ugly.

1075
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's a true. Yeah, it's it's great. It's great.

1076
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:49,520
Speaker 2: Everybody makes a feast off of it, but somebody has

1077
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:51,400
Speaker 2: to pay for the son of a bitch. Right, And

1078
00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:54,919
Speaker 2: that year went Tour wanted SBF to pay for the gala, right,

1079
00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:59,239
Speaker 2: he was spending way more money on stupider shit than that,

1080
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:04,160
Speaker 2: so not unreasonable that he might actually agree to do this.

1081
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:07,239
Speaker 2: He had instructed at this point his publicity woman to

1082
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 2: do whatever she could to increase ftx's reputation and keep

1083
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:12,120
Speaker 2: his name in the news. So not a bad way

1084
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 2: to do that, right. The met gala often does make

1085
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:17,880
Speaker 2: the news, and when it came to his side of

1086
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,960
Speaker 2: the job, though, Sam was he put as much work

1087
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:24,080
Speaker 2: into like this call with Anna Wintour where tens of

1088
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:26,279
Speaker 2: millions of dollars are on the line, that he did

1089
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:28,479
Speaker 2: to like everything else that he had a meeting about,

1090
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 2: which is no work at all. Right, Lewis goes into

1091
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 2: detail about the fact that he's playing this dumb video game,

1092
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 2: like while he's on a zoom call with her. It's

1093
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:38,880
Speaker 2: the same game he's always playing. It's this this video

1094
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:40,880
Speaker 2: game that he winds up buying because it's made by

1095
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 2: a friend of his called Storybook Brawl, and is it

1096
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 2: it's about like Fable characters fighting, right, like it's it's

1097
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:51,839
Speaker 2: that it's a little strategy game. It's like an it's

1098
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,279
Speaker 2: like an app game. It's not a real game, you know.

1099
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:57,799
Speaker 3: You know how you watch those videos And I say

1100
00:55:57,840 --> 00:56:03,280
Speaker 3: this with love and appreciation of like college students now

1101
00:56:03,840 --> 00:56:09,759
Speaker 3: playing a video game while explaining like Marxism to you

1102
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 3: and I want that. But Sam bankmin Freed playing that game, Well, well,

1103
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:18,319
Speaker 3: Anna Wintour is like what is he up to? What

1104
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:19,960
Speaker 3: is he up to?

1105
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:23,320
Speaker 1: The Jamie and I in Unison when you said playing

1106
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:27,879
Speaker 1: video game while talking to Anna Wintour, mouth wide open, like.

1107
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:30,439
Speaker 3: Well, it's like she could, I mean and and and

1108
00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:33,319
Speaker 3: not even to like endorse her. I'm just like I

1109
00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:35,840
Speaker 3: would be very afraid to do anything in front of

1110
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:38,720
Speaker 3: scary and she's famously scary.

1111
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 2: She's famously scary. And he's talking about a lot of money, right,

1112
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:45,760
Speaker 2: Like it's it's not that he's blowing her off, because

1113
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:49,239
Speaker 2: like I don't feel precious about Anna Wintour's time, but

1114
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:52,279
Speaker 2: like it's that this is a big money deal and

1115
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 2: he just he can't focus on it. And I would

1116
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:57,000
Speaker 2: take that. It's just like this is a this is

1117
00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:59,799
Speaker 2: a dude too sm adhd, right, Like that's what that is.

1118
00:57:00,200 --> 00:57:02,440
Speaker 2: And this is a dude who has ADHD, who's part

1119
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:04,520
Speaker 2: of a generation that has ADHD.

1120
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:09,239
Speaker 3: Well, no, this is a very dumb observation. But it's

1121
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:12,960
Speaker 3: also clear to me that Sam bank Bankment Freed has

1122
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:15,239
Speaker 3: never seen the Devilwaar's product, which I've never been less

1123
00:57:15,280 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 3: surprised at. But it's like, if you have no one

1124
00:57:17,560 --> 00:57:21,680
Speaker 3: in your life who could tip you off you're talking

1125
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:26,120
Speaker 3: to me, protagonist of the Devilwaars product, then you lack

1126
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:28,439
Speaker 3: a support structure in a fundamental way.

1127
00:57:28,560 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 2: I think it's it's okay, that's good to know that

1128
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:35,800
Speaker 2: funny and I are here. What's funny about the way

1129
00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:38,440
Speaker 2: Lewis talks about this is that he marvels at this

1130
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 2: right like it's the most amazing thing, and it's evidence

1131
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 2: of how unique Sam is. When you just noted one

1132
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:47,680
Speaker 2: of the biggest pieces of entertainment for millennials in gen

1133
00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:52,640
Speaker 2: z is people playing video games and explaining politics. Right

1134
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:56,200
Speaker 2: that is, it is not at all unique that Sam

1135
00:57:56,240 --> 00:57:59,480
Speaker 2: Bankman Freed will not stop gaming to have a business meeting,

1136
00:57:59,720 --> 00:58:02,000
Speaker 2: But Michael Lewis treats it as like this is evidence

1137
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:04,800
Speaker 2: that he is too much of a genius. He can't

1138
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:07,560
Speaker 2: bear to pay attention to her for a second. It

1139
00:58:07,600 --> 00:58:09,880
Speaker 2: also there's a little bit of anti woman stuff in

1140
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:14,480
Speaker 2: here because Lewis notes that I think Sam would minimize

1141
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:16,760
Speaker 2: the window with her face on it whenever she spoke

1142
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:20,080
Speaker 2: and bring it back up whenever he talked, right, curiously,

1143
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:22,400
Speaker 2: only when he was talking did he want to see her,

1144
00:58:22,640 --> 00:58:25,480
Speaker 2: which I do think there's a lot in that sentence.

1145
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 2: So yeahsting, Yeah. It is again like the way Lewis

1146
00:58:31,360 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 2: describes this, this isn't just yeah, he's not very disciplined,

1147
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 2: and he has the same thing that like a lot

1148
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:38,640
Speaker 2: of millennial and gen Z people have, which is, you know,

1149
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 2: an inability to stop distracting yourself no matter what important

1150
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 2: shit you're doing. He describes this as SBF's brain being

1151
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:49,000
Speaker 2: so big that like games are he's like a Sherlock

1152
00:58:49,080 --> 00:58:51,960
Speaker 2: Holmes character and games are his heroin. Right, Well, that

1153
00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:52,520
Speaker 2: makes me.

1154
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 3: That indicates to me that Michael Lewis, because that's the

1155
00:58:56,160 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 3: way that you're like, like you're doting parent would talk

1156
00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:02,040
Speaker 3: about it, and like that's that is clear to me.

1157
00:59:02,080 --> 00:59:03,920
Speaker 3: The way he sees him is like, wow, look at

1158
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 3: this amazing kid. And also what SBF is doing here

1159
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 3: is like the inverse of what most easily distracted millennial

1160
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,000
Speaker 3: and gen Z people are doing, which they're playing games

1161
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:17,120
Speaker 3: and explaining radical politics to you. They're not playing games

1162
00:59:17,440 --> 00:59:20,640
Speaker 3: and talking to some like like half listening to someone

1163
00:59:20,680 --> 00:59:23,040
Speaker 3: before they part with millions of dollars to throw the

1164
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 3: world's stupidest annual party. Yeah, and I love that stupid

1165
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 3: ass party.

1166
00:59:29,040 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 2: It's it's I mean, I think both of those things

1167
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:33,760
Speaker 2: are on a similar level potentially, but it depends on

1168
00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:36,600
Speaker 2: how you do them. And he's not actually good at it.

1169
00:59:36,840 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 2: But the way Lewis describes this is he just is

1170
00:59:40,120 --> 00:59:46,360
Speaker 2: in awe of this kid's ability to have attention deficit disorder. Quote. Yeah, absolutely,

1171
00:59:46,440 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 2: said Sam. But his mind was elsewhere. The hoard dragon

1172
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:51,680
Speaker 2: was dead and a win tour had killed it. What

1173
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 2: to do? He made a half hearted bid to begin

1174
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:56,320
Speaker 2: another game and pick another hero, but then changed his

1175
00:59:56,360 --> 00:59:58,880
Speaker 2: mind and shut the game down. He could often occupy

1176
00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:01,320
Speaker 2: two worlds at once in w in both. In this case,

1177
01:00:01,360 --> 01:00:03,560
Speaker 2: he clearly stood no chance of winning in one world

1178
01:00:03,640 --> 01:00:06,280
Speaker 2: unless he paid less attention in the other. And this woman,

1179
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:09,080
Speaker 2: somehow it acquired a spell that interfered with his abilities

1180
01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:13,320
Speaker 2: to multitask. What an amazing way to write that paragraph,

1181
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:20,000
Speaker 2: Michael Lewis, Dude, Oh god, it's it's something else like

1182
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:23,440
Speaker 2: I have played video games through some important work meetings.

1183
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 2: Sophie has often had to pick my ass up off

1184
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:28,720
Speaker 2: that it's not because I'm a genius. It's because I'm

1185
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:32,439
Speaker 2: hungover and have trouble focusing because I use Twitter too much.

1186
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:35,840
Speaker 3: There's so many there's like so many I mean whatever.

1187
01:00:36,120 --> 01:00:38,240
Speaker 3: And also you have to imagine that this manuscript made

1188
01:00:38,280 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 3: it through a lot. It speaks to how old people

1189
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:44,080
Speaker 3: in general who work in the public stitching industry are

1190
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 3: that no one was like Michael, I have to tell

1191
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:49,360
Speaker 3: you that this is just how kids are these days.

1192
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:51,680
Speaker 2: He's a real venture game ganius. Yeah.

1193
01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:53,840
Speaker 3: I mean it's like we've both written books. Like I

1194
01:00:54,440 --> 01:00:57,400
Speaker 3: was surprised that I got the title of my book through,

1195
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:00,760
Speaker 3: but it was because people over sixty don't know what

1196
01:01:01,160 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 3: raw Dog needs. And that's most of the people I'm publishing. Like,

1197
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:08,200
Speaker 3: it's ridiculous. That's so nuts that that made it to

1198
01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:08,920
Speaker 3: the final book.

1199
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:13,320
Speaker 2: No, it's like that's yeah. So if you're not reading

1200
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:15,640
Speaker 2: critically and inclined to give Lewis the bit of the

1201
01:01:15,680 --> 01:01:17,600
Speaker 2: benefit of the doubt, I can see how you might

1202
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:20,880
Speaker 2: assume that, like he's trying to make Sam look kind

1203
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 2: of silly. In that paragraph. I can see how you

1204
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:25,800
Speaker 2: would assume that based on the text, but that is

1205
01:01:25,840 --> 01:01:28,840
Speaker 2: not what's going on. Listener. Here is Lewis talking about

1206
01:01:28,880 --> 01:01:32,320
Speaker 2: that exact same moment in an interview with Intelligence Squared

1207
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:33,440
Speaker 2: from about a month ago.

1208
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 6: Yay, so on the screen zoom and a win tour,

1209
01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 6: and he does not know who she is. He doesn't

1210
01:01:41,800 --> 01:01:45,480
Speaker 6: know what the purpose of the meeting is. He doesn't know, Well,

1211
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:47,440
Speaker 6: the purpose of the meeting is, can Sam Bank mcfreed

1212
01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:49,840
Speaker 6: pay for the whole met gala? That's the purpose of

1213
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:52,200
Speaker 6: the meeting, because he'll pay for everything else. Why not that?

1214
01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:54,600
Speaker 6: And she comes on the screen and she is dressed

1215
01:01:54,640 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 6: to the nine. She's got those size of hair coming

1216
01:01:57,040 --> 01:02:01,480
Speaker 6: down around her. She's like ready to kill and gorgeous.

1217
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:04,440
Speaker 6: You know, she looks great, She's well prepared. He's playing

1218
01:02:04,600 --> 01:02:05,920
Speaker 6: Storybook Brawl, which.

1219
01:02:05,760 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 2: Is his video game.

1220
01:02:06,960 --> 01:02:09,680
Speaker 3: Pause. I hate the way he talks about Anna Wintour.

1221
01:02:09,880 --> 01:02:10,800
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.

1222
01:02:11,080 --> 01:02:13,600
Speaker 2: Well, okay, okay, And first we can deal with that

1223
01:02:13,680 --> 01:02:14,560
Speaker 2: in private zone.

1224
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:16,720
Speaker 3: Fair we can no, no, before we can talk about

1225
01:02:16,720 --> 01:02:18,920
Speaker 3: a woman on a zoom call. Does she look gorgeous

1226
01:02:19,000 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 3: or yeah?

1227
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:22,080
Speaker 1: That's the point. It has nothing to do with Anna Winter.

1228
01:02:22,120 --> 01:02:23,720
Speaker 1: Also she looks like that all the time, Thank you

1229
01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:25,560
Speaker 1: so much. It's her thing.

1230
01:02:26,120 --> 01:02:29,040
Speaker 6: And wherever she comes on the screen, he blocks her

1231
01:02:29,040 --> 01:02:31,520
Speaker 6: out and the video game pops up, so like she's

1232
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:37,520
Speaker 6: she's talking and and mons minuttaurs are killing, are killing dwarfs,

1233
01:02:37,720 --> 01:02:41,840
Speaker 6: and trees with axes are coming in and like you know,

1234
01:02:42,360 --> 01:02:45,240
Speaker 6: the weapons are appearing on the screen and people are

1235
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:48,200
Speaker 6: dying and exploding, and and you're hearing her talk about

1236
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:51,880
Speaker 6: the met Gala. And there's seven minutes in when he

1237
01:02:51,920 --> 01:02:54,360
Speaker 6: hits a button in the Wikipedia entry for the met

1238
01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:56,240
Speaker 6: galap comes up, so he can figure out what the

1239
01:02:56,320 --> 01:02:57,480
Speaker 6: hell she's talking about.

1240
01:02:58,320 --> 01:03:01,360
Speaker 3: And he's doing watched him do this. He's doing this

1241
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 3: with her.

1242
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:04,200
Speaker 6: This is what he was doing on live television when

1243
01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:05,800
Speaker 6: he would be interviewed by Bloomberg TV.

1244
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:08,000
Speaker 3: It was like and he had tricks.

1245
01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:10,360
Speaker 6: He took him about one tenth of his brain to

1246
01:03:10,400 --> 01:03:14,280
Speaker 6: have a conversation with Anna Wintour. And what he would

1247
01:03:14,320 --> 01:03:17,520
Speaker 6: do other part of his brain was either reading about

1248
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:21,280
Speaker 6: who she was or playing his game. And what he'd

1249
01:03:21,280 --> 01:03:24,080
Speaker 6: do is he'd say, you asked me a question. He'd say,

1250
01:03:24,920 --> 01:03:28,120
Speaker 6: that's a really good question. It's a really good question.

1251
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:30,040
Speaker 6: Let me think about that for a minute. You know, meanwhile,

1252
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:32,360
Speaker 6: the minutaur is killing the tree and he comes off,

1253
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:34,000
Speaker 6: and then he thinks for a minute, and he says

1254
01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:35,200
Speaker 6: some boilerplate thing.

1255
01:03:36,120 --> 01:03:40,360
Speaker 2: So that does not show genius. He's obviously the smile

1256
01:03:40,400 --> 01:03:42,800
Speaker 2: on his face, that is not him being critical. That's

1257
01:03:42,880 --> 01:03:47,480
Speaker 2: him thinking about like that's him fawning over this kid

1258
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:51,960
Speaker 2: for not being prepared for a multimillion dollar meeting, right,

1259
01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:55,640
Speaker 2: which is like, fine, but that's not an example of

1260
01:03:55,720 --> 01:03:56,640
Speaker 2: him being smart.

1261
01:03:57,400 --> 01:04:00,440
Speaker 3: Well, and I think that that is a clear pattered

1262
01:04:00,480 --> 01:04:04,040
Speaker 3: in the way that we cover the like young white

1263
01:04:04,120 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 3: kid genius who comes from a rich background. There's a

1264
01:04:06,720 --> 01:04:11,040
Speaker 3: lot of similarities in how early Mark Zuckerberg's like casual

1265
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:15,400
Speaker 3: misogyny and not giving a ship about people was like

1266
01:04:15,480 --> 01:04:17,919
Speaker 3: part and parcel to why he was cool and why

1267
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:20,680
Speaker 3: he was seen as a visionary. Like that the same

1268
01:04:20,760 --> 01:04:23,640
Speaker 3: is truth. Like just I mean, I feel like every

1269
01:04:23,720 --> 01:04:26,480
Speaker 3: generation has at least one of these guys, and they're

1270
01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:28,360
Speaker 3: all covered in the same way. No one ever learns

1271
01:04:28,360 --> 01:04:31,440
Speaker 3: their lesson because the guy covering them is often the same.

1272
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 2: Guy literally Michael Lewis, and often literally Michael Lewis.

1273
01:04:38,120 --> 01:04:40,920
Speaker 1: How did how did okay, I'm sorry, how did this

1274
01:04:41,000 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 1: revolve with Anna Wintour?

1275
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:44,240
Speaker 3: Did she like the fact that she.

1276
01:04:44,200 --> 01:04:46,920
Speaker 2: Did he said, he says, yeah, I'll pay for it,

1277
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:48,240
Speaker 2: and then he just ghosts her.

1278
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:48,800
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1279
01:04:48,840 --> 01:04:51,520
Speaker 1: So the fact that Anna wind Tour didn't like like

1280
01:04:51,720 --> 01:04:59,400
Speaker 1: smoke out that he was like fully a fraud at.

1281
01:04:58,040 --> 01:05:01,720
Speaker 3: The girlies are the girlies are disappointed? I'm not caping

1282
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:06,360
Speaker 3: for Anna Wintor here, but the famously named the Dragon Lady. Well, no,

1283
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:10,520
Speaker 3: SBF is lucky that he'll never encounter Bill Nai because

1284
01:05:10,560 --> 01:05:12,240
Speaker 3: Bill for Bill Nihey, it would be on the phone.

1285
01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:13,680
Speaker 2: Bill would fuck him.

1286
01:05:15,960 --> 01:05:18,720
Speaker 3: So he was an I Frankenstein for crying. He was

1287
01:05:18,760 --> 01:05:23,280
Speaker 3: in Detective pikat chip Areak was broken like my brain.

1288
01:05:23,960 --> 01:05:28,360
Speaker 2: So Bra, these are these are amusing anecdotes, right what

1289
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:31,080
Speaker 2: he's what he's telling. Potentially, if you are someone who

1290
01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:34,040
Speaker 2: is critical about him, that same anecdote could could form

1291
01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:38,160
Speaker 2: part of your thesis about why this kid got away

1292
01:05:38,160 --> 01:05:40,400
Speaker 2: with it and for so long and why he ultimately

1293
01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:43,240
Speaker 2: flamed out. But Lewis is convinced that these show you

1294
01:05:43,280 --> 01:05:45,760
Speaker 2: evidence of Sam's genius, and he sets this up early

1295
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:48,880
Speaker 2: in the book talking about Sam's childhood quote he had

1296
01:05:48,920 --> 01:05:51,800
Speaker 2: a fault line inside him. Pressure was building on it,

1297
01:05:51,920 --> 01:05:54,880
Speaker 2: and one day in the seventh grade, he slipped. His

1298
01:05:54,960 --> 01:05:57,680
Speaker 2: mother returned from work to find Sam alone in despair.

1299
01:05:58,040 --> 01:06:00,200
Speaker 2: I came home and he was crying. Recalled by b

1300
01:06:00,480 --> 01:06:05,720
Speaker 2: he said, I'm so bored, I'm going to die, and like, oh, yeah,

1301
01:06:05,800 --> 01:06:09,040
Speaker 2: I have had a similar conversation with my mom. And

1302
01:06:09,080 --> 01:06:11,520
Speaker 2: it's a sign. You know, certainly Sam has been diagnosed

1303
01:06:11,520 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 2: with ADHD. That's certainly one way in which that can manifest.

1304
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:18,000
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Hold on one for the girlies again.

1305
01:06:18,040 --> 01:06:20,440
Speaker 1: That is a direct quote from Sex and the City.

1306
01:06:20,680 --> 01:06:21,600
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that is.

1307
01:06:21,560 --> 01:06:23,479
Speaker 3: A direct quote from a Sex in the City.

1308
01:06:23,840 --> 01:06:27,040
Speaker 2: Sure, I'm sure Sam's a big Samantha.

1309
01:06:26,680 --> 01:06:28,040
Speaker 3: Hey who says it?

1310
01:06:28,440 --> 01:06:30,320
Speaker 1: But she goes, I'm so bored I could die and

1311
01:06:30,360 --> 01:06:32,320
Speaker 1: she jumps out of and she falls out of the window.

1312
01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:35,480
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Really one of the most famous events

1313
01:06:36,880 --> 01:06:37,240
Speaker 3: in the city.

1314
01:06:37,680 --> 01:06:42,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember that anyway. So, because like Lewis again, again,

1315
01:06:42,800 --> 01:06:44,480
Speaker 2: if you're if you're just kind of being honest about

1316
01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:46,640
Speaker 2: Sam writing a book, he might be like, well, Sam

1317
01:06:46,680 --> 01:06:50,120
Speaker 2: gets diagnosed with ADHD. This moment makes total sense, as like, yeah,

1318
01:06:50,160 --> 01:06:52,840
Speaker 2: this is a kid who's got ADHD, and he's also

1319
01:06:53,080 --> 01:06:55,160
Speaker 2: you know, good at math and stuff. He's bored in

1320
01:06:55,200 --> 01:06:58,720
Speaker 2: the classes that he's in. But Lewis does not acknowledge

1321
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:01,520
Speaker 2: that Sam has ADHD in his book. He doesn't say

1322
01:07:01,560 --> 01:07:05,080
Speaker 2: anything about it because that would that's not a bad thing, obviously,

1323
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:08,000
Speaker 2: but it's also that you like, you're not a genius

1324
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:10,800
Speaker 2: just because you have ADHD. Right, plenty of people who

1325
01:07:10,840 --> 01:07:13,760
Speaker 2: are not super geniuses have ADHD. It's just a thing.

1326
01:07:14,680 --> 01:07:17,400
Speaker 3: Well, and it's like if you're if you're talking about

1327
01:07:17,600 --> 01:07:21,040
Speaker 3: that behavior and I want to be like delicate, and

1328
01:07:21,040 --> 01:07:24,240
Speaker 3: then you talk about it, but it's like it's contextually important.

1329
01:07:25,320 --> 01:07:27,200
Speaker 2: If you proceed from the principle like, yeah, this is

1330
01:07:27,200 --> 01:07:30,720
Speaker 2: a kid with ADHD, then there's another explanation for his

1331
01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:33,360
Speaker 2: addiction to games, his inability to focus on stuff right

1332
01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:35,800
Speaker 2: and it it and then it means those things aren't

1333
01:07:35,800 --> 01:07:39,640
Speaker 2: a sign of his brilliance right now. Part of why

1334
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:41,840
Speaker 2: I'm critical of Michael for this is that he does

1335
01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:45,240
Speaker 2: make a note about one character's ADHD in the book,

1336
01:07:45,440 --> 01:07:48,520
Speaker 2: and it's Carolyn Ellison, who comes across as one of

1337
01:07:48,520 --> 01:07:50,840
Speaker 2: the villains in the book. And I should note that

1338
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:53,080
Speaker 2: the following paragraph comes to me part of the book

1339
01:07:53,240 --> 01:07:56,160
Speaker 2: where Lewis is talking to George, who is a therapist

1340
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 2: who worked for FTX as the company shrink. So, among

1341
01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:03,120
Speaker 2: other things, this is a therapist talking about his patient.

1342
01:08:03,520 --> 01:08:04,120
Speaker 3: Right, Okay.

1343
01:08:04,880 --> 01:08:07,080
Speaker 2: When she'd first come to him back in twenty eighteen,

1344
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:09,480
Speaker 2: she'd had two issues. She wanted to talk about, her

1345
01:08:09,520 --> 01:08:13,440
Speaker 2: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and her new and emotionally complicated

1346
01:08:13,440 --> 01:08:17,240
Speaker 2: polyamorous lifestyle. Every subsequent session after the first, Carolyn came

1347
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:20,040
Speaker 2: back with just one issue she wanted to discuss Sam.

1348
01:08:20,400 --> 01:08:23,040
Speaker 2: She'd fallen in love with Sam. Sam didn't love her back,

1349
01:08:23,160 --> 01:08:25,679
Speaker 2: and that fact alone left her deeply unhappy. I thought

1350
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:27,800
Speaker 2: of her as an exception, said George. I thought she

1351
01:08:27,920 --> 01:08:30,840
Speaker 2: might be willing to trade effective altruism for reciprocation of

1352
01:08:30,880 --> 01:08:33,880
Speaker 2: love any day. Right, Sorry, how is it?

1353
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:34,280
Speaker 1: Like?

1354
01:08:34,560 --> 01:08:38,200
Speaker 3: I mean, I truly like, how was it even legal

1355
01:08:38,320 --> 01:08:41,160
Speaker 3: or ethical for this information to may? I don't actually know.

1356
01:08:41,720 --> 01:08:45,360
Speaker 3: I don't like that truly, because it's seems not supposed

1357
01:08:45,400 --> 01:08:47,639
Speaker 3: to be able to do like they're famously not supposed

1358
01:08:47,640 --> 01:08:49,439
Speaker 3: to be able to do that, and also not to

1359
01:08:49,600 --> 01:08:51,960
Speaker 3: like overly come to her defense. But also it's like

1360
01:08:52,280 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 3: that if anyone's therapy logs were leaked, it would be like, oh,

1361
01:08:57,520 --> 01:09:00,400
Speaker 3: if they had this fixation on this issue. Yeah, that's

1362
01:09:00,439 --> 01:09:03,280
Speaker 3: why you fucking go damn, you know, go there to

1363
01:09:03,320 --> 01:09:04,760
Speaker 3: be a reasoned person.

1364
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:08,200
Speaker 2: No, and especially since like's what's messy to me is

1365
01:09:08,200 --> 01:09:10,160
Speaker 2: that he brings that. He makes sure to bring this

1366
01:09:10,240 --> 01:09:13,040
Speaker 2: up with Carolyn, because he's kind of writing that like

1367
01:09:13,400 --> 01:09:16,479
Speaker 2: she was unreliable, she wasn't focusing enough, she was in

1368
01:09:16,520 --> 01:09:22,200
Speaker 2: love with him, hysterical, whereas he's just this misunderstood genius.

1369
01:09:22,520 --> 01:09:25,240
Speaker 2: But he notes her ADHD and he doesn't note Sam's,

1370
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:28,160
Speaker 2: even though Sam's ADHD is a matter of public fucking record. Now,

1371
01:09:28,600 --> 01:09:31,439
Speaker 2: like his family went to court to get him his

1372
01:09:31,520 --> 01:09:33,880
Speaker 2: medicine is a thing.

1373
01:09:34,160 --> 01:09:37,920
Speaker 3: It's like not even looking that he particularly tries to obscure, right, No,

1374
01:09:38,120 --> 01:09:39,720
Speaker 3: like no, yeah.

1375
01:09:39,200 --> 01:09:41,599
Speaker 2: And again it's critical to understand him because it provides

1376
01:09:41,640 --> 01:09:44,719
Speaker 2: an alternate explanation for all this behavior that Lewis chalks

1377
01:09:44,800 --> 01:09:47,920
Speaker 2: up to him just like only needing ten percent of

1378
01:09:47,920 --> 01:09:52,840
Speaker 2: his brain to talk to people. Yeah, now there's another

1379
01:09:53,080 --> 01:09:55,800
Speaker 2: Like there's another very fun bit in this which kind

1380
01:09:55,800 --> 01:09:57,479
Speaker 2: of relates to that, which is that and this is

1381
01:09:57,479 --> 01:09:59,519
Speaker 2: like the weirdest through line in Going Infinite, which is

1382
01:09:59,760 --> 01:10:03,800
Speaker 2: my Lewis does not understand games right like he is,

1383
01:10:03,880 --> 01:10:06,920
Speaker 2: So he writes about like video games and board games

1384
01:10:06,920 --> 01:10:09,720
Speaker 2: and other popular nerd pastimes that are now like the

1385
01:10:09,840 --> 01:10:13,320
Speaker 2: dominant form of entertainment by money in our country. He

1386
01:10:13,360 --> 01:10:16,160
Speaker 2: talks about them like he's an alien who's just arrived

1387
01:10:16,200 --> 01:10:20,200
Speaker 2: on the planet. And as a result, he talks about

1388
01:10:20,200 --> 01:10:22,479
Speaker 2: Sam's embrace of this stuff at the expense of everything

1389
01:10:22,479 --> 01:10:25,960
Speaker 2: else to be evidence of brilliance. Quote. He felt nothing

1390
01:10:26,000 --> 01:10:28,960
Speaker 2: in the presence of art. He found religion absurd. He

1391
01:10:29,000 --> 01:10:31,519
Speaker 2: thought both right wing and left wing political opinions kind

1392
01:10:31,520 --> 01:10:33,720
Speaker 2: of dumb, less a consequence of thought than of their

1393
01:10:33,760 --> 01:10:36,920
Speaker 2: holder's tribal identity. He and his family ignored the rituals

1394
01:10:36,920 --> 01:10:40,200
Speaker 2: that punctuated most people's existence. He didn't even celebrate his

1395
01:10:40,240 --> 01:10:43,160
Speaker 2: own birthday. What gave pleasure and solace and a sense

1396
01:10:43,200 --> 01:10:46,000
Speaker 2: of belonging to others left Sam cold. When the bankman

1397
01:10:46,040 --> 01:10:48,360
Speaker 2: Freeds traveled to Europe, Sam realized that he was just

1398
01:10:48,360 --> 01:10:51,240
Speaker 2: staring at a lot of old buildings for no particular reason.

1399
01:10:51,600 --> 01:10:54,000
Speaker 2: We did a few trips, he said, I basically hated it.

1400
01:10:54,280 --> 01:10:58,320
Speaker 2: To his unrelenting alienation. There was only one exception. Games.

1401
01:10:58,760 --> 01:11:01,679
Speaker 2: In sixth grade, Sam learned about a game called Magic

1402
01:11:01,720 --> 01:11:04,160
Speaker 2: the Gathering. For the next four years, it was the

1403
01:11:04,160 --> 01:11:07,720
Speaker 2: only activity that consumed him faster than he could consume it.

1404
01:11:08,320 --> 01:11:12,439
Speaker 2: And this is so funny because like Lewis has to

1405
01:11:12,520 --> 01:11:16,280
Speaker 2: describe Magic the Gathering after this point, and he like

1406
01:11:16,840 --> 01:11:21,000
Speaker 2: he describes it basically, it's the first game ever made

1407
01:11:21,320 --> 01:11:24,559
Speaker 2: where like you like the way that you play it,

1408
01:11:24,600 --> 01:11:27,120
Speaker 2: like it's it's different, Like every character can come into

1409
01:11:27,120 --> 01:11:29,600
Speaker 2: this strategy game with a different set of equipment. No

1410
01:11:29,680 --> 01:11:31,760
Speaker 2: one had ever done this before. It was all like

1411
01:11:32,000 --> 01:11:34,519
Speaker 2: chess where everyone's the same. And it's like, no, it wasn't.

1412
01:11:34,840 --> 01:11:38,920
Speaker 2: There were decades, decades of war games and strategy games

1413
01:11:38,640 --> 01:11:44,240
Speaker 2: that Magic was influenced by. Like that's just wrong, Michael, Now.

1414
01:11:44,160 --> 01:11:47,719
Speaker 3: Hold on, hold on magic, Yeah, hold on, nerd any

1415
01:11:47,760 --> 01:11:52,479
Speaker 3: any put up. I do think that like this is

1416
01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:57,200
Speaker 3: of the because because I don't play Magic the Gathering

1417
01:11:57,400 --> 01:12:01,120
Speaker 3: and I know that how he's describing it is, I was.

1418
01:12:01,160 --> 01:12:02,280
Speaker 2: Like, it's so wrong.

1419
01:12:02,520 --> 01:12:05,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that speaks word to like a generation gap,

1420
01:12:06,120 --> 01:12:08,360
Speaker 3: because I think that you're someone who could be on

1421
01:12:08,439 --> 01:12:12,400
Speaker 3: the opposite side of SBF and equally with it, Like

1422
01:12:12,640 --> 01:12:15,120
Speaker 3: it's just like do your research.

1423
01:12:15,439 --> 01:12:16,120
Speaker 2: Just talk to it.

1424
01:12:16,760 --> 01:12:18,760
Speaker 3: Just talk to someone who plays Magic the Gathering. They

1425
01:12:18,800 --> 01:12:20,519
Speaker 3: famously love to talk about it.

1426
01:12:20,720 --> 01:12:23,080
Speaker 2: And it's it's funny because he's like he has to

1427
01:12:23,120 --> 01:12:25,320
Speaker 2: make this, Like he goes on a limb about like

1428
01:12:25,439 --> 01:12:28,280
Speaker 2: Sam Bankman Freed couldn't didn't like chess. It was too boring.

1429
01:12:28,479 --> 01:12:31,880
Speaker 2: There were too few possibilities, like you could calculate everything,

1430
01:12:31,920 --> 01:12:39,519
Speaker 2: like his computer brain wasn't amused by chess. Yeah, it's

1431
01:12:39,640 --> 01:12:42,360
Speaker 2: so funny. It's like, man, my friends and I all

1432
01:12:42,400 --> 01:12:45,120
Speaker 2: played Magic the Gathering and like as a spoiler, some

1433
01:12:45,200 --> 01:12:48,080
Speaker 2: people looked into Sam's like performance in League of Legends

1434
01:12:48,080 --> 01:12:50,040
Speaker 2: and the other only he was never good at anything.

1435
01:12:50,120 --> 01:12:52,960
Speaker 2: He was not very good. He wasn't particularly bad, but

1436
01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:55,000
Speaker 2: he was not very good. And I'm gonna guess he

1437
01:12:55,120 --> 01:12:58,719
Speaker 2: was indifferent at Magic the Gathering because you like it's

1438
01:12:58,920 --> 01:13:01,519
Speaker 2: it is not a great it's a wonderful game, not

1439
01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:05,000
Speaker 2: a great like yardstick for your intelligence, you know, Oh,

1440
01:13:05,120 --> 01:13:06,360
Speaker 2: it's just a guard game.

1441
01:13:06,720 --> 01:13:09,800
Speaker 3: No one should be uh, I mean not, but like,

1442
01:13:09,880 --> 01:13:12,360
Speaker 3: no one should be judged by their intelligence, by how

1443
01:13:12,400 --> 01:13:15,679
Speaker 3: they interact with like a beloved hobby that's weird.

1444
01:13:16,120 --> 01:13:19,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so weird, and it's like it's interesting because

1445
01:13:19,560 --> 01:13:22,200
Speaker 2: like Sam's parents, A big part of this section is

1446
01:13:22,240 --> 01:13:24,200
Speaker 2: like he comes home and he's like, I'm so bored,

1447
01:13:24,280 --> 01:13:27,519
Speaker 2: I can't I want to die, and his you know,

1448
01:13:27,560 --> 01:13:29,479
Speaker 2: his parents do what I think is the right thing.

1449
01:13:29,520 --> 01:13:31,599
Speaker 2: They lead the charge to get their school to add

1450
01:13:31,640 --> 01:13:34,000
Speaker 2: like an advanced math class, and it seems to have

1451
01:13:34,000 --> 01:13:35,760
Speaker 2: a good impact on him. He's excited to go to

1452
01:13:35,800 --> 01:13:38,160
Speaker 2: school now, and that's a good thing. But what we

1453
01:13:38,240 --> 01:13:40,360
Speaker 2: find hints of in parts of this story, and I

1454
01:13:40,400 --> 01:13:42,800
Speaker 2: don't think Lewis is able either knows it or is

1455
01:13:42,800 --> 01:13:46,000
Speaker 2: able to admit it to himself, is the troubling fact

1456
01:13:46,000 --> 01:13:49,839
Speaker 2: that once Sam's parents decide he's a math genius, they

1457
01:13:49,880 --> 01:13:53,120
Speaker 2: they don't bother to make him into a well rounded person.

1458
01:13:53,600 --> 01:13:56,679
Speaker 2: Sam grows up hating art. He thinks books are useless.

1459
01:13:56,680 --> 01:13:58,960
Speaker 2: He has this big rant he goes about like, well,

1460
01:13:59,040 --> 01:14:01,400
Speaker 2: there's no way that Shape is the best author ever,

1461
01:14:01,479 --> 01:14:03,840
Speaker 2: because there have been this many billion people born since

1462
01:14:03,840 --> 01:14:05,840
Speaker 2: he was alive, and if you want to calculate the

1463
01:14:05,880 --> 01:14:08,280
Speaker 2: odds that none of them were better at writing than him,

1464
01:14:08,280 --> 01:14:11,479
Speaker 2: then there's really no reason to read Shakespeare, and it's like, well, Sam,

1465
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:13,280
Speaker 2: the fact that you think that means that like no

1466
01:14:13,320 --> 01:14:17,479
Speaker 2: one even casually tried to teach you the humanities, because like,

1467
01:14:17,520 --> 01:14:20,200
Speaker 2: the reason you should study Shakespeare is not that he's

1468
01:14:20,200 --> 01:14:23,360
Speaker 2: the quote unquote best author ever. That doesn't exist. It's

1469
01:14:23,400 --> 01:14:25,280
Speaker 2: that there is not a day in your life or

1470
01:14:25,320 --> 01:14:27,240
Speaker 2: the life of anyone that you love that they don't

1471
01:14:27,320 --> 01:14:31,520
Speaker 2: use words and phrases Shakespeare introduced to the English language.

1472
01:14:31,560 --> 01:14:32,679
Speaker 2: That's why he's important.

1473
01:14:32,720 --> 01:14:35,360
Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong, Sam, I also don't want to

1474
01:14:35,439 --> 01:14:41,080
Speaker 3: read a book, but I there sometimes we're sometimes.

1475
01:14:40,600 --> 01:14:42,720
Speaker 2: That's just what you need to do to understand the

1476
01:14:42,760 --> 01:14:45,360
Speaker 2: world and not go to prison for forever because you're

1477
01:14:45,400 --> 01:14:46,920
Speaker 2: a gambler or just.

1478
01:14:46,920 --> 01:14:49,680
Speaker 3: Be willing to fucking google your way around it. Like

1479
01:14:49,720 --> 01:14:53,240
Speaker 3: that you're not better than Shakespeare. Weird. There is like

1480
01:14:53,280 --> 01:14:57,799
Speaker 3: an element of like there are certain the lower side

1481
01:14:58,040 --> 01:15:02,920
Speaker 3: of sbf L's that he takes in the statements he makes.

1482
01:15:03,439 --> 01:15:07,439
Speaker 3: He sounds like like a one episode Fraser character. Yes,

1483
01:15:07,479 --> 01:15:11,280
Speaker 3: you know, he sounds like Freddy made a friend and

1484
01:15:11,479 --> 01:15:13,479
Speaker 3: he fucking sucks and.

1485
01:15:13,439 --> 01:15:14,759
Speaker 2: He's a piece as shit.

1486
01:15:15,400 --> 01:15:19,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then he even polarizes Fraser and Niles and

1487
01:15:19,680 --> 01:15:21,439
Speaker 3: that's how you know you're in fucking trouble.

1488
01:15:21,840 --> 01:15:25,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, when Niles, Niles is like, this kid's kind

1489
01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:26,200
Speaker 2: of got a fucking problem.

1490
01:15:26,439 --> 01:15:30,479
Speaker 3: This kid's incomprehensible. I wouldn't I wouldn't share a glass

1491
01:15:30,479 --> 01:15:31,559
Speaker 3: of brandy with him.

1492
01:15:31,760 --> 01:15:33,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and man, if you know Niles, you know what

1493
01:15:34,000 --> 01:15:38,120
Speaker 2: that takes. Hey, everyone, Robert here just wanted a quick

1494
01:15:38,520 --> 01:15:41,240
Speaker 2: note that the next like the last like five or

1495
01:15:41,280 --> 01:15:44,160
Speaker 2: six minutes of this episode is all Fraser. It's all

1496
01:15:44,240 --> 01:15:46,400
Speaker 2: all all Fraser talk. Jamie and I got off on

1497
01:15:46,439 --> 01:15:48,800
Speaker 2: a tangent. There is a lot more Sam Bankman Freed

1498
01:15:48,800 --> 01:15:50,800
Speaker 2: than part two. It's another like hour and twenty minutes,

1499
01:15:50,840 --> 01:15:54,240
Speaker 2: so plenty more on Thursday. But as a heads up

1500
01:15:54,240 --> 01:15:56,640
Speaker 2: in case it's kind of confusing, we just we just

1501
01:15:56,640 --> 01:15:59,120
Speaker 2: wound up in a Fraser hole after this point. So

1502
01:15:59,200 --> 01:16:01,920
Speaker 2: if you want to hear us talk about Frasier, this

1503
01:16:02,080 --> 01:16:07,680
Speaker 2: is your chance. Speaking of David Hyde Peers, Jamie Loftus,

1504
01:16:08,200 --> 01:16:10,800
Speaker 2: you are starring in a floor show with David Hyde

1505
01:16:10,840 --> 01:16:16,120
Speaker 2: Peers based on the life of Kelsey Grammar. Actually you

1506
01:16:16,200 --> 01:16:19,920
Speaker 2: are playing Kelsey. You spent, like Michael Lewis, a full

1507
01:16:20,040 --> 01:16:22,360
Speaker 2: year living with him to really get his character down.

1508
01:16:22,520 --> 01:16:23,120
Speaker 2: What was that like?

1509
01:16:25,000 --> 01:16:29,160
Speaker 3: Look, it was pretty hostile. It was pretty hostile. And

1510
01:16:29,360 --> 01:16:32,360
Speaker 3: in the subsequent publishings that I've made, a lot of

1511
01:16:32,360 --> 01:16:36,679
Speaker 3: people have said that I couldn't explain the video games

1512
01:16:36,800 --> 01:16:39,640
Speaker 3: that Kelsey Grammer was playing for the year that I

1513
01:16:39,720 --> 01:16:44,040
Speaker 3: was following him around, and I resent that I was

1514
01:16:44,120 --> 01:16:47,360
Speaker 3: in the room with Kelsey while he was berating women

1515
01:16:47,479 --> 01:16:50,639
Speaker 3: on the phone. And I think that that makes him

1516
01:16:50,720 --> 01:16:52,759
Speaker 3: a genius. I think that that makes him a genius.

1517
01:16:52,800 --> 01:16:55,679
Speaker 3: And you know, do I believe he's the greatest sitcom

1518
01:16:55,720 --> 01:16:58,800
Speaker 3: actor of all time? Well, I'll keep that to myself,

1519
01:16:58,840 --> 01:17:01,400
Speaker 3: but wink wink. I think that he's kind of a

1520
01:17:01,439 --> 01:17:05,559
Speaker 3: beautiful genius and is above criticism. And if you don't

1521
01:17:05,600 --> 01:17:07,800
Speaker 3: think that he's kind of the perfect person, or if

1522
01:17:07,840 --> 01:17:10,880
Speaker 3: you even like just we read his Wikipedia page in

1523
01:17:10,920 --> 01:17:14,680
Speaker 3: four am an opinion, I beg to disagree.

1524
01:17:15,040 --> 01:17:19,720
Speaker 2: And I do love I love Kelsey Grammar stories from

1525
01:17:19,760 --> 01:17:22,240
Speaker 2: the head of Fraser because they're all like members of

1526
01:17:22,280 --> 01:17:25,439
Speaker 2: the cast being like, well, yeah, he was very like

1527
01:17:25,479 --> 01:17:28,160
Speaker 2: he came on set and he had clearly just woken

1528
01:17:28,240 --> 01:17:32,040
Speaker 2: up after vomiting up his seven martini lunch. He looked

1529
01:17:32,120 --> 01:17:34,720
Speaker 2: like he was dying. We were all worried that he

1530
01:17:34,880 --> 01:17:37,519
Speaker 2: was going to drop dead that day, and then the

1531
01:17:37,560 --> 01:17:42,080
Speaker 2: director called action and he was immediately care He was perfect,

1532
01:17:42,439 --> 01:17:42,800
Speaker 2: He was.

1533
01:17:42,760 --> 01:17:49,160
Speaker 3: Beautiful, his chest hair hurt like We'll never know I was.

1534
01:17:49,240 --> 01:17:53,040
Speaker 3: I mean, I was fixated on Fraser reruns when I

1535
01:17:53,080 --> 01:17:54,880
Speaker 3: was a kid. I would stand late to watch them.

1536
01:17:54,960 --> 01:17:56,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of my conference shows for sure.

1537
01:17:56,600 --> 01:18:00,599
Speaker 3: Yeah, the best. And like when I remember remember getting

1538
01:18:00,760 --> 01:18:05,000
Speaker 3: Kelsey Grammer's like memoir from the library and read that

1539
01:18:05,040 --> 01:18:07,599
Speaker 3: he broke up with his wife on the phone, and

1540
01:18:07,640 --> 01:18:09,160
Speaker 3: it may have been one of the first times that

1541
01:18:09,200 --> 01:18:14,400
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, Wow, men are scary. You can

1542
01:18:14,520 --> 01:18:16,840
Speaker 3: just do that. You could just beat Kelsey Grammar and

1543
01:18:16,840 --> 01:18:19,719
Speaker 3: be evil and then and I will still like base

1544
01:18:19,840 --> 01:18:22,000
Speaker 3: my sexuality on you forever.

1545
01:18:22,439 --> 01:18:27,120
Speaker 2: Absolutely seem fair. Who's among us, right, ah man? But

1546
01:18:27,320 --> 01:18:30,519
Speaker 2: I will say, having watched the new Fraser show, it

1547
01:18:30,560 --> 01:18:33,479
Speaker 2: becomes very clear how much of that show's charm was

1548
01:18:33,560 --> 01:18:35,240
Speaker 2: John Mahoney and David Hyde Pierce.

1549
01:18:35,560 --> 01:18:39,000
Speaker 3: Oh well, I think tell Kelsey's doing I mean, and

1550
01:18:39,040 --> 01:18:41,120
Speaker 3: he's an evil person, He's doing his damn best.

1551
01:18:41,280 --> 01:18:43,680
Speaker 2: He is he is perfect, he is like literally his

1552
01:18:43,760 --> 01:18:46,360
Speaker 2: voice is not changed in twenty years, which is remarkable.

1553
01:18:46,360 --> 01:18:50,360
Speaker 3: No, and he's been you know, physically preserved well enough.

1554
01:18:50,880 --> 01:18:52,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the big problems that show has is

1555
01:18:52,960 --> 01:18:56,920
Speaker 2: they've cast that kid as Niles and Daphne's son, and

1556
01:18:57,120 --> 01:18:59,240
Speaker 2: they're relying on him to hold up a lot of

1557
01:18:59,240 --> 01:19:01,360
Speaker 2: the physical con many ends that David and Hyde Pierce

1558
01:19:01,479 --> 01:19:03,599
Speaker 2: used to And if if you are going up next

1559
01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:07,400
Speaker 2: to David Hyde Peers in like a physical comedy competition,

1560
01:19:07,600 --> 01:19:09,160
Speaker 2: you're gonna look like shit fu.

1561
01:19:10,560 --> 01:19:14,439
Speaker 3: David Peers like he's the guy. Robert. I thought you

1562
01:19:14,439 --> 01:19:16,720
Speaker 3: would love the Fraser reboot because it's some of the

1563
01:19:16,760 --> 01:19:20,040
Speaker 3: most abysmal Boston accents I've ever heard of my fucking Lutch.

1564
01:19:20,040 --> 01:19:23,280
Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong, I've watched every episode, some.

1565
01:19:23,240 --> 01:19:27,000
Speaker 3: Of the nastiest little I have to like pause sometimes

1566
01:19:27,080 --> 01:19:31,840
Speaker 3: and like get a water. Yeah, I like walk nearly

1567
01:19:31,880 --> 01:19:36,000
Speaker 3: that acsence. Yeah, I mean you have and I have

1568
01:19:36,280 --> 01:19:38,280
Speaker 3: conceded long ago that you've got it down.

1569
01:19:38,640 --> 01:19:41,800
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you well. Anything to plug Jamie after

1570
01:19:41,880 --> 01:19:45,640
Speaker 2: our five minute Fraser digression, Well, i'd like to.

1571
01:19:45,920 --> 01:19:47,720
Speaker 3: I guess I'd like to plug the Fraser reboot because

1572
01:19:47,720 --> 01:19:50,600
Speaker 3: I would like a second season. Check it out, everybody,

1573
01:19:50,880 --> 01:19:56,880
Speaker 3: It's not ship, it's on Paramount Plus. And I also

1574
01:19:57,120 --> 01:20:02,080
Speaker 3: just read read Raw Dog and follow me online. You're

1575
01:20:02,080 --> 01:20:05,280
Speaker 3: so inclined. And that's that's all I have to say.

1576
01:20:05,560 --> 01:20:07,400
Speaker 3: Listen to the Bexel Cast while you're at it. Why not?

1577
01:20:08,920 --> 01:20:14,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, what about you? That's it. I'm done.

1578
01:20:15,640 --> 01:20:18,360
Speaker 2: You're gonna find fine figure out where David Hyde Pierce lives.

1579
01:20:18,479 --> 01:20:24,559
Speaker 2: You know, have a nice letter, a letter, jim.

1580
01:20:32,080 --> 01:20:34,400
Speaker 1: Ah.

1581
01:20:34,560 --> 01:20:39,920
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, our special edition episodes

1582
01:20:40,400 --> 01:20:44,400
Speaker 2: on Sam Bankman, who is not freed because he is

1583
01:20:44,439 --> 01:20:47,559
Speaker 2: still in jail. That's it's the intro I've got. It's

1584
01:20:47,560 --> 01:20:51,000
Speaker 2: the same as the last episode.

1585
01:20:51,200 --> 01:20:55,200
Speaker 3: No, you're hilarious. It's still very funny. It's Sophie's favorite.

1586
01:20:55,360 --> 01:20:57,719
Speaker 2: This is the only time I've made Sophie laugh in years.

1587
01:20:58,760 --> 01:21:04,400
Speaker 3: That's not true. Well, okay, you're Switzerland on this issue.

1588
01:21:04,520 --> 01:21:10,120
Speaker 2: You're Swiss on this issue. Swiss you Jamie speaking of Switzerland. Yeah,

1589
01:21:10,160 --> 01:21:15,759
Speaker 2: you also were neutral in World War Two? Is that correct? Yeah?

1590
01:21:15,920 --> 01:21:19,840
Speaker 3: I was sort of like, no, I'm kidding. Why you

1591
01:21:19,840 --> 01:21:20,800
Speaker 3: made me laugh again?

1592
01:21:20,920 --> 01:21:26,360
Speaker 2: Congrats two for two, baby, So we took a couple

1593
01:21:26,400 --> 01:21:28,479
Speaker 2: of days in between recording part one and part two.

1594
01:21:28,640 --> 01:21:31,080
Speaker 2: Really let it sink in how are you feeling on

1595
01:21:31,200 --> 01:21:34,639
Speaker 2: our technically not a behind the bastards on Michael Lewis,

1596
01:21:34,680 --> 01:21:38,000
Speaker 2: but basically a behind the bastards on Michael Lewis, author

1597
01:21:38,000 --> 01:21:38,799
Speaker 2: of The Big Short.

1598
01:21:39,520 --> 01:21:43,479
Speaker 3: I so in the interesting days, I've talked about the

1599
01:21:43,560 --> 01:21:46,439
Speaker 3: Michael Lewis of it all with a couple of different people,

1600
01:21:46,720 --> 01:21:50,599
Speaker 3: just to see if I was like if I had

1601
01:21:50,680 --> 01:21:54,280
Speaker 3: just missed something. But every single person I talked to

1602
01:21:54,920 --> 01:21:57,639
Speaker 3: I found had a similar experience to me, where they

1603
01:21:57,720 --> 01:22:02,360
Speaker 3: did not know that he wrote The blind Side. Oh good, okay, yeah,

1604
01:22:02,400 --> 01:22:04,000
Speaker 3: and then when they found out that he wrote the

1605
01:22:04,000 --> 01:22:07,080
Speaker 3: blind Side, They're like, oh, yeah, I could see that

1606
01:22:07,120 --> 01:22:10,200
Speaker 3: he is a you know, he's an honorary bastard.

1607
01:22:10,520 --> 01:22:12,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe he is kind of a hack.

1608
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:16,160
Speaker 3: Yeah right, well yeah, they were like, yeah, Michael Lewis, Moneyball,

1609
01:22:16,280 --> 01:22:19,240
Speaker 3: the Big Short, And You're like, and another thing, how

1610
01:22:19,280 --> 01:22:22,400
Speaker 3: did that? How how do we collectively forget that he

1611
01:22:23,080 --> 01:22:26,439
Speaker 3: wrote that? It feels like he got away with something.

1612
01:22:27,560 --> 01:22:30,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess I've been thinking about what he's

1613
01:22:30,479 --> 01:22:32,760
Speaker 2: doing with Sam Bankman Freed as I think about the

1614
01:22:32,840 --> 01:22:35,200
Speaker 2: upcoming Napoleon movie, which I will have watched by the

1615
01:22:35,200 --> 01:22:37,479
Speaker 2: time this comes out. But it's not out yet. So

1616
01:22:37,640 --> 01:22:42,080
Speaker 2: excited about that. I'm ready. Everyone, especially like all of

1617
01:22:42,120 --> 01:22:46,679
Speaker 2: these history Twitter podcast people, are so livid that Ridley

1618
01:22:46,680 --> 01:22:49,960
Speaker 2: Scott's basically like, who can say what the truth of

1619
01:22:50,080 --> 01:22:53,519
Speaker 2: Napoleon's life was, which is it is a ridiculous thing

1620
01:22:53,560 --> 01:22:55,840
Speaker 2: to say. He's very well documented. We actually know a

1621
01:22:55,840 --> 01:22:58,160
Speaker 2: lot about Napoleon. But also, I don't give a shit.

1622
01:22:58,200 --> 01:22:59,800
Speaker 2: It's the guy who made Gladiator.

1623
01:23:00,400 --> 01:23:05,640
Speaker 3: Well, and also I appreciate because all biopics are you know, nonsense,

1624
01:23:06,160 --> 01:23:08,280
Speaker 3: yeah or shit right, and so you're like, well, this

1625
01:23:08,320 --> 01:23:11,320
Speaker 3: is the one director who's going to say my biopic is.

1626
01:23:11,720 --> 01:23:15,160
Speaker 2: Kind of horse it's just lies, which also very appropriate

1627
01:23:15,160 --> 01:23:17,800
Speaker 2: for Napoleon. But what is the line with that? Why

1628
01:23:17,960 --> 01:23:22,240
Speaker 2: Why am I angry at Michael Lewis for what he's doing?

1629
01:23:22,280 --> 01:23:23,360
Speaker 2: And I don't really care.

1630
01:23:23,560 --> 01:23:25,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a journalist, there is.

1631
01:23:26,000 --> 01:23:28,920
Speaker 2: He's a journalist. For one, he's not the director of

1632
01:23:29,160 --> 01:23:32,799
Speaker 2: the fucking Gladiator, the least accurate movie about Rome ever made.

1633
01:23:32,920 --> 01:23:34,920
Speaker 3: It's been a great it's been a great week for

1634
01:23:35,080 --> 01:23:38,920
Speaker 3: like weird old guys who we could argue had have

1635
01:23:39,080 --> 01:23:42,400
Speaker 3: peaked creatively, although I wouldn't say that for Scorsese, but

1636
01:23:42,439 --> 01:23:45,200
Speaker 3: there was a great quote that was floating around in

1637
01:23:45,200 --> 01:23:48,000
Speaker 3: the last couple of days where I guess Scorsese said

1638
01:23:48,080 --> 01:23:50,559
Speaker 3: on the Killers of the Flower Moon press stour that

1639
01:23:50,640 --> 01:23:52,800
Speaker 3: he was like always worried about running out of time

1640
01:23:52,840 --> 01:23:54,559
Speaker 3: and he never knew what his last movie would be.

1641
01:23:55,320 --> 01:23:58,400
Speaker 3: And Ridley Scott was asked to like react to that,

1642
01:23:58,560 --> 01:24:01,679
Speaker 3: and he said, since he started Killers of the Flower Moon,

1643
01:24:01,760 --> 01:24:04,680
Speaker 3: I've made four films. No, I don't think about it.

1644
01:24:04,760 --> 01:24:06,840
Speaker 3: I get up in the morning and say, ah, great,

1645
01:24:07,080 --> 01:24:08,559
Speaker 3: another day of stress.

1646
01:24:10,200 --> 01:24:15,200
Speaker 2: Honestly, those are both completely valid answers. I yeah, I

1647
01:24:15,280 --> 01:24:17,160
Speaker 2: refuse to be a part of some sort of like

1648
01:24:18,000 --> 01:24:21,240
Speaker 2: pretending that what Scott is saying isn't as valid as

1649
01:24:21,240 --> 01:24:24,720
Speaker 2: what Scorsese's saying. There are two ways to deal with mortality,

1650
01:24:24,760 --> 01:24:25,200
Speaker 2: one of the.

1651
01:24:25,400 --> 01:24:27,440
Speaker 3: Two genders of creative mortality.

1652
01:24:27,720 --> 01:24:29,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, One is oh my god, I will die

1653
01:24:29,880 --> 01:24:31,759
Speaker 2: and I won't have said everything I need to say,

1654
01:24:31,960 --> 01:24:33,680
Speaker 2: And the other is what the fuck I got I

1655
01:24:33,680 --> 01:24:35,320
Speaker 2: got shit to do. I gotta move, I gotta have

1656
01:24:35,640 --> 01:24:37,320
Speaker 2: the answer to this fucking question. Yeah.

1657
01:24:37,360 --> 01:24:42,680
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Robert Paul Schrader is on Facebook, and Paul Schrader's

1658
01:24:42,760 --> 01:24:45,559
Speaker 3: posting about Taylor Swift in a kind of horny way.

1659
01:24:45,640 --> 01:24:47,960
Speaker 3: So like, yeah, the old men are just they're on

1660
01:24:47,960 --> 01:24:50,519
Speaker 3: one this week, and Michael Lewis walks among them.

1661
01:24:50,840 --> 01:24:54,640
Speaker 2: There's only one old, great creative who has taken the reasonable,

1662
01:24:55,000 --> 01:24:59,559
Speaker 2: respect like answer to mortality, and it's John Carperdue, who's like, Nah,

1663
01:24:59,600 --> 01:25:03,160
Speaker 2: I'm done directing movies. I'm gonna get high, play video games,

1664
01:25:03,200 --> 01:25:04,880
Speaker 2: watch basketball the rest of my life.

1665
01:25:05,360 --> 01:25:07,280
Speaker 3: And God bless God, bless them.

1666
01:25:07,400 --> 01:25:09,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, God bless them. There's a man who understands what's

1667
01:25:09,840 --> 01:25:14,240
Speaker 2: valuable in life, a thing that Sam Bankman Freed never understood.

1668
01:25:14,360 --> 01:25:19,040
Speaker 2: And we and we're back, Yeah, we're back. So one

1669
01:25:19,080 --> 01:25:20,920
Speaker 2: of the things that comes up a lot in Michael

1670
01:25:21,000 --> 01:25:23,759
Speaker 2: Lewis's book is he's sort of going into the mind

1671
01:25:23,840 --> 01:25:26,599
Speaker 2: and psyche of Sam Bankman Freed, is that Sam had

1672
01:25:26,600 --> 01:25:29,759
Speaker 2: this belief that no one ever does anything useful after

1673
01:25:29,840 --> 01:25:32,680
Speaker 2: like age forty to forty five, somewhere around there is

1674
01:25:32,720 --> 01:25:34,639
Speaker 2: the last time you have a useful thought in your

1675
01:25:34,760 --> 01:25:37,320
Speaker 2: entire life, which I guess is relevant to our discussion

1676
01:25:37,360 --> 01:25:39,240
Speaker 2: of aging aging powerful men.

1677
01:25:39,600 --> 01:25:44,120
Speaker 3: I will say that that's true of many stand up comedians,

1678
01:25:44,160 --> 01:25:46,559
Speaker 3: but I can't speak of that outside of that.

1679
01:25:47,280 --> 01:25:49,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it's true, especially like

1680
01:25:49,560 --> 01:25:53,320
Speaker 2: once you get really rich, it's you tend to like

1681
01:25:53,439 --> 01:25:56,400
Speaker 2: lose complete touch with the world and go insane. So

1682
01:25:56,960 --> 01:26:00,599
Speaker 2: I think that is somewhat accurate, at least for some

1683
01:26:00,760 --> 01:26:03,879
Speaker 2: creative professions. But Sam is not in a creative profession,

1684
01:26:03,960 --> 01:26:06,200
Speaker 2: and it's actually kind of ridiculous to me the idea

1685
01:26:06,240 --> 01:26:09,640
Speaker 2: that like people in business after age forty four, like

1686
01:26:09,680 --> 01:26:12,240
Speaker 2: Steve Jobs did all of his best shit like well

1687
01:26:12,320 --> 01:26:16,360
Speaker 2: after that point, like his most influential like like evil

1688
01:26:16,439 --> 01:26:20,679
Speaker 2: things and most like really successful businessmen are just kind

1689
01:26:20,680 --> 01:26:22,920
Speaker 2: of getting started by their mid forties, right, because it

1690
01:26:22,960 --> 01:26:25,559
Speaker 2: takes that much time to get that's momentum. You've got

1691
01:26:25,600 --> 01:26:27,400
Speaker 2: a lot of evil left, You've got a lot of

1692
01:26:27,439 --> 01:26:30,080
Speaker 2: horrible things left to do, plenty of time.

1693
01:26:30,240 --> 01:26:31,519
Speaker 3: First is in front of you.

1694
01:26:31,800 --> 01:26:34,200
Speaker 2: I think he's got three to five ethnic cleansings and

1695
01:26:34,280 --> 01:26:38,519
Speaker 2: a minimum minimum Jamie, Yeah, maybe eight. You know, I

1696
01:26:38,560 --> 01:26:41,600
Speaker 2: could see him having eight more ethnic cleansings.

1697
01:26:41,720 --> 01:26:44,280
Speaker 3: He does seem like someone who is just will like

1698
01:26:44,360 --> 01:26:46,759
Speaker 3: have a kissinger like affinity for life.

1699
01:26:47,160 --> 01:26:51,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, so bankman Freed's I understand belief that like after

1700
01:26:51,240 --> 01:26:53,519
Speaker 2: age forty five, he's not going to be capable of

1701
01:26:53,560 --> 01:26:56,760
Speaker 2: having any useful ideas. This is what pushed him, you know,

1702
01:26:56,840 --> 01:26:58,960
Speaker 2: along with his effective altruist idea. This is why he

1703
01:26:59,000 --> 01:27:01,719
Speaker 2: felt like he had to he had to continually gamble

1704
01:27:01,800 --> 01:27:05,320
Speaker 2: rather than like taking the slow, sustainable path making money

1705
01:27:05,400 --> 01:27:08,160
Speaker 2: off of his exchange at like a reasonable pace. No, no, no,

1706
01:27:08,600 --> 01:27:10,960
Speaker 2: I only have a few more years left before my

1707
01:27:11,120 --> 01:27:13,880
Speaker 2: brain shrivels up. And so if I'm going to do

1708
01:27:13,920 --> 01:27:15,840
Speaker 2: anything good for the world, I have to keep putting

1709
01:27:15,880 --> 01:27:20,800
Speaker 2: every dollar I've made on a fifty to fifty bet endlessly, right,

1710
01:27:22,120 --> 01:27:24,559
Speaker 2: Which isn't it? Which is like, I don't know, you

1711
01:27:24,560 --> 01:27:27,280
Speaker 2: should probably get help if you feel that about the world,

1712
01:27:27,320 --> 01:27:29,679
Speaker 2: because that's a deeply self destructive way to think about

1713
01:27:29,720 --> 01:27:32,679
Speaker 2: yourself and about your assets. This is a big part

1714
01:27:32,720 --> 01:27:36,679
Speaker 2: of why FTX did not have a really crucial thing

1715
01:27:36,760 --> 01:27:40,040
Speaker 2: for any company, particularly a financial company, to have, which

1716
01:27:40,120 --> 01:27:43,439
Speaker 2: is a risk officer. Right. A risk officer's job is

1717
01:27:43,479 --> 01:27:46,200
Speaker 2: to analyze the deals the company's doing and go, well,

1718
01:27:46,240 --> 01:27:49,200
Speaker 2: that's an insane risk, so let's let's not do that

1719
01:27:49,240 --> 01:27:52,080
Speaker 2: one or you know, that's an insane risk. We need

1720
01:27:52,080 --> 01:27:54,479
Speaker 2: to offset it with this stuff. They also did not

1721
01:27:54,560 --> 01:27:57,000
Speaker 2: have a chief financial officer or a bunch of other

1722
01:27:57,040 --> 01:28:00,120
Speaker 2: critical executive positions to me, Yeah, they had no SEA.

1723
01:28:01,120 --> 01:28:03,639
Speaker 3: That's one I've heard of. You should have that one.

1724
01:28:04,320 --> 01:28:06,759
Speaker 2: It's a really basic job and its job is basically

1725
01:28:07,040 --> 01:28:09,320
Speaker 2: to know how much money you have, right, Like, there's

1726
01:28:09,360 --> 01:28:12,639
Speaker 2: other stuff to it, but it's pretty critical. FTX also

1727
01:28:12,680 --> 01:28:15,080
Speaker 2: did not have a board of directors, and they're lacking

1728
01:28:15,120 --> 01:28:18,519
Speaker 2: a bunch of other very basic executive positions. And a

1729
01:28:18,560 --> 01:28:21,639
Speaker 2: big part of why is that the only people Sam

1730
01:28:21,720 --> 01:28:24,880
Speaker 2: feels like he can trust are like his friends, and

1731
01:28:25,080 --> 01:28:28,200
Speaker 2: he has this deep aversion to bringing in adults, like

1732
01:28:28,240 --> 01:28:30,760
Speaker 2: people who were not in their twenties, like his the

1733
01:28:30,760 --> 01:28:33,360
Speaker 2: friends he went to college with. And shit, he said

1734
01:28:33,360 --> 01:28:36,240
Speaker 2: in one interview with Michael, we tried having some grown ups,

1735
01:28:36,280 --> 01:28:38,599
Speaker 2: but they didn't do anything. This was true for everyone

1736
01:28:38,680 --> 01:28:42,599
Speaker 2: over the age of forty five. All they did was worry, which, like, again,

1737
01:28:42,640 --> 01:28:45,400
Speaker 2: given what happened, perhaps they auto have been.

1738
01:28:45,520 --> 01:28:47,720
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm just like sort of on one with the

1739
01:28:47,760 --> 01:28:50,639
Speaker 3: idea that very few stand ups have a valuable thought

1740
01:28:50,720 --> 01:28:55,240
Speaker 3: after forty five. But I would say now reflecting on it,

1741
01:28:55,360 --> 01:28:59,120
Speaker 3: like Sam bankman Fred is using the improv troop approach

1742
01:28:59,640 --> 01:29:02,680
Speaker 3: to have very high stakes business. Yes, like He's like, no,

1743
01:29:02,760 --> 01:29:05,320
Speaker 3: I will only work with people I went to college with,

1744
01:29:05,800 --> 01:29:09,320
Speaker 3: we know best. I don't want no fucking crusties in

1745
01:29:09,360 --> 01:29:11,960
Speaker 3: the room. Like if he I mean? And we could

1746
01:29:11,960 --> 01:29:14,160
Speaker 3: debate all day about whether Sam Bank mcfred would have

1747
01:29:14,160 --> 01:29:17,400
Speaker 3: done more evil in his life so far or in

1748
01:29:17,439 --> 01:29:20,400
Speaker 3: his life as an improv comedian, because I think they

1749
01:29:20,400 --> 01:29:23,759
Speaker 3: should all be in forever jail. Soh yahsind of, it's difficult,

1750
01:29:23,840 --> 01:29:24,720
Speaker 3: It's difficult.

1751
01:29:25,200 --> 01:29:28,040
Speaker 2: This is what Levenworth should be right. The military needs

1752
01:29:28,080 --> 01:29:30,920
Speaker 2: to take stand up comedians into custody. I've always and

1753
01:29:31,000 --> 01:29:31,360
Speaker 2: I'm on.

1754
01:29:31,479 --> 01:29:34,000
Speaker 3: A lot of lists. Yeah, you know how many bars

1755
01:29:34,040 --> 01:29:37,519
Speaker 3: have performed into no people, I'm on a lot of lists.

1756
01:29:37,880 --> 01:29:41,600
Speaker 2: So Sam's response when he was asked by Michael like,

1757
01:29:41,680 --> 01:29:44,960
Speaker 2: why don't you guys even have a CFO? That seems important?

1758
01:29:45,280 --> 01:29:48,599
Speaker 2: He says, there's a functional religion around the CFO. I'll

1759
01:29:48,640 --> 01:29:50,599
Speaker 2: ask them why do I need one? Some people cannot

1760
01:29:50,720 --> 01:29:53,240
Speaker 2: articulate a single thing the CFO is supposed to do.

1761
01:29:53,439 --> 01:29:55,960
Speaker 2: They'll say, keep track of the money or make projections,

1762
01:29:56,000 --> 01:29:57,800
Speaker 2: And I'm like, what the fuck do you think I

1763
01:29:57,880 --> 01:29:59,320
Speaker 2: do all day? You think I don't know how much

1764
01:29:59,400 --> 01:30:03,080
Speaker 2: money we have? Which is funny because his whole legal

1765
01:30:03,120 --> 01:30:05,360
Speaker 2: defense in court was I had no idea how much

1766
01:30:05,400 --> 01:30:08,479
Speaker 2: money we had or where it was, like, and that's

1767
01:30:08,520 --> 01:30:10,680
Speaker 2: why I didn't commit a crime, right because I just

1768
01:30:10,840 --> 01:30:13,519
Speaker 2: was incompetent. I didn't know where the money was. But

1769
01:30:13,560 --> 01:30:17,240
Speaker 2: it's all somewhere, Like very silly thing to say, give

1770
01:30:17,280 --> 01:30:18,559
Speaker 2: it what he's about to say.

1771
01:30:19,040 --> 01:30:19,360
Speaker 3: Okay.

1772
01:30:20,439 --> 01:30:25,000
Speaker 2: So, after Sam's life fell apart, Michael Lewis continued to

1773
01:30:25,040 --> 01:30:28,200
Speaker 2: talk and visit multiple He sometimes would call like three

1774
01:30:28,280 --> 01:30:31,559
Speaker 2: or four times a day through the eight months that

1775
01:30:31,600 --> 01:30:34,479
Speaker 2: Sam was on house arrest. And it's interesting to me because,

1776
01:30:34,520 --> 01:30:37,920
Speaker 2: like Michael, if I was a journalist like Michael Lewis,

1777
01:30:38,360 --> 01:30:41,040
Speaker 2: and I had had a conversation with somebody when they

1778
01:30:41,080 --> 01:30:43,840
Speaker 2: were one of the biggest names in an industry, being

1779
01:30:43,920 --> 01:30:46,479
Speaker 2: like a CFO is useless, I know where the money is,

1780
01:30:46,800 --> 01:30:49,240
Speaker 2: and then their entire life explodes because they didn't know

1781
01:30:49,280 --> 01:30:51,040
Speaker 2: what the money is. I would at at some point

1782
01:30:51,080 --> 01:30:55,759
Speaker 2: asked him the question, Hey, was that maybe a bad idea?

1783
01:30:55,880 --> 01:30:58,800
Speaker 2: Michael does not bring this up to Sam after the

1784
01:30:58,840 --> 01:31:01,519
Speaker 2: collapse and any of the does of conversations that they've had,

1785
01:31:01,800 --> 01:31:04,040
Speaker 2: and in fact, and this is why that's weird, the

1786
01:31:04,080 --> 01:31:07,080
Speaker 2: actual villain of his book Going Infinite. The one person

1787
01:31:07,200 --> 01:31:10,400
Speaker 2: that Lewis is super critical of in like a really

1788
01:31:10,479 --> 01:31:13,920
Speaker 2: uncharitable way is the CEO brought into take over the

1789
01:31:14,040 --> 01:31:18,599
Speaker 2: FTX after Sam like leaves and declares bankruptcy, a guy

1790
01:31:18,680 --> 01:31:22,920
Speaker 2: named John Ray the Third. Now, I am not going

1791
01:31:23,040 --> 01:31:26,000
Speaker 2: to go to bat for John Ray the third because

1792
01:31:26,560 --> 01:31:29,920
Speaker 2: he he's John His name is John Ray the Third.

1793
01:31:30,920 --> 01:31:33,240
Speaker 3: Like that's the difficult name to go to bat for.

1794
01:31:33,560 --> 01:31:35,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he is. You know, he's the guy who

1795
01:31:36,120 --> 01:31:40,760
Speaker 2: got brought into liquidate in Ran and he's he's kind

1796
01:31:40,760 --> 01:31:42,920
Speaker 2: of a corporate undertaker. Right when a when there's a

1797
01:31:43,000 --> 01:31:45,920
Speaker 2: huge scandal at a company, when it like collapses goes

1798
01:31:45,960 --> 01:31:48,200
Speaker 2: into bankruptcy, and you need someone to kind of do

1799
01:31:48,280 --> 01:31:51,559
Speaker 2: the post mortem. You bring in John Ray. And he's like,

1800
01:31:51,800 --> 01:31:52,320
Speaker 2: as far as.

1801
01:31:52,240 --> 01:31:53,759
Speaker 3: I know, not the first or second.

1802
01:31:54,000 --> 01:31:56,680
Speaker 2: No, not the first or second. Those guys are useless.

1803
01:31:56,439 --> 01:31:58,960
Speaker 3: No fucking clowns. Okay, you're gonna want to bring in

1804
01:31:58,960 --> 01:31:59,280
Speaker 3: the third?

1805
01:31:59,439 --> 01:32:00,559
Speaker 2: You need a j are three?

1806
01:32:01,000 --> 01:32:04,360
Speaker 3: I'm with you, so nicer.

1807
01:32:04,800 --> 01:32:09,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting, like the degree to which he has

1808
01:32:09,240 --> 01:32:12,240
Speaker 2: because this guy comes in later and I think because

1809
01:32:12,240 --> 01:32:16,760
Speaker 2: he's boring. Michael Lewis finds him disgusting. Like I haven't

1810
01:32:16,840 --> 01:32:18,600
Speaker 2: run into any info that he's like bad at what

1811
01:32:18,680 --> 01:32:21,680
Speaker 2: he does. It's certainly not his fault, but Michael is

1812
01:32:21,760 --> 01:32:25,440
Speaker 2: livid because he's this kind of like stodgy old businessman

1813
01:32:25,520 --> 01:32:28,400
Speaker 2: and he doesn't understand Sam's special playground or like the

1814
01:32:28,439 --> 01:32:30,920
Speaker 2: wonderful thing that he built, and he's just kind of

1815
01:32:31,240 --> 01:32:33,439
Speaker 2: exasperated at how badly it all works.

1816
01:32:33,800 --> 01:32:36,360
Speaker 3: See. That's fascinating to me because to me, that says

1817
01:32:36,360 --> 01:32:40,320
Speaker 3: like Michael Lewis is, I mean, either just hates boring people,

1818
01:32:40,439 --> 01:32:43,400
Speaker 3: which fair enough, but you know he should know as

1819
01:32:43,439 --> 01:32:46,760
Speaker 3: a journalist that boring people are often and maybe most

1820
01:32:46,800 --> 01:32:50,839
Speaker 3: often tremendously capable of doing bad shit. But it seems

1821
01:32:50,840 --> 01:32:53,280
Speaker 3: like he's looking more for like, well, Bradley Cooper can't

1822
01:32:53,280 --> 01:32:55,800
Speaker 3: play you in a movie. You're useless. To me, guards

1823
01:32:56,240 --> 01:32:56,960
Speaker 3: you're boring.

1824
01:32:57,120 --> 01:32:59,559
Speaker 2: There's nothing. Yeah, there's nothing sexy about him. He's just

1825
01:32:59,600 --> 01:33:03,360
Speaker 2: trying to deal up, like clean up after a disaster.

1826
01:33:03,720 --> 01:33:06,200
Speaker 2: And there's some really funny lines in the book because

1827
01:33:06,240 --> 01:33:07,960
Speaker 2: like one of the things that Lewis has to do

1828
01:33:08,080 --> 01:33:10,160
Speaker 2: in order to kind of defend Sam as a genius

1829
01:33:10,760 --> 01:33:14,840
Speaker 2: is explain how he didn't steal nine billion dollars, right,

1830
01:33:14,920 --> 01:33:16,720
Speaker 2: And the answer that Lewis has come to is that

1831
01:33:16,800 --> 01:33:19,360
Speaker 2: money is all there, that he just didn't know where

1832
01:33:19,439 --> 01:33:23,720
Speaker 2: nine billion dollars was. Oh yeah, he didn't steal it

1833
01:33:23,880 --> 01:33:27,120
Speaker 2: or gamble it away. He just misplaced it due to

1834
01:33:27,200 --> 01:33:30,479
Speaker 2: rank and competence that he committed because he was too

1835
01:33:30,520 --> 01:33:32,840
Speaker 2: smart to keep track of things. And there's a I'm

1836
01:33:32,840 --> 01:33:37,679
Speaker 2: going to read you a very Yeah, there's a really

1837
01:33:37,720 --> 01:33:41,200
Speaker 2: fun quote there. He describes like Lewis describes FTX as

1838
01:33:41,240 --> 01:33:44,120
Speaker 2: a real business, but he says that John Ray, who

1839
01:33:44,160 --> 01:33:47,080
Speaker 2: like attacked it as the worst run company I'd ever seen,

1840
01:33:47,439 --> 01:33:50,360
Speaker 2: was just too much of an idiot to like understand it, right.

1841
01:33:50,960 --> 01:33:54,839
Speaker 2: He describes Ray trying to figure out what company assets

1842
01:33:54,920 --> 01:33:58,519
Speaker 2: actually existed in what didn't, as quote, like an amateur

1843
01:33:58,640 --> 01:34:02,960
Speaker 2: archaeologist who had stumbled upon a previously unknown civilization. Unable

1844
01:34:03,000 --> 01:34:05,400
Speaker 2: to learn anything about its customs or language, he just

1845
01:34:05,439 --> 01:34:09,519
Speaker 2: started digging, right. Likely, he's too dumb to understand the

1846
01:34:09,560 --> 01:34:12,040
Speaker 2: brilliant thing that Sam built up, so he just starts

1847
01:34:12,160 --> 01:34:16,200
Speaker 2: like churning about in the wreckage without really appreciating everything

1848
01:34:16,240 --> 01:34:18,839
Speaker 2: that went into making this monufental edifice.

1849
01:34:19,320 --> 01:34:21,960
Speaker 3: And I really wonder, like what I mean, this is

1850
01:34:22,000 --> 01:34:23,760
Speaker 3: like getting into the weeds a little bit, but I'm

1851
01:34:23,880 --> 01:34:29,240
Speaker 3: very curious, like what, like who on Michael Lewis's editorial

1852
01:34:29,280 --> 01:34:32,640
Speaker 3: team is keeping him in check. It doesn't sound like

1853
01:34:32,680 --> 01:34:35,280
Speaker 3: he's hired a fact checker. He's to sound like he

1854
01:34:35,320 --> 01:34:38,120
Speaker 3: has a personal Jimminy cricket, So he's just saying shit

1855
01:34:38,400 --> 01:34:40,559
Speaker 3: like his personal biases couldn't be more out.

1856
01:34:41,280 --> 01:34:43,280
Speaker 2: They wanted to rush this thing out, so you don't

1857
01:34:43,320 --> 01:34:45,880
Speaker 2: have much time to edit it, right, True, Yeah, a

1858
01:34:45,960 --> 01:34:49,160
Speaker 2: year to write and release a book is not a

1859
01:34:49,200 --> 01:34:49,759
Speaker 2: long time.

1860
01:34:50,080 --> 01:34:52,760
Speaker 3: No, not enough time on one might.

1861
01:34:52,960 --> 01:34:55,719
Speaker 2: Not enough time, one might argue. And also Michael Lewis

1862
01:34:55,800 --> 01:35:00,240
Speaker 2: has the kind of clout to make that not happen, right,

1863
01:35:00,439 --> 01:35:02,559
Speaker 2: And again, I also kind of think that his hatred

1864
01:35:02,640 --> 01:35:05,080
Speaker 2: of Ray here is based on the fact that Ray

1865
01:35:05,160 --> 01:35:08,680
Speaker 2: did not fall for Sam's bullshit the way Michael did. Right.

1866
01:35:09,320 --> 01:35:11,800
Speaker 2: Here's what Ray said shortly after taking over and getting

1867
01:35:11,800 --> 01:35:14,120
Speaker 2: a look at ftx's finances, And this is from an

1868
01:35:14,160 --> 01:35:17,720
Speaker 2: our article in Business Insider. At the hearing, Congresswoman and

1869
01:35:17,760 --> 01:35:20,719
Speaker 2: Wagner of Missouri asked Ray to elaborate on the specific

1870
01:35:20,800 --> 01:35:23,679
Speaker 2: ways FTX was worse than quote, one of the largest

1871
01:35:23,720 --> 01:35:27,320
Speaker 2: corporate frauds in history. Ray explained that FTX was unusual

1872
01:35:27,320 --> 01:35:30,040
Speaker 2: and that it had no record keeping whatsoever. He said

1873
01:35:30,040 --> 01:35:33,000
Speaker 2: that employees would exchange invoices and expenses on Slack, the

1874
01:35:33,080 --> 01:35:37,000
Speaker 2: ubiquitous workplace chat room. They used QuickBooks, he added, referring

1875
01:35:37,000 --> 01:35:41,080
Speaker 2: to the accounting software QuickBooks. Congresswoman Wagner asked for clarification.

1876
01:35:41,439 --> 01:35:44,439
Speaker 2: QuickBooks very nice tool, not for a multi billion dollar company.

1877
01:35:44,520 --> 01:35:48,040
Speaker 2: Ray confirmed, And that's like, basically they're using the kind

1878
01:35:48,080 --> 01:35:49,880
Speaker 2: of thing that you would use if you're like a

1879
01:35:50,120 --> 01:35:52,960
Speaker 2: person keeping track of you or maybe your small business

1880
01:35:53,000 --> 01:35:53,519
Speaker 2: is accounting.

1881
01:35:53,960 --> 01:35:59,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've done that and like that that's nuts.

1882
01:35:59,680 --> 01:36:02,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is like the close attitude too. Yeah.

1883
01:36:02,960 --> 01:36:05,240
Speaker 3: I was like, that's the closest thing I've come to debuting. Like, Wow,

1884
01:36:05,320 --> 01:36:07,400
Speaker 3: if I was also the tasked with multi billion dollars,

1885
01:36:07,439 --> 01:36:10,200
Speaker 3: I'd be like, I don't know, yeah, books, we will

1886
01:36:10,240 --> 01:36:12,559
Speaker 3: we go to Turbo tax, what do we do? I

1887
01:36:12,560 --> 01:36:14,519
Speaker 3: would like hire a CFO me.

1888
01:36:14,720 --> 01:36:17,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would hire someone who's done that before.

1889
01:36:17,479 --> 01:36:19,800
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, quick Books Holy shit.

1890
01:36:20,160 --> 01:36:23,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you can decide whose interpretation sounds more realistic,

1891
01:36:23,960 --> 01:36:26,800
Speaker 2: John Ray recognize you can Basically, the two possibilities are

1892
01:36:26,840 --> 01:36:30,360
Speaker 2: like either John Ray just recognizes basic incompetence when he

1893
01:36:30,439 --> 01:36:33,679
Speaker 2: sees it and gets angry, or he's just not brilliant

1894
01:36:33,680 --> 01:36:37,559
Speaker 2: and special enough to understand Sam's world, which is is

1895
01:36:37,600 --> 01:36:40,920
Speaker 2: what That's what Michael lewis, that's he in caps. That's

1896
01:36:40,960 --> 01:36:44,679
Speaker 2: what Michael Lewis refers to FTX as is Sam's world, right,

1897
01:36:45,000 --> 01:36:48,559
Speaker 2: This is a he basically treats the whole situation as like, yes,

1898
01:36:48,640 --> 01:36:52,320
Speaker 2: Sam's Sam lived in this magical world and you know

1899
01:36:52,400 --> 01:36:56,519
Speaker 2: his business was actually secretly good, but it encountered this

1900
01:36:56,680 --> 01:36:59,240
Speaker 2: temporary issue and he was forced out and then John

1901
01:36:59,320 --> 01:37:01,599
Speaker 2: Ray came in and he tore it all apart because

1902
01:37:01,600 --> 01:37:03,520
Speaker 2: he's just the mean, old, grumpy businessman.

1903
01:37:03,720 --> 01:37:03,920
Speaker 1: Right.

1904
01:37:04,920 --> 01:37:09,000
Speaker 2: That's really like the thrust of Michael Lewis's book, and

1905
01:37:09,080 --> 01:37:11,880
Speaker 2: part of how he kind of emphasizes the magical inner

1906
01:37:11,880 --> 01:37:14,840
Speaker 2: world Sam lived in is this kind of obsession with

1907
01:37:14,960 --> 01:37:19,440
Speaker 2: gaming returning to like Lewis is just sort of fascinated

1908
01:37:19,560 --> 01:37:22,519
Speaker 2: with like the fact that Sam was an addict, Right,

1909
01:37:22,560 --> 01:37:24,759
Speaker 2: Sam is a gaming addict. That's what when you can't

1910
01:37:24,800 --> 01:37:28,080
Speaker 2: like handle your basic functions because you're too busy playing

1911
01:37:28,160 --> 01:37:33,679
Speaker 2: storybook brawl. That's an addiction, right, yeah, yeah, And it's

1912
01:37:33,720 --> 01:37:37,040
Speaker 2: interesting both because storybook bral was made by his childhood

1913
01:37:37,040 --> 01:37:42,240
Speaker 2: friend and he used consumer funds to purchase it. It

1914
01:37:42,320 --> 01:37:44,800
Speaker 2: seems to have been a pretty mid game. It shut

1915
01:37:44,840 --> 01:37:47,400
Speaker 2: down after he got arrested, so I can't play it

1916
01:37:47,400 --> 01:37:50,479
Speaker 2: to tell you if it's actually good. But Lewis doesn't

1917
01:37:50,479 --> 01:37:53,320
Speaker 2: describe it as like a middle brow app game. He

1918
01:37:53,360 --> 01:37:56,720
Speaker 2: describes it as like better than chess, like more complex

1919
01:37:56,840 --> 01:38:01,759
Speaker 2: than chess, a greater intellectual expert are exercise than chess,

1920
01:38:02,400 --> 01:38:05,479
Speaker 2: and he writes this paragraph about it. Sam didn't care

1921
01:38:05,560 --> 01:38:08,479
Speaker 2: for games like chess, where the players controlled everything and

1922
01:38:08,520 --> 01:38:12,479
Speaker 2: the best move was, in theory perfectly calculable Chess. He'd

1923
01:38:12,479 --> 01:38:14,840
Speaker 2: have liked better if robot voices wired into the board.

1924
01:38:14,840 --> 01:38:18,000
Speaker 2: Hollered rule changes at random intervals. Nights are now rooks,

1925
01:38:18,040 --> 01:38:20,960
Speaker 2: all bishops must leave the board, Ponds can now fly,

1926
01:38:21,360 --> 01:38:23,599
Speaker 2: or almost anything, so long as the new rule forced

1927
01:38:23,640 --> 01:38:26,559
Speaker 2: all players to scrap whatever strategy they'd been pursuing and

1928
01:38:26,600 --> 01:38:30,040
Speaker 2: improvise another better one. The game Sam loved allowed for

1929
01:38:30,080 --> 01:38:33,479
Speaker 2: only partial knowledge of any situation. Trading Crypto was like that,

1930
01:38:34,080 --> 01:38:35,880
Speaker 2: and I think getting.

1931
01:38:35,640 --> 01:38:39,400
Speaker 3: Fucking ridiculous like, is there any chance that Sam Bankman

1932
01:38:39,520 --> 01:38:42,240
Speaker 3: Freed paid Michael Lewis to say this shit?

1933
01:38:42,400 --> 01:38:44,800
Speaker 2: Like, I maybe I don't know that he the money

1934
01:38:45,360 --> 01:38:46,440
Speaker 2: one of the things.

1935
01:38:46,120 --> 01:38:50,640
Speaker 3: That there's no proof that he isn't dense. But this

1936
01:38:50,840 --> 01:38:52,640
Speaker 3: is like above and beyond.

1937
01:38:53,120 --> 01:38:55,400
Speaker 2: The reason why I get that a lot. They're like, well,

1938
01:38:55,840 --> 01:38:58,920
Speaker 2: Michael Lewis is obviously bribed, but like, Michael Lewis is

1939
01:38:59,120 --> 01:39:01,920
Speaker 2: very rich. I don't know how you could bribe Michael Lewis,

1940
01:39:02,000 --> 01:39:03,880
Speaker 2: especially after you lose your money.

1941
01:39:04,320 --> 01:39:07,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, and even if he wasn't from money, he'd be there.

1942
01:39:07,800 --> 01:39:11,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, He's always been rich and always will be.

1943
01:39:11,640 --> 01:39:13,960
Speaker 2: So I don't know how much I think that's that's likely.

1944
01:39:14,479 --> 01:39:17,679
Speaker 2: I think he just this is his first time ever

1945
01:39:17,720 --> 01:39:20,320
Speaker 2: hearing about games, and so he thinks Sam is brilliant

1946
01:39:20,360 --> 01:39:24,120
Speaker 2: and special because he played them obsessively. I also think,

1947
01:39:24,640 --> 01:39:27,320
Speaker 2: you know, we just did our episodes on Lord John Aspinall,

1948
01:39:27,360 --> 01:39:30,479
Speaker 2: who was like this this British gambling maven who took

1949
01:39:30,520 --> 01:39:35,360
Speaker 2: away who like basically got the upper class of the

1950
01:39:35,680 --> 01:39:38,200
Speaker 2: England and like the mid century to just gamble away

1951
01:39:38,240 --> 01:39:40,640
Speaker 2: all of their fucking money. And a big part of

1952
01:39:40,720 --> 01:39:43,680
Speaker 2: why this kind of like old generation of the aristocracy

1953
01:39:43,760 --> 01:39:46,719
Speaker 2: lost so much is they were into these specifically games

1954
01:39:46,720 --> 01:39:48,600
Speaker 2: of chance, like Shamanda fair, which is a kind of

1955
01:39:48,600 --> 01:39:53,280
Speaker 2: bacca where basically there's no skill involved. It's pure it's

1956
01:39:53,320 --> 01:39:56,240
Speaker 2: as close to pure chance as possible. Because there was

1957
01:39:56,280 --> 01:39:58,639
Speaker 2: this like change in the kind of gambling the upper

1958
01:39:58,640 --> 01:40:00,800
Speaker 2: class like to do. And I've heard thee or ice.

1959
01:40:00,840 --> 01:40:03,600
Speaker 2: It's basically just like, well, these people had nothing in

1960
01:40:03,640 --> 01:40:06,360
Speaker 2: their life but gambling. Right, They've always been rich, They're

1961
01:40:06,400 --> 01:40:09,080
Speaker 2: born rich, They've always lived these super safe lives. The

1962
01:40:09,160 --> 01:40:11,759
Speaker 2: only thrill they had was throwing a bunch of money

1963
01:40:11,800 --> 01:40:14,280
Speaker 2: on like the effectively a complete chance.

1964
01:40:14,760 --> 01:40:17,680
Speaker 3: And understand that because it's like, what's the worst that's

1965
01:40:17,720 --> 01:40:20,080
Speaker 3: going to happen. You're going to become marginally less rich

1966
01:40:20,160 --> 01:40:22,400
Speaker 3: but still maintain the same quality of life.

1967
01:40:22,520 --> 01:40:25,720
Speaker 2: That sounds boring, Yeah, you've just they've they are just

1968
01:40:25,840 --> 01:40:30,439
Speaker 2: insulated from anything thrilling because they're insulated from any real danger, right.

1969
01:40:30,560 --> 01:40:31,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1970
01:40:31,040 --> 01:40:34,000
Speaker 2: And so I think Sam being this kind of rich,

1971
01:40:34,120 --> 01:40:38,120
Speaker 2: sheltered kid that's Lewis interprets. It's like he's too smart

1972
01:40:38,120 --> 01:40:40,200
Speaker 2: to play a game like chess. He wants a game

1973
01:40:40,240 --> 01:40:42,320
Speaker 2: where he doesn't actually know what's going on, and a

1974
01:40:42,360 --> 01:40:44,519
Speaker 2: lot of that's random. It's like, well, I just see

1975
01:40:44,520 --> 01:40:47,559
Speaker 2: these old British gamblers and Sam Bankman freed where again

1976
01:40:47,920 --> 01:40:50,000
Speaker 2: this kid has nothing but the throw of the dice

1977
01:40:50,080 --> 01:40:53,519
Speaker 2: inside him and that's what he liked, right like, and

1978
01:40:53,600 --> 01:40:57,480
Speaker 2: he put a lot of other people's money on those bets. Yeah, anyway,

1979
01:40:57,800 --> 01:40:59,720
Speaker 2: this is a little beside the point, but I did

1980
01:40:59,720 --> 01:41:01,320
Speaker 2: want to read the actual part of the book where

1981
01:41:01,360 --> 01:41:04,759
Speaker 2: Lewis describes Magic the Gathering, because it's it is very boomer.

1982
01:41:05,680 --> 01:41:08,519
Speaker 2: Magic had been created in the early nineteen nineties by

1983
01:41:08,560 --> 01:41:11,599
Speaker 2: a young mathematician named Richard Garfield. It was the first

1984
01:41:11,680 --> 01:41:14,479
Speaker 2: kind of a new kind of game, designed perhaps for

1985
01:41:14,560 --> 01:41:17,240
Speaker 2: a new kind of person. Garfield had started with an

1986
01:41:17,240 --> 01:41:20,120
Speaker 2: odd question, could a strategic game be designed that allowed

1987
01:41:20,120 --> 01:41:22,960
Speaker 2: the players to come to it with different equipment? And again,

1988
01:41:23,640 --> 01:41:27,559
Speaker 2: Games Workshop had started making Warhammer years before Magic came out,

1989
01:41:27,600 --> 01:41:29,920
Speaker 2: Like all games like this have existed forever.

1990
01:41:30,400 --> 01:41:33,360
Speaker 3: I couldn't hear you over the sound of imagining Garfield

1991
01:41:33,360 --> 01:41:34,480
Speaker 3: the cat saying.

1992
01:41:34,200 --> 01:41:38,559
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, which Garfield, Bill Murray or are we talking Chris Pratt?

1993
01:41:39,120 --> 01:41:43,439
Speaker 3: There's also a secret third Garfield. Garfield, whoever did the

1994
01:41:43,479 --> 01:41:46,520
Speaker 3: voice acting on Garfield and Friends, which is my canonical

1995
01:41:46,640 --> 01:41:50,960
Speaker 3: Garfield voice, certainly not Chris Pratt Garfield there. I forget

1996
01:41:51,000 --> 01:41:53,800
Speaker 3: who tweeted this, but there is a vibe with the

1997
01:41:53,840 --> 01:41:56,360
Speaker 3: new Garfield that Chris Pratt has been locked in a

1998
01:41:56,439 --> 01:42:02,400
Speaker 3: room forced to voice every major It's like a it's

1999
01:42:02,400 --> 01:42:04,840
Speaker 3: his infinity punishment. He'll be rich, but he can never

2000
01:42:04,960 --> 01:42:05,879
Speaker 3: leave the room.

2001
01:42:06,240 --> 01:42:08,439
Speaker 2: I'm okay with that. Actually, yeah, let's.

2002
01:42:08,360 --> 01:42:10,760
Speaker 3: Keep him in the room. He doesn't have any good ideas.

2003
01:42:11,040 --> 01:42:14,000
Speaker 2: No, no, keep him in the room. Every every six

2004
01:42:14,120 --> 01:42:16,839
Speaker 2: years he can come out to do another interminable Jurassic

2005
01:42:16,880 --> 01:42:17,800
Speaker 2: World movie.

2006
01:42:18,920 --> 01:42:20,440
Speaker 3: No, the villain was Locus.

2007
01:42:22,800 --> 01:42:27,120
Speaker 2: So Lewis is so ignorant of kind of the basics

2008
01:42:27,160 --> 01:42:29,080
Speaker 2: of youth culture to this day that he sort of

2009
01:42:29,120 --> 01:42:32,519
Speaker 2: transposes a lot of completely normal millennial and zoomer behaviors

2010
01:42:32,520 --> 01:42:35,680
Speaker 2: As evidence of Sam's unique brilliance. Here's another clip from

2011
01:42:35,720 --> 01:42:39,200
Speaker 2: sixty Minutes where he describes how Sam treated effective altruism.

2012
01:42:39,240 --> 01:42:41,320
Speaker 2: That that ties into this and this is remarkable.

2013
01:42:43,040 --> 01:42:45,800
Speaker 6: What it means, in Sam's instance is you can go

2014
01:42:45,920 --> 01:42:48,439
Speaker 6: out and have a career where you do good. You

2015
01:42:48,479 --> 01:42:51,160
Speaker 6: can go be a doctor in Africa, or you can

2016
01:42:51,200 --> 01:42:53,280
Speaker 6: go out and make as much money as possible and

2017
01:42:53,360 --> 01:42:55,519
Speaker 6: pay people to be doctors in Africa. If you're a

2018
01:42:55,560 --> 01:42:57,880
Speaker 6: doctor in Africa, you get you end up saving a

2019
01:42:57,880 --> 01:43:00,240
Speaker 6: certain number of lives. But you're only one doctor. But

2020
01:43:00,280 --> 01:43:04,200
Speaker 6: if you can pay forty people to become doctors in Africa,

2021
01:43:04,200 --> 01:43:07,080
Speaker 6: are gonna You're gonna save forty times a number of lives.

2022
01:43:07,080 --> 01:43:08,599
Speaker 2: This is like a strategy game.

2023
01:43:08,680 --> 01:43:11,479
Speaker 6: Well you don't understand Sam Backmfreed. Unless you understand, then

2024
01:43:11,520 --> 01:43:14,120
Speaker 6: he turns everything into a game. Everything is gamified.

2025
01:43:15,800 --> 01:43:18,760
Speaker 3: He's describing a pyramid scheme of doctors.

2026
01:43:18,840 --> 01:43:21,280
Speaker 2: Yes, am I like?

2027
01:43:21,880 --> 01:43:24,240
Speaker 3: And he's saying this on sixty minutes, I like, I

2028
01:43:24,320 --> 01:43:27,719
Speaker 3: cannot put wrap my Okay, now I am like taking

2029
01:43:27,800 --> 01:43:31,240
Speaker 3: him being paid off like or paid on or we're

2030
01:43:31,320 --> 01:43:33,799
Speaker 3: off off the table because you're just like, this is ridiculous.

2031
01:43:34,040 --> 01:43:37,519
Speaker 3: This is like you're stupid, like to like the fact

2032
01:43:37,520 --> 01:43:40,519
Speaker 3: that people somehow collectively forgot that you wrote the blind

2033
01:43:40,600 --> 01:43:44,080
Speaker 3: Side on Fire to say this shit on sixty minutes,

2034
01:43:44,120 --> 01:43:49,160
Speaker 3: it just like, is it's what he's describing a pyramid scheme?

2035
01:43:49,640 --> 01:43:52,719
Speaker 2: He sure is, he is describing a fucking pyramid scheme.

2036
01:43:52,800 --> 01:43:57,960
Speaker 2: And also like this whole he turns everything into a

2037
01:43:58,040 --> 01:44:01,320
Speaker 2: game like because the through life connection there.

2038
01:44:01,280 --> 01:44:02,759
Speaker 3: Is like Chi saw for good.

2039
01:44:03,080 --> 01:44:06,000
Speaker 2: Yes, sure Sam could have been a doctor in Africa,

2040
01:44:06,160 --> 01:44:08,759
Speaker 2: but by making a lot of money, he could hire

2041
01:44:08,800 --> 01:44:12,160
Speaker 2: a bunch of doctors in Africa. And the through line

2042
01:44:12,160 --> 01:44:14,519
Speaker 2: you're meant to make is he was the guy who

2043
01:44:14,640 --> 01:44:17,200
Speaker 2: was best suited making a lot of money because he

2044
01:44:17,280 --> 01:44:22,240
Speaker 2: turned everything into a game. And man, that's again not

2045
01:44:22,400 --> 01:44:25,040
Speaker 2: unique to Sam a significant percentage of the US economy.

2046
01:44:25,040 --> 01:44:27,880
Speaker 2: It's based around taking the logic and addictive strategies game

2047
01:44:27,920 --> 01:44:31,400
Speaker 2: developers use and applying it to every imaginable industry, right,

2048
01:44:31,479 --> 01:44:34,960
Speaker 2: Like that's fucking everywhere, like Sam is again not unique

2049
01:44:35,000 --> 01:44:37,920
Speaker 2: in this. And also the it's just such a the

2050
01:44:37,920 --> 01:44:40,280
Speaker 2: fact that Lewis seems to have bought into the basic

2051
01:44:40,360 --> 01:44:42,320
Speaker 2: logic of like, well, it's better to pay a bunch

2052
01:44:42,400 --> 01:44:47,800
Speaker 2: of doctors than becoming one is silly because like, well,

2053
01:44:47,960 --> 01:44:50,320
Speaker 2: we have a shortage of doctors. We don't have a

2054
01:44:50,360 --> 01:44:53,639
Speaker 2: shortage of assholes who gamble with other people's money. There's

2055
01:44:53,880 --> 01:44:57,560
Speaker 2: there's not actually enough doctors for the people who need them.

2056
01:44:57,760 --> 01:45:00,840
Speaker 3: And also, I mean to that point, it doesn't sound

2057
01:45:00,920 --> 01:45:04,920
Speaker 3: like would I trust knowing what I do of Sam

2058
01:45:04,960 --> 01:45:08,639
Speaker 3: Bankman Fried's ability to multitask that would I trust him

2059
01:45:08,680 --> 01:45:12,479
Speaker 3: doing surgery? I don't think I would. I don't think

2060
01:45:12,520 --> 01:45:14,800
Speaker 3: I would. I wouldn't trust him doing either of those

2061
01:45:15,120 --> 01:45:15,800
Speaker 3: in Africa.

2062
01:45:16,120 --> 01:45:18,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, he would, he would never have, right,

2063
01:45:18,880 --> 01:45:21,519
Speaker 2: Like but yeah, anyway, but.

2064
01:45:21,520 --> 01:45:23,640
Speaker 3: It sounds like he I mean, maybe I'm like, you know,

2065
01:45:24,479 --> 01:45:26,559
Speaker 3: giving him too much credit and he's playing a game

2066
01:45:26,600 --> 01:45:29,120
Speaker 3: of forty chess, but it doesn't seem that way, and

2067
01:45:29,240 --> 01:45:31,799
Speaker 3: I like, he sounds ridiculous.

2068
01:45:31,479 --> 01:45:35,160
Speaker 2: I kind of outside of he's just completely deluded. His

2069
01:45:35,240 --> 01:45:37,200
Speaker 2: two options are he's just so out of touch with

2070
01:45:37,439 --> 01:45:39,880
Speaker 2: the youth that he thought Sam was unique in this,

2071
01:45:40,600 --> 01:45:44,439
Speaker 2: or he he decided from the moment he met him.

2072
01:45:44,800 --> 01:45:47,040
Speaker 2: This is the framing device I want to use for

2073
01:45:47,080 --> 01:45:49,200
Speaker 2: Sam's genius in my book because I can think I

2074
01:45:49,240 --> 01:45:51,840
Speaker 2: think they could film it easily, right, because I'm sure

2075
01:45:51,840 --> 01:45:53,599
Speaker 2: he thinks that way about the books he's written. He's

2076
01:45:53,600 --> 01:45:56,160
Speaker 2: had so many of them adapted, and like, yeah, if

2077
01:45:56,240 --> 01:45:57,880
Speaker 2: I you know, there's a lot of fun ways you

2078
01:45:57,880 --> 01:46:01,559
Speaker 2: could film this super genius solving his math problems through

2079
01:46:01,640 --> 01:46:05,639
Speaker 2: like imagining games out in the real world, right, m hm, yeah,

2080
01:46:05,680 --> 01:46:08,920
Speaker 2: So I my guess is that he just couldn't get

2081
01:46:09,000 --> 01:46:11,559
Speaker 2: himself off of this idea he had for like the

2082
01:46:11,560 --> 01:46:15,120
Speaker 2: inevitable Sam Bankman Freed movie, you know, crafted for the

2083
01:46:15,120 --> 01:46:16,280
Speaker 2: Big Bang Theory audience.

2084
01:46:16,320 --> 01:46:19,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, like he's already he's like, oh yeah, who's hot

2085
01:46:19,240 --> 01:46:22,400
Speaker 3: right now, Paul Mezcal, we'll we'll dye his hair. It's

2086
01:46:22,400 --> 01:46:23,439
Speaker 3: gonna be fucking great.

2087
01:46:23,920 --> 01:46:26,360
Speaker 2: No, I think they should have had Timothy Schallomey. I

2088
01:46:26,360 --> 01:46:28,640
Speaker 2: think they should have had Timothy Shallow may do like

2089
01:46:28,720 --> 01:46:31,720
Speaker 2: a you know what's his name, the Batman guy, where

2090
01:46:31,720 --> 01:46:34,360
Speaker 2: he would like wildly change his appearance in ways that

2091
01:46:34,360 --> 01:46:35,960
Speaker 2: are bad for his health every six time.

2092
01:46:36,920 --> 01:46:38,719
Speaker 3: Don't talk about Rubbert Pattens in that way.

2093
01:46:39,120 --> 01:46:45,280
Speaker 2: Or I want to see Timothy do a Christian bale

2094
01:46:45,320 --> 01:46:48,240
Speaker 2: to look like Sam Bankman Freed. That's that sounds fun.

2095
01:46:48,520 --> 01:46:50,639
Speaker 3: I just worry about Timothy Shalomey. It looks like if

2096
01:46:50,640 --> 01:46:53,000
Speaker 3: you like touch him, he may shatter. I just worry

2097
01:46:53,000 --> 01:46:55,080
Speaker 3: about him. He looks a frail.

2098
01:46:55,080 --> 01:46:58,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the right thing. He looks like he's got consumption.

2099
01:46:58,320 --> 01:47:00,960
Speaker 2: Yeah like that. They would say that about him in

2100
01:47:01,800 --> 01:47:03,160
Speaker 2: the distant past.

2101
01:47:03,280 --> 01:47:06,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's like if Sam Bankmin Freed is looking

2102
01:47:06,320 --> 01:47:08,880
Speaker 3: heartier than you are, Like you're in trouble, my man.

2103
01:47:09,000 --> 01:47:11,439
Speaker 2: Uh huh, yeah, well I wouldn't say that about Sam.

2104
01:47:11,520 --> 01:47:15,880
Speaker 2: But so there's an amusing coda to Lewis's loving descriptions

2105
01:47:15,920 --> 01:47:19,200
Speaker 2: of Sam as a compulsive gamer. This paragraph occurs right

2106
01:47:19,240 --> 01:47:21,719
Speaker 2: after the FTX customers pull a run on the bank,

2107
01:47:21,800 --> 01:47:24,760
Speaker 2: annihilating its cash reserves and starting its collapse. Is like

2108
01:47:25,200 --> 01:47:28,120
Speaker 2: the employees are all huddled inside their thirty million dollar

2109
01:47:28,200 --> 01:47:31,320
Speaker 2: Bahamas suites to try to figure out how to fix things.

2110
01:47:32,040 --> 01:47:34,559
Speaker 2: Nishad was agitated with Sam in a way that Romnick

2111
01:47:34,600 --> 01:47:37,599
Speaker 2: had never seen, at one point, turning on him and screaming,

2112
01:47:37,760 --> 01:47:42,840
Speaker 2: will you please fucking stop playing storybook brawl? And I

2113
01:47:43,040 --> 01:47:46,080
Speaker 2: like that anecdote, but it gets to another frustrating issue

2114
01:47:46,080 --> 01:47:48,240
Speaker 2: with Going Infinite, which is that Michael Lewis has all

2115
01:47:48,280 --> 01:47:51,759
Speaker 2: the ingredients for a great modern Charis story of Hubris

2116
01:47:51,800 --> 01:47:54,960
Speaker 2: and the Fall, but making it work tonally would require

2117
01:47:55,040 --> 01:47:57,679
Speaker 2: him to see these things that are obvious warning signs

2118
01:47:57,920 --> 01:48:01,240
Speaker 2: as warning signs and structure his that way, right, and

2119
01:48:01,280 --> 01:48:04,800
Speaker 2: then you get some Catharsis in the payoffs. But these

2120
01:48:04,960 --> 01:48:07,400
Speaker 2: warning signs are just sort of scattered around. They're not

2121
01:48:07,439 --> 01:48:09,679
Speaker 2: given the significance he would give them if he saw

2122
01:48:09,720 --> 01:48:12,760
Speaker 2: them as warning signs, because he's clearly taken with all

2123
01:48:12,800 --> 01:48:16,040
Speaker 2: of this stuff. Another example of a valid through line

2124
01:48:16,160 --> 01:48:19,120
Speaker 2: Lewis seems to have missed is Bankman Freed's complete disregard,

2125
01:48:19,200 --> 01:48:21,920
Speaker 2: even distaste, for the competence of the women around him.

2126
01:48:22,280 --> 01:48:25,760
Speaker 2: Lewis spends a fair amount of time on Sam's relationship

2127
01:48:25,800 --> 01:48:28,680
Speaker 2: with Carolyn, and he reprints these letters between them that

2128
01:48:28,800 --> 01:48:31,920
Speaker 2: certainly don't make Sam look great. It began with a

2129
01:48:31,960 --> 01:48:35,679
Speaker 2: seriously compelling list titled arguments against this is arguments against

2130
01:48:35,760 --> 01:48:37,880
Speaker 2: her dating him in a lot of ways, I don't

2131
01:48:37,880 --> 01:48:39,960
Speaker 2: really have a soul. This is a lot more obvious

2132
01:48:40,000 --> 01:48:41,760
Speaker 2: in some context than others. But in the end there's

2133
01:48:41,760 --> 01:48:44,160
Speaker 2: a pretty decent argument that my empathy is fake, my

2134
01:48:44,200 --> 01:48:46,840
Speaker 2: feelings are fake, my facial reactions are fake. I don't

2135
01:48:46,840 --> 01:48:49,559
Speaker 2: feel happiness. What's the point in dating someone you physically

2136
01:48:49,560 --> 01:48:51,759
Speaker 2: can't make happy. I have a long history of getting

2137
01:48:51,760 --> 01:48:54,000
Speaker 2: bored in claustrophobic. That says the makings of a time

2138
01:48:54,040 --> 01:48:56,040
Speaker 2: when I'm less worried about it than normal, but the

2139
01:48:56,080 --> 01:48:58,639
Speaker 2: baseline prior might be high enough that nothing else matters.

2140
01:48:58,840 --> 01:49:01,080
Speaker 2: I feel conflicted about what I want. Sometimes I really

2141
01:49:01,080 --> 01:49:02,680
Speaker 2: want to be with you. Sometimes I want to stay

2142
01:49:02,720 --> 01:49:04,679
Speaker 2: at work for sixty hours straight and not think about

2143
01:49:04,720 --> 01:49:07,400
Speaker 2: anything else. And so I.

2144
01:49:07,400 --> 01:49:10,439
Speaker 3: Want to say that I have this amount of self

2145
01:49:10,479 --> 01:49:12,559
Speaker 3: love to not fall for this, but I can't even

2146
01:49:12,600 --> 01:49:15,599
Speaker 3: say that one hundred percent. I just really feel for Carolyn,

2147
01:49:15,840 --> 01:49:18,519
Speaker 3: and at a lot of points in this story because it's,

2148
01:49:18,760 --> 01:49:21,200
Speaker 3: oh my god, I really like I feel like there's

2149
01:49:21,240 --> 01:49:25,720
Speaker 3: a version of someone who would be like, oh I

2150
01:49:25,800 --> 01:49:27,880
Speaker 3: can fix him, where you're like, oh no, this is

2151
01:49:28,000 --> 01:49:30,680
Speaker 3: like it's like queen fiction of like there's only one

2152
01:49:30,720 --> 01:49:35,040
Speaker 3: day and she loves me. I know, I know she's

2153
01:49:35,160 --> 01:49:37,160
Speaker 3: a disadvantage.

2154
01:49:36,880 --> 01:49:41,439
Speaker 2: And it's it's difficult because, like Lewis discusses kind of

2155
01:49:41,880 --> 01:49:47,080
Speaker 2: Sam's inability to be like functional with the people in

2156
01:49:47,120 --> 01:49:50,040
Speaker 2: his life because and he clearly has a thing like

2157
01:49:50,320 --> 01:49:55,200
Speaker 2: he lets he funds another another exchange by another woman

2158
01:49:55,240 --> 01:49:56,880
Speaker 2: in Crypto who he tries.

2159
01:49:56,640 --> 01:49:58,639
Speaker 3: To date women in Cristis.

2160
01:49:58,720 --> 01:50:01,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got this kind of thing going on. But

2161
01:50:01,439 --> 01:50:05,439
Speaker 2: Lewis kind of always writes off his behaviors like, well,

2162
01:50:05,960 --> 01:50:08,400
Speaker 2: you know, he just he was too depressed, he was

2163
01:50:08,439 --> 01:50:11,719
Speaker 2: too he can't foe. He's too brilliant to like be it's.

2164
01:50:11,560 --> 01:50:14,200
Speaker 3: A torture genius playbook of just like, oh, and he's

2165
01:50:14,240 --> 01:50:18,479
Speaker 3: horrible to women, but only because his mind is like

2166
01:50:18,800 --> 01:50:23,160
Speaker 3: there's I mean, they did the same. This happens every

2167
01:50:23,200 --> 01:50:25,960
Speaker 3: ten years, like that happened with Zuckerberg. They're like, no,

2168
01:50:26,160 --> 01:50:30,879
Speaker 3: he's like he's a rampant misogynist because like his business

2169
01:50:30,880 --> 01:50:33,320
Speaker 3: started off of misogyny because he just had so many

2170
01:50:33,360 --> 01:50:35,920
Speaker 3: good ideas that it was like pressing on the woman

2171
01:50:36,040 --> 01:50:39,800
Speaker 3: respect Like yeah, it's ridiculous.

2172
01:50:39,960 --> 01:50:43,400
Speaker 2: Kind of Meanwhile, when Lewis is describing like why Carolyn

2173
01:50:43,600 --> 01:50:46,240
Speaker 2: did what she did, he includes the lane, which he's like,

2174
01:50:46,320 --> 01:50:48,320
Speaker 2: he's like, he quotes someone as saying she would throw

2175
01:50:48,360 --> 01:50:50,920
Speaker 2: away all of her principles to be loved. Like she's

2176
01:50:51,000 --> 01:50:53,320
Speaker 2: the only one of the effective altruist kids who doesn't

2177
01:50:53,320 --> 01:50:57,240
Speaker 2: really believe in it. She's just so desperate for affection

2178
01:50:57,360 --> 01:51:01,320
Speaker 2: that she would like do anything for it. Like I

2179
01:51:01,320 --> 01:51:03,240
Speaker 2: don't know, Like I don't know the person, but it's

2180
01:51:03,280 --> 01:51:07,040
Speaker 2: it's weird that Lewis is so cynical about her and

2181
01:51:07,160 --> 01:51:09,400
Speaker 2: so full of excuses for sam.

2182
01:51:09,560 --> 01:51:11,640
Speaker 3: I would have I would have a fair amount of

2183
01:51:12,040 --> 01:51:15,320
Speaker 3: guesses as to why that may be, uh, and the

2184
01:51:15,360 --> 01:51:18,040
Speaker 3: way that it seems like in many ways that you know,

2185
01:51:18,160 --> 01:51:22,519
Speaker 3: Lewis has seen himself in Sam, and like, if you're

2186
01:51:22,600 --> 01:51:27,160
Speaker 3: especially if you're used to like writing profiles of very successful,

2187
01:51:27,320 --> 01:51:31,400
Speaker 3: eccentric people, which he is, if this is the precedent

2188
01:51:31,400 --> 01:51:34,440
Speaker 3: you've set for the kind of behavior that you would excuse,

2189
01:51:34,720 --> 01:51:39,200
Speaker 3: such as clear racism or sexism, why would this be

2190
01:51:39,280 --> 01:51:42,680
Speaker 3: any different, Like it's it fucking And then also on

2191
01:51:42,720 --> 01:51:47,280
Speaker 3: the other end of Carolyn being characterized as this like

2192
01:51:48,439 --> 01:51:52,360
Speaker 3: desperate for affection person, I try to like tap into

2193
01:51:52,400 --> 01:51:57,080
Speaker 3: that of like, God, if any of my personal correspondents

2194
01:51:57,080 --> 01:51:59,280
Speaker 3: came out, I'd be fucking cooked.

2195
01:51:59,439 --> 01:52:00,960
Speaker 2: Oh it would be devastating so.

2196
01:52:01,080 --> 01:52:06,400
Speaker 3: Many people and single thing. Yeah, of course, yeah, everyone's

2197
01:52:06,439 --> 01:52:07,360
Speaker 3: desperate for affection.

2198
01:52:08,040 --> 01:52:10,599
Speaker 2: So you know, anytime you see Lewis writing about Sam,

2199
01:52:10,640 --> 01:52:13,800
Speaker 2: he writes in kind of the terms Sam as one

2200
01:52:13,840 --> 01:52:15,840
Speaker 2: of the people in this weird effective altruism cult. He

2201
01:52:15,920 --> 01:52:18,160
Speaker 2: uses terms like he talks about his priors, which is

2202
01:52:18,240 --> 01:52:22,400
Speaker 2: like it's a way of like bringing Baysian mathematics into

2203
01:52:22,520 --> 01:52:25,080
Speaker 2: personal decisions and all you all you're saying when you're

2204
01:52:25,080 --> 01:52:27,599
Speaker 2: saying like, well, these are my priors, is like, well,

2205
01:52:27,600 --> 01:52:30,720
Speaker 2: this is the shit I believe without any kind of evidence. Right,

2206
01:52:30,920 --> 01:52:33,880
Speaker 2: that's largely what that means. These are like my pre

2207
01:52:34,000 --> 01:52:38,639
Speaker 2: existing biases. But saying pre existing biases like doesn't sound

2208
01:52:38,720 --> 01:52:41,800
Speaker 2: as smart as my priors. And likewise, Sam would always

2209
01:52:41,800 --> 01:52:44,000
Speaker 2: talk about like, well, every decision I make is like

2210
01:52:44,000 --> 01:52:47,200
Speaker 2: a mathematical decision, and I calculate what's the expected value

2211
01:52:47,200 --> 01:52:49,000
Speaker 2: of this outcome? Ers is this outcome? And then I

2212
01:52:49,000 --> 01:52:51,719
Speaker 2: do the thing with the highest expected value, right, Which

2213
01:52:51,760 --> 01:52:53,559
Speaker 2: is another way of saying I do whatever will make

2214
01:52:53,600 --> 01:52:55,800
Speaker 2: me feel good, which is, you know, a lot of

2215
01:52:55,880 --> 01:52:57,760
Speaker 2: us are like that a lot of the time. That's

2216
01:52:57,880 --> 01:52:58,559
Speaker 2: human nature.

2217
01:52:58,600 --> 01:52:58,840
Speaker 5: We are.

2218
01:52:59,000 --> 01:53:02,759
Speaker 2: We are creatures of comfort in a lot of ways.

2219
01:53:03,040 --> 01:53:07,479
Speaker 2: But there's Sam is just dressing up selfishness in lines

2220
01:53:07,560 --> 01:53:10,439
Speaker 2: like this. Sam wanted to do whatever at any given

2221
01:53:10,479 --> 01:53:13,320
Speaker 2: moment off her the highest expected value, and his estimate

2222
01:53:13,360 --> 01:53:16,080
Speaker 2: of her Carolyn's expected value seemed to peak right before

2223
01:53:16,120 --> 01:53:19,240
Speaker 2: they had sex and plummet immediately after. And like, oh,

2224
01:53:19,240 --> 01:53:22,080
Speaker 2: that's no different than a lot of guys in their twenties.

2225
01:53:22,280 --> 01:53:25,559
Speaker 3: That's it just sounds like a fucking guy.

2226
01:53:25,840 --> 01:53:28,120
Speaker 2: Oh so you're saying he got horny and then he

2227
01:53:28,120 --> 01:53:31,200
Speaker 2: didn't care about her afterwards, Well, that's not special.

2228
01:53:31,520 --> 01:53:36,120
Speaker 3: Like how I I can't relate. Wow, yeah that is.

2229
01:53:36,160 --> 01:53:38,599
Speaker 2: That's not just millions of men, that's millions of people.

2230
01:53:39,080 --> 01:53:43,760
Speaker 3: Like it's so I mean even just outside of his

2231
01:53:43,840 --> 01:53:47,120
Speaker 3: relationships with women, in his relationship with Carolyn, I don't know.

2232
01:53:47,160 --> 01:53:51,240
Speaker 3: It gives me sort of like mensa PTSD, where there

2233
01:53:51,360 --> 01:53:56,160
Speaker 3: is this like two hander where it's either you can't

2234
01:53:56,240 --> 01:53:58,920
Speaker 3: understand what I'm doing because I am a super genius

2235
01:53:58,960 --> 01:54:01,000
Speaker 3: and you are not operating a level you could never

2236
01:54:01,120 --> 01:54:04,720
Speaker 3: understand why I am fucking up at this tremendous rate.

2237
01:54:05,200 --> 01:54:08,679
Speaker 3: And then if they're challenged enough, it's like, well, actually

2238
01:54:08,840 --> 01:54:12,000
Speaker 3: I'm you know it. I don't know the correct way

2239
01:54:12,080 --> 01:54:15,240
Speaker 3: to like characterize this, but it almost becomes like internet

2240
01:54:15,280 --> 01:54:18,240
Speaker 3: speak where it's like, no, I'm actually just like I

2241
01:54:18,240 --> 01:54:20,920
Speaker 3: don't give a shit. It's actually I'm using quick books

2242
01:54:20,960 --> 01:54:23,160
Speaker 3: because I don't give a fuck. It's like either I

2243
01:54:23,200 --> 01:54:26,639
Speaker 3: am a genius or I don't care, and there's nothing

2244
01:54:26,680 --> 01:54:30,240
Speaker 3: in between. And it's like what is in between is

2245
01:54:30,280 --> 01:54:32,240
Speaker 3: just the fact that they're full of shit.

2246
01:54:32,720 --> 01:54:35,640
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and you know who else is full of

2247
01:54:36,000 --> 01:54:49,520
Speaker 2: no time to head to ads? Ah boy, I sure

2248
01:54:49,560 --> 01:54:53,360
Speaker 2: do love ads. Those were some good ones. So yeah,

2249
01:54:53,400 --> 01:54:56,360
Speaker 2: So we're back. We're talking about Sam Bakman Free's issues

2250
01:54:56,400 --> 01:54:58,840
Speaker 2: with women, as chronicled by Michael Lewis, who does do

2251
01:54:58,920 --> 01:55:01,560
Speaker 2: his credit make point of noting that all of the

2252
01:55:01,640 --> 01:55:04,840
Speaker 2: companies moves as CEO from the US to Hong Kong

2253
01:55:04,920 --> 01:55:07,600
Speaker 2: and then from Hong Kong to the Bahamas were prompted

2254
01:55:07,640 --> 01:55:10,680
Speaker 2: by like he and Ellison would have some big relationship

2255
01:55:10,760 --> 01:55:13,280
Speaker 2: conversation and she would say like, I want to have

2256
01:55:13,320 --> 01:55:16,120
Speaker 2: a closer relationship, and then he would move the entire

2257
01:55:16,160 --> 01:55:19,880
Speaker 2: company without telling anybody, which, again, like the instant you

2258
01:55:19,920 --> 01:55:22,720
Speaker 2: hear that anecdote, you're like, oh, well, this guy, there's nothing.

2259
01:55:22,840 --> 01:55:25,200
Speaker 2: This guy is not a super genius, Like this guy

2260
01:55:25,320 --> 01:55:32,080
Speaker 2: is just a can't deal with confrontation. Like, yeah, that's

2261
01:55:32,120 --> 01:55:34,840
Speaker 2: not special again, millions of us.

2262
01:55:35,440 --> 01:55:40,440
Speaker 3: Every conflict avoidant person has their approach. It knows no gender,

2263
01:55:40,600 --> 01:55:44,880
Speaker 3: but it skews towards one. Yeah, my last boyfriend bought

2264
01:55:44,880 --> 01:55:52,200
Speaker 3: an upright base. That was how bless is sorry, I

2265
01:55:52,240 --> 01:55:53,080
Speaker 3: don't rot.

2266
01:55:53,480 --> 01:55:57,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, the real shame here is that I don't think

2267
01:55:57,520 --> 01:56:00,640
Speaker 2: Lewis draws any sort of connection between how Sam treats

2268
01:56:00,680 --> 01:56:03,320
Speaker 2: the women at his company and how like Sam treats

2269
01:56:03,400 --> 01:56:06,720
Speaker 2: adults with the specialized financial knowledge that might have saved

2270
01:56:06,720 --> 01:56:09,040
Speaker 2: his company because there is a relate. Like, I'm not

2271
01:56:09,080 --> 01:56:11,320
Speaker 2: trying to discount his misogyny, which is certainly a thing,

2272
01:56:11,320 --> 01:56:13,920
Speaker 2: but like, I think the bigger through line with Sam

2273
01:56:13,960 --> 01:56:16,680
Speaker 2: that is present outside of justice dealing with like the

2274
01:56:16,720 --> 01:56:19,360
Speaker 2: women that he was in relationships with and work with,

2275
01:56:19,480 --> 01:56:23,240
Speaker 2: is that Sam doesn't think anyone besides him has worthwhile

2276
01:56:23,280 --> 01:56:26,560
Speaker 2: thoughts or ideas, and that anything he doesn't understand is

2277
01:56:26,640 --> 01:56:29,360
Speaker 2: not worth paying attention to, which is a big thing

2278
01:56:29,480 --> 01:56:32,120
Speaker 2: in tech guys, right, This attitude that like you're seeing

2279
01:56:32,200 --> 01:56:35,520
Speaker 2: now with these AI freaks, where they don't think that

2280
01:56:35,560 --> 01:56:38,240
Speaker 2: there's any value in the human creation of art because

2281
01:56:38,280 --> 01:56:41,120
Speaker 2: they don't understand it. Like they're willing to like have

2282
01:56:41,200 --> 01:56:43,960
Speaker 2: an AI just like come up with some crap that's

2283
01:56:44,040 --> 01:56:47,800
Speaker 2: vaguely patterned off of a historic See, isn't this picture

2284
01:56:47,880 --> 01:56:51,480
Speaker 2: of like, you know, isolation an anomy in modern society

2285
01:56:51,920 --> 01:56:53,720
Speaker 2: better now that we've turned it into a bunch of

2286
01:56:53,720 --> 01:56:56,400
Speaker 2: friends having brunch outside of a cafe. Look, it's much

2287
01:56:56,440 --> 01:56:59,240
Speaker 2: brighter now and prettier. It's like, no, that's not the

2288
01:56:59,240 --> 01:57:01,760
Speaker 2: point of the art. Don't understand, But like they don't, Yeah,

2289
01:57:01,920 --> 01:57:02,919
Speaker 2: it's this thing.

2290
01:57:02,840 --> 01:57:06,360
Speaker 3: That a computer could come up with the image of

2291
01:57:07,040 --> 01:57:10,160
Speaker 3: Paul Walker and Brian the dog in a convertible. No,

2292
01:57:10,320 --> 01:57:14,560
Speaker 3: that's a uniquely human artistic instinct we would need to create.

2293
01:57:15,560 --> 01:57:17,320
Speaker 3: Only humans would get it.

2294
01:57:17,840 --> 01:57:20,640
Speaker 2: This idea that like I am smart and therefore if

2295
01:57:20,680 --> 01:57:23,960
Speaker 2: I don't understand something, it's not important, right, It's it's

2296
01:57:24,000 --> 01:57:26,760
Speaker 2: something for like people who are less than me to

2297
01:57:26,840 --> 01:57:29,320
Speaker 2: deal with. This is why the company fell apart. And

2298
01:57:29,320 --> 01:57:32,240
Speaker 2: it's interesting to me that, like Lewis, he clearly does

2299
01:57:32,360 --> 01:57:35,520
Speaker 2: see aspects of how Sam treats women unfairly, but he

2300
01:57:35,560 --> 01:57:38,520
Speaker 2: doesn't make any sort of leaps between the way Sam

2301
01:57:38,560 --> 01:57:42,440
Speaker 2: treats like everybody who's not him, and I find that interesting.

2302
01:57:42,880 --> 01:57:43,520
Speaker 3: I do too.

2303
01:57:44,160 --> 01:57:47,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, good, good stuff. So perhaps the biggest major

2304
01:57:47,840 --> 01:57:50,880
Speaker 2: through line in Going Infinite is Michael Lewis not getting

2305
01:57:50,880 --> 01:57:54,560
Speaker 2: the joke. That section where he quotes SBF explaining why

2306
01:57:54,600 --> 01:57:57,960
Speaker 2: CFOs are dumb is a perfect example. On a casual reading,

2307
01:57:58,000 --> 01:57:59,800
Speaker 2: you might even assume that we were supposed to find

2308
01:57:59,800 --> 01:58:02,040
Speaker 2: the line what do you think I do? What the

2309
01:58:02,040 --> 01:58:03,920
Speaker 2: fuck do you think I do? All day? Do you

2310
01:58:03,920 --> 01:58:06,000
Speaker 2: think I don't know how much money we have? Funny,

2311
01:58:06,200 --> 01:58:08,480
Speaker 2: because Sam did not know how much money they had.

2312
01:58:08,800 --> 01:58:12,400
Speaker 2: But at the climax of the book, after FTX is crumbled,

2313
01:58:12,480 --> 01:58:14,800
Speaker 2: Lewis goes into detail to discuss all the money that

2314
01:58:14,920 --> 01:58:18,240
Speaker 2: was recovered by John Ray. Quote at the end of

2315
01:58:18,320 --> 01:58:21,040
Speaker 2: June twenty yeah, the third. At the end of June

2316
01:58:21,040 --> 01:58:23,760
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, John Ray filed a report on his

2317
01:58:23,880 --> 01:58:27,800
Speaker 2: various collections. Today the debtors have recovered approximately seven billion

2318
01:58:27,840 --> 01:58:31,040
Speaker 2: in liquid assets, he wrote, and they anticipate additional recoveries

2319
01:58:31,240 --> 01:58:33,920
Speaker 2: seven point three billion to be exact. Ray was inching

2320
01:58:33,960 --> 01:58:35,920
Speaker 2: towards an answer to the question I'd been asking from

2321
01:58:35,920 --> 01:58:38,160
Speaker 2: the day of the collapse, where did all that money go?

2322
01:58:38,440 --> 01:58:42,560
Speaker 2: The answer was nowhere. It was still there, And that's

2323
01:58:42,600 --> 01:58:45,080
Speaker 2: not true. The reason he's writing this is that earlier

2324
01:58:45,080 --> 01:58:49,320
Speaker 2: in Sam's career, a bunch of people leave Alameda because

2325
01:58:49,400 --> 01:58:52,600
Speaker 2: he loses four million dollars and they think that he's

2326
01:58:52,680 --> 01:58:55,400
Speaker 2: lost four million dollars in investor money, and he's a

2327
01:58:55,400 --> 01:58:57,480
Speaker 2: dick about it, and later they find it like he

2328
01:58:57,560 --> 01:59:01,840
Speaker 2: had just misplaced it, basically, And so Lewis is being like,

2329
01:59:01,920 --> 01:59:05,280
Speaker 2: that's just what happened. They were never really in bankruptcy. See,

2330
01:59:05,280 --> 01:59:08,040
Speaker 2: it was a good business like they just didn't have

2331
01:59:08,080 --> 01:59:10,520
Speaker 2: any record keeping, so they lost the money. In this

2332
01:59:10,760 --> 01:59:14,360
Speaker 2: meanie John Ray thinks it's bad to lose several billion dollars,

2333
01:59:15,040 --> 01:59:17,720
Speaker 2: But Lewis is saying is not true. He is kind

2334
01:59:17,720 --> 01:59:21,400
Speaker 2: of lying here. Maybe he just maybe it's an honest mistake.

2335
01:59:21,480 --> 01:59:24,520
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it's not accurate because for one thing,

2336
01:59:25,960 --> 01:59:29,440
Speaker 2: seven ish seven point three billion has been found, almost

2337
01:59:29,560 --> 01:59:32,120
Speaker 2: nine billion is missing, So that's one and a half

2338
01:59:32,280 --> 01:59:35,760
Speaker 2: billion dollars unaccounted for. Still, that's still one of the

2339
01:59:35,880 --> 01:59:38,160
Speaker 2: largest financial frauds in history.

2340
01:59:38,040 --> 01:59:42,680
Speaker 3: Right significant. That's why maybe as much as two billion, yeah,

2341
01:59:42,760 --> 01:59:44,880
Speaker 3: does even if you're trying to get through to someone

2342
01:59:44,920 --> 01:59:49,480
Speaker 3: who knows nothing about finance. The second number, the missing number,

2343
01:59:49,680 --> 01:59:51,560
Speaker 3: is bigger than this first.

2344
01:59:51,760 --> 01:59:55,640
Speaker 2: The number good. He tries to cut close that hole

2345
01:59:55,680 --> 01:59:57,520
Speaker 2: by being like, and a lot of that money is

2346
01:59:57,520 --> 01:59:59,640
Speaker 2: in these you know, money they paid to these companies

2347
01:59:59,640 --> 02:00:01,920
Speaker 2: that they'll probably get back. And it's like, why would

2348
02:00:01,960 --> 02:00:04,080
Speaker 2: you think that a lot of that money went to

2349
02:00:04,160 --> 02:00:06,840
Speaker 2: other shady crypto people who don't bank in the US.

2350
02:00:06,960 --> 02:00:08,760
Speaker 2: Why do you think the money's gonna come back?

2351
02:00:09,000 --> 02:00:09,160
Speaker 1: Well?

2352
02:00:09,160 --> 02:00:12,280
Speaker 3: See this is interesting because now, ugh, I feel bad

2353
02:00:12,280 --> 02:00:14,080
Speaker 3: because I know Michael Lewis is not the bastard of

2354
02:00:14,120 --> 02:00:18,640
Speaker 3: the episode. However, if I'm applying Sam, if we're applying

2355
02:00:18,680 --> 02:00:20,760
Speaker 3: Sam bankman Free's theory that you do not do any

2356
02:00:20,840 --> 02:00:23,480
Speaker 3: valuable work after forty five, that may in fact apply

2357
02:00:24,120 --> 02:00:28,200
Speaker 3: to Michael Lewis. Yeah. Like sounds like maybe he's lost

2358
02:00:28,280 --> 02:00:31,320
Speaker 3: the thread because it's the way that he's talking about money.

2359
02:00:32,000 --> 02:00:34,480
Speaker 3: I mean, and I have not read this book.

2360
02:00:34,520 --> 02:00:35,040
Speaker 2: Well you're just.

2361
02:00:37,200 --> 02:00:40,560
Speaker 3: That's why they pay you the big blunt, but like

2362
02:00:42,160 --> 02:00:44,600
Speaker 3: to hear how he talks about money in this book

2363
02:00:44,720 --> 02:00:47,360
Speaker 3: and to know that his most famous works have to

2364
02:00:47,440 --> 02:00:52,480
Speaker 3: do with finance, with the exception of the of the Blindside,

2365
02:00:52,480 --> 02:00:55,760
Speaker 3: which everyone forgets that he wrote like it calls his

2366
02:00:55,920 --> 02:00:57,600
Speaker 3: entire body of work in the question.

2367
02:00:57,920 --> 02:01:01,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's like, yeah, just the ridiculousness of

2368
02:01:01,920 --> 02:01:05,960
Speaker 2: being like, well, look, guys, seven you know, they've recovered

2369
02:01:06,000 --> 02:01:08,680
Speaker 2: seven billion out of nine point three billion, so things

2370
02:01:08,720 --> 02:01:12,760
Speaker 2: are basically good. Like that's insane. But also, as we'll

2371
02:01:12,800 --> 02:01:15,640
Speaker 2: get to later, he is he that even that doesn't

2372
02:01:15,680 --> 02:01:17,880
Speaker 2: tell the whole truth, Like this idea that everyone's going

2373
02:01:17,960 --> 02:01:20,839
Speaker 2: to get their money back is not true. But Lewis,

2374
02:01:21,000 --> 02:01:24,560
Speaker 2: in order to continue believing that Sam was a super genius.

2375
02:01:24,600 --> 02:01:26,480
Speaker 2: He has to have this kind of tragic store where

2376
02:01:26,520 --> 02:01:29,080
Speaker 2: like he didn't really lose the money, it was a misunderstanding.

2377
02:01:29,320 --> 02:01:32,120
Speaker 2: It's all unfair and because he needs to believe this,

2378
02:01:32,240 --> 02:01:34,440
Speaker 2: I think for the sake of his own ego, bringing

2379
02:01:34,560 --> 02:01:36,839
Speaker 2: up the fact that there's a lot of money missing

2380
02:01:37,160 --> 02:01:39,080
Speaker 2: is a really easy way to piss him off. And

2381
02:01:39,080 --> 02:01:40,640
Speaker 2: I'm going to play you this clip. It's the most

2382
02:01:40,680 --> 02:01:43,440
Speaker 2: revealing clip that I found. And this is from an

2383
02:01:43,440 --> 02:01:46,400
Speaker 2: interview he did with on a YouTube channel called Intelligence

2384
02:01:46,440 --> 02:01:50,040
Speaker 2: Squared after the FTX collapse, like after his book came out.

2385
02:01:50,080 --> 02:01:53,560
Speaker 2: So while Sam is on trial, basically okay, seven.

2386
02:01:53,320 --> 02:01:55,600
Speaker 6: Point three billion, so it's one point three billion that's

2387
02:01:55,600 --> 02:01:59,560
Speaker 6: missing plus it and there's still more to and.

2388
02:01:59,480 --> 02:02:01,280
Speaker 2: It's more than that, it's more thought.

2389
02:02:01,640 --> 02:02:07,920
Speaker 6: This is where today today the prosecution, the prosecution sent

2390
02:02:08,040 --> 02:02:10,520
Speaker 6: emotion to the court saying can we please not talk

2391
02:02:10,520 --> 02:02:13,080
Speaker 6: about the possibility the customers are all going to get

2392
02:02:13,120 --> 02:02:17,040
Speaker 6: their money back? And and and that in particular, can

2393
02:02:17,040 --> 02:02:21,960
Speaker 6: we you're gonna let me finish?

2394
02:02:21,960 --> 02:02:25,880
Speaker 3: My god, I think well, I care is the fact

2395
02:02:25,880 --> 02:02:29,240
Speaker 3: that at the very least it's important you don't think

2396
02:02:29,240 --> 02:02:31,600
Speaker 3: you do think it's important. I think at the very

2397
02:02:31,680 --> 02:02:33,160
Speaker 3: least he's irresponsible.

2398
02:02:33,240 --> 02:02:36,800
Speaker 6: Of course, I'm not saying he's not irresponsible. I'm saying

2399
02:02:36,840 --> 02:02:38,320
Speaker 6: it's just different than you think.

2400
02:02:39,480 --> 02:02:42,440
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, a few observations. First of all, to pay.

2401
02:02:43,400 --> 02:02:50,920
Speaker 3: Second of all, uploaded that is right. His head is

2402
02:02:51,000 --> 02:02:56,120
Speaker 3: not looking real colors. It's not giving matching color. Second

2403
02:02:56,160 --> 02:03:01,560
Speaker 3: observation upload date four weeks ago, gnarly right. Third observation,

2404
02:03:01,680 --> 02:03:06,320
Speaker 3: obviously he cuts off a woman aggressively to be wrong.

2405
02:03:06,880 --> 02:03:11,280
Speaker 3: And then finally it's just the because the listeners cannot

2406
02:03:11,280 --> 02:03:14,680
Speaker 3: see the size of that venue. It gave me a

2407
02:03:14,840 --> 02:03:17,560
Speaker 3: brief like it. I felt it in my stomach to

2408
02:03:17,600 --> 02:03:19,960
Speaker 3: be like, wow, that many people will gather to be

2409
02:03:20,360 --> 02:03:24,240
Speaker 3: to see Michael Lewis just spew bullshit, and yet fifteen

2410
02:03:24,320 --> 02:03:26,680
Speaker 3: people show up to watch me butt chug a quart

2411
02:03:26,720 --> 02:03:27,200
Speaker 3: of milk.

2412
02:03:27,680 --> 02:03:30,760
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous, Yeah, Jamie. Though, here's the thing. This is

2413
02:03:30,800 --> 02:03:32,120
Speaker 2: the difference between.

2414
02:03:32,240 --> 02:03:33,280
Speaker 3: You know, it's the same.

2415
02:03:33,400 --> 02:03:36,040
Speaker 2: The culture is the difference between the what I call

2416
02:03:36,200 --> 02:03:38,840
Speaker 2: vulgar art, which is the stuff that will be forgotten,

2417
02:03:39,120 --> 02:03:42,400
Speaker 2: you know, within a generation, and immortal art, right like

2418
02:03:42,480 --> 02:03:46,480
Speaker 2: the Parthenon, you know, you butt chugging the Contents of

2419
02:03:46,520 --> 02:03:49,480
Speaker 2: Infinite Jest was a Parthenon level work of art. It

2420
02:03:49,520 --> 02:03:50,080
Speaker 2: will be with.

2421
02:03:50,160 --> 02:03:56,080
Speaker 3: Us misinterest in your time, misunderstood. It's just like he's

2422
02:03:56,120 --> 02:03:58,680
Speaker 3: in like a fucking cathedral, though, I mean it.

2423
02:03:58,640 --> 02:04:01,920
Speaker 2: Does look like he's in And think, Sophie, can you

2424
02:04:01,960 --> 02:04:05,120
Speaker 2: bring up a freeze frame of his face at like

2425
02:04:05,160 --> 02:04:07,120
Speaker 2: twelve fifty seven in that because he is doing and

2426
02:04:07,160 --> 02:04:09,440
Speaker 2: I think you should leave face like he is. He

2427
02:04:09,560 --> 02:04:13,080
Speaker 2: is almost a perfect character from one of those fucking sketches.

2428
02:04:13,440 --> 02:04:15,160
Speaker 3: If Tim Robinson.

2429
02:04:16,200 --> 02:04:19,960
Speaker 2: Could do this, Tim Robinson could do an amazing job

2430
02:04:20,000 --> 02:04:22,600
Speaker 2: of this. There's that sketch from the recent season where

2431
02:04:22,600 --> 02:04:25,040
Speaker 2: he's being like an on air pundit who like gets

2432
02:04:25,080 --> 02:04:27,560
Speaker 2: on his phone and gets real quiet whenever he loses

2433
02:04:27,560 --> 02:04:31,400
Speaker 2: an argument. That like, yeah, Lewis is definitely doing that kind.

2434
02:04:31,200 --> 02:04:36,600
Speaker 3: Of face in this God right there.

2435
02:04:39,440 --> 02:04:41,480
Speaker 2: That's he's doing it, Tim Robinson.

2436
02:04:43,080 --> 02:04:47,560
Speaker 3: He's really Oh boy, it's enough doubling down on my

2437
02:04:47,720 --> 02:04:50,600
Speaker 3: two on the two pay theory, right yeah, no, that

2438
02:04:50,640 --> 02:04:54,040
Speaker 3: hair to see if we've got the if we've got

2439
02:04:54,040 --> 02:04:55,200
Speaker 3: the Veneers to match.

2440
02:04:55,320 --> 02:04:58,200
Speaker 2: But he's too rich to not have veneers.

2441
02:04:58,520 --> 02:05:02,240
Speaker 3: I aspire to veneers. I just want to have exactly

2442
02:05:02,280 --> 02:05:03,040
Speaker 3: that much money.

2443
02:05:03,160 --> 02:05:05,600
Speaker 2: I wanted to you how angry he gets there, because

2444
02:05:05,600 --> 02:05:08,040
Speaker 2: we're going to address the actual facts of his claim. Now,

2445
02:05:08,360 --> 02:05:10,520
Speaker 2: even if you take Lewis at his word, which is

2446
02:05:10,560 --> 02:05:13,520
Speaker 2: that it's basically fine because they were covered seven point

2447
02:05:13,560 --> 02:05:17,120
Speaker 2: three out of like nine point three billion dollars, he's

2448
02:05:17,200 --> 02:05:20,640
Speaker 2: obfuscating the truth. It is accurate that Ray has announced

2449
02:05:20,680 --> 02:05:23,680
Speaker 2: FTX customers will see ninety percent of every dollar of

2450
02:05:23,720 --> 02:05:27,040
Speaker 2: recovered assets returned, which I would still call that problematic

2451
02:05:27,120 --> 02:05:29,640
Speaker 2: because if somebody stole ten percent of your bank account,

2452
02:05:29,840 --> 02:05:33,160
Speaker 2: you'd be kind of miffed. But that is even not

2453
02:05:33,280 --> 02:05:35,960
Speaker 2: what it seems like. And I'm quoting from Investipedia here

2454
02:05:36,720 --> 02:05:38,920
Speaker 2: to be clear, the ninety percent number refers to the

2455
02:05:38,920 --> 02:05:42,240
Speaker 2: funds FTX is able to gain access to, rather than

2456
02:05:42,240 --> 02:05:45,320
Speaker 2: total customer deposits at the time of the exchange's collapse.

2457
02:05:45,600 --> 02:05:48,560
Speaker 2: That doesn't necessarily mean customers will gain access to ninety

2458
02:05:48,600 --> 02:05:51,400
Speaker 2: percent of their assets that were left on the exchange. Rather,

2459
02:05:51,640 --> 02:05:54,080
Speaker 2: customers will gain access to ninety percent of the funds

2460
02:05:54,120 --> 02:05:57,680
Speaker 2: FTX is able to distribute to their creditors. FTX and

2461
02:05:57,760 --> 02:06:01,840
Speaker 2: FTXUS had an estimated eight point seven billion dollars combined shortfall.

2462
02:06:02,440 --> 02:06:05,440
Speaker 2: By the time the crypto firm filed for bankruptcy, roughly

2463
02:06:05,480 --> 02:06:08,760
Speaker 2: six point nine percent roughly six point nine billion dollars

2464
02:06:08,760 --> 02:06:11,920
Speaker 2: of that shortfall, including a Bahama's real estate portfolio, has

2465
02:06:11,960 --> 02:06:15,680
Speaker 2: been recovered. Let's consider Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market

2466
02:06:15,720 --> 02:06:18,800
Speaker 2: capulation as a capitalization as a proxy for the broader

2467
02:06:18,800 --> 02:06:22,560
Speaker 2: cryptocurrency markets. On November eleventh of last year, the petition date,

2468
02:06:22,600 --> 02:06:25,600
Speaker 2: bitcoin was trading at around seventeen thousand. On Friday, it

2469
02:06:25,680 --> 02:06:28,640
Speaker 2: crossed thirty thousand. So simply put, if the current plan

2470
02:06:28,720 --> 02:06:30,840
Speaker 2: goes through, you'd likely get eighty five percent of the

2471
02:06:30,840 --> 02:06:33,720
Speaker 2: dollar value of your cryptocurrency had held on FTX as

2472
02:06:33,720 --> 02:06:36,160
Speaker 2: a flast November, even if the same points have almost

2473
02:06:36,160 --> 02:06:38,840
Speaker 2: doubled in value today. So one of those like both,

2474
02:06:38,920 --> 02:06:41,800
Speaker 2: he's he's kind of overestimating the amount that they're going

2475
02:06:41,840 --> 02:06:44,480
Speaker 2: to get back. And also because they lost like they

2476
02:06:44,520 --> 02:06:47,400
Speaker 2: still lost access to that money for it'll probably turn

2477
02:06:47,440 --> 02:06:49,520
Speaker 2: out to be two or three years. Like people have

2478
02:06:49,520 --> 02:06:51,680
Speaker 2: had to sell their homes and shit because like they

2479
02:06:51,720 --> 02:06:55,040
Speaker 2: had all of their money like that. There's harm here, right,

2480
02:06:55,080 --> 02:06:57,240
Speaker 2: That's what the courts aretaining. Not only is there still

2481
02:06:57,280 --> 02:07:00,400
Speaker 2: money missing and not an insignificant amount, but like people

2482
02:07:00,480 --> 02:07:02,920
Speaker 2: suffered in the interim where they didn't have access to

2483
02:07:02,920 --> 02:07:05,720
Speaker 2: their money, and yeah, they're crypto gamblers. I'm not This

2484
02:07:05,840 --> 02:07:09,160
Speaker 2: isn't the most sympathetic population, but that is not relevant

2485
02:07:09,200 --> 02:07:12,760
Speaker 2: to determining whether or not Sam has legal He's stealing

2486
02:07:12,920 --> 02:07:16,200
Speaker 2: fifteen or twenty percent of a bunch of people's savings

2487
02:07:16,200 --> 02:07:18,400
Speaker 2: accounts is a substantial crime.

2488
02:07:18,720 --> 02:07:22,560
Speaker 3: The legal question is is it a scam, which like, yes,

2489
02:07:23,080 --> 02:07:26,640
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm sure that like everyone who understandably

2490
02:07:26,720 --> 02:07:29,960
Speaker 3: because I walk amongst them, like everyone who was seeing

2491
02:07:29,960 --> 02:07:32,680
Speaker 3: this happen a couple years ago up to very recently,

2492
02:07:32,720 --> 02:07:35,960
Speaker 3: we're like, yeah, you're what are you talking about? This

2493
02:07:36,120 --> 02:07:38,040
Speaker 3: happening is like a very you know, it's like easy

2494
02:07:38,080 --> 02:07:39,720
Speaker 3: to cheer it on, but it's also like, yeah, no,

2495
02:07:40,240 --> 02:07:45,480
Speaker 3: Sam Bankmtrede was taking advantage of every possible mark he could.

2496
02:07:45,880 --> 02:07:49,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, and people are still suffering ongoing harmer

2497
02:07:49,760 --> 02:07:51,880
Speaker 2: as a result of it. He's acting like Lewis is

2498
02:07:51,920 --> 02:07:55,440
Speaker 2: acting as if there wasn't really anyone hurt, and it's like, well, no,

2499
02:07:56,000 --> 02:07:58,480
Speaker 2: like even if all of them, which will not happen

2500
02:07:58,560 --> 02:08:01,680
Speaker 2: at least about twenty percent of the money of depositor

2501
02:08:01,720 --> 02:08:05,600
Speaker 2: money is just gone, probably more. But even if he

2502
02:08:05,640 --> 02:08:07,880
Speaker 2: hadn't done that, if you're still locked out of your

2503
02:08:07,920 --> 02:08:11,000
Speaker 2: money for two years because a guy illegally gambled with it,

2504
02:08:11,240 --> 02:08:14,200
Speaker 2: are you going to be fine that it came back eventually. No,

2505
02:08:14,280 --> 02:08:16,600
Speaker 2: you still didn't have that money for years, and that's

2506
02:08:16,640 --> 02:08:18,560
Speaker 2: a problem for you. That's a crime.

2507
02:08:19,360 --> 02:08:23,080
Speaker 3: I mean, And I would be more amenable to that

2508
02:08:23,200 --> 02:08:27,600
Speaker 3: perspective if it was coming from someone who wasn't as

2509
02:08:27,840 --> 02:08:31,680
Speaker 3: like historically fabulously rich as Michael Lewis' is, because it's

2510
02:08:31,680 --> 02:08:35,520
Speaker 3: like a rich gaming the rich story can be really satisfying,

2511
02:08:35,880 --> 02:08:37,480
Speaker 3: but this is not the guy to be making it,

2512
02:08:37,520 --> 02:08:40,160
Speaker 3: and he's falling on the wrong side anyways.

2513
02:08:39,880 --> 02:08:42,320
Speaker 2: And it's like gaming the rich, gaming the rich because

2514
02:08:42,360 --> 02:08:45,800
Speaker 2: like larrydn't. They didn't hire Larry David to do a

2515
02:08:45,800 --> 02:08:49,800
Speaker 2: commercial so they could scam billionaires, right, They hired Larry

2516
02:08:49,920 --> 02:08:52,880
Speaker 2: David to do a commercial so they could scam your mom.

2517
02:08:53,360 --> 02:08:56,000
Speaker 2: You know, because your mom likes Larry David. I'm not

2518
02:08:56,040 --> 02:09:00,280
Speaker 2: saying the rest of this show. I mean most moms do, right,

2519
02:09:00,360 --> 02:09:03,040
Speaker 2: He's pretty popular amongst the moms.

2520
02:09:02,960 --> 02:09:04,760
Speaker 3: In the comments. I don't know if my mom knows who.

2521
02:09:04,840 --> 02:09:08,200
Speaker 2: I mean, all the women in my family were Seinfeld fans.

2522
02:09:08,440 --> 02:09:10,520
Speaker 3: So does your mom watch curb message?

2523
02:09:10,560 --> 02:09:16,640
Speaker 2: No, no, no, but Seinfeld? Oh yeah yeah my mom come back. Yeah.

2524
02:09:16,680 --> 02:09:21,440
Speaker 2: So anyway, Michael Lewis, Yeah, it's interesting to me, like

2525
02:09:21,520 --> 02:09:24,000
Speaker 2: the fact that the idea, the fact that Sam bankmin

2526
02:09:24,040 --> 02:09:27,520
Speaker 2: Freed stole money from depositors, because that's what it is

2527
02:09:27,520 --> 02:09:30,480
Speaker 2: when you take money out of one company illegally and

2528
02:09:30,600 --> 02:09:33,640
Speaker 2: use it to gamble in another company, that's stealing. Michael

2529
02:09:33,720 --> 02:09:37,520
Speaker 2: Lewis never uses the term stolen to describe what Sam did,

2530
02:09:38,400 --> 02:09:40,560
Speaker 2: and he basically goes to great lengths to claim that

2531
02:09:40,600 --> 02:09:42,320
Speaker 2: Sam misplaced all this money.

2532
02:09:42,760 --> 02:09:42,880
Speaker 3: Uh.

2533
02:09:43,400 --> 02:09:46,720
Speaker 2: This is again wildly inaccurate. And a good example of

2534
02:09:46,760 --> 02:09:51,120
Speaker 2: that is Alameda's hashtag fiat account, which is like that

2535
02:09:51,240 --> 02:09:53,080
Speaker 2: was one of the names for like the account where

2536
02:09:53,080 --> 02:09:55,720
Speaker 2: they were putting all of the actual US dollars that

2537
02:09:55,800 --> 02:09:59,400
Speaker 2: customers put in the exchange, so customers would put US

2538
02:09:59,520 --> 02:10:04,200
Speaker 2: dollars into FTX and then use it to buy cryptocurrency, right,

2539
02:10:04,200 --> 02:10:06,440
Speaker 2: But those US dollars needed to stay in the exchange

2540
02:10:06,440 --> 02:10:09,680
Speaker 2: so that people could cash out their positions, right, Otherwise

2541
02:10:09,840 --> 02:10:12,560
Speaker 2: you're not doing legitimately what you're supposed to do as

2542
02:10:12,600 --> 02:10:15,240
Speaker 2: a business. FTX was not a bank. A bank is

2543
02:10:15,280 --> 02:10:18,240
Speaker 2: allowed only has to keep a certain amount in reserve, right,

2544
02:10:18,600 --> 02:10:21,040
Speaker 2: That's what a reserve currency is. This is an exchange.

2545
02:10:21,080 --> 02:10:23,720
Speaker 2: They were supposed to keep enough reserve in there to

2546
02:10:23,840 --> 02:10:27,440
Speaker 2: cover the value of their deposits. Sam instead took all

2547
02:10:27,480 --> 02:10:31,040
Speaker 2: that money and put it into Alameda. And there's evidence

2548
02:10:31,040 --> 02:10:33,960
Speaker 2: that it like never it went directly into Alameda. The

2549
02:10:33,960 --> 02:10:37,080
Speaker 2: money people thought they were depositing into FTX went into

2550
02:10:37,160 --> 02:10:41,600
Speaker 2: another company entirely I would call that. And in fact

2551
02:10:41,680 --> 02:10:44,839
Speaker 2: Sam was convicted because this is an example of fraud.

2552
02:10:45,360 --> 02:10:48,080
Speaker 2: Lewis depicts it as an honest mistake, and here's the

2553
02:10:48,120 --> 02:10:51,960
Speaker 2: New Yorker quote. Lewis finds it not only wholly implausible

2554
02:10:51,960 --> 02:10:54,800
Speaker 2: that this was in fact a gigantic accounting error, explained

2555
02:10:54,800 --> 02:10:58,760
Speaker 2: by ftx's difficulties securing bank accounts. As Lewis concludes, his

2556
02:10:58,800 --> 02:11:02,720
Speaker 2: story implausible as it's sounded, remained irritatingly difficult to disprove.

2557
02:11:03,040 --> 02:11:06,240
Speaker 2: And Lewis very gently insinuates that Ellison, inover her head,

2558
02:11:06,440 --> 02:11:10,240
Speaker 2: might have made some very bad decisions. And in court,

2559
02:11:10,280 --> 02:11:12,400
Speaker 2: which again is a couple of weeks after his book,

2560
02:11:12,440 --> 02:11:15,440
Speaker 2: comes out. It is proven with data from the company

2561
02:11:15,480 --> 02:11:18,520
Speaker 2: that Sam not only did not like not only knew

2562
02:11:18,800 --> 02:11:21,000
Speaker 2: what he was doing, but he ordered other people to

2563
02:11:21,040 --> 02:11:24,800
Speaker 2: obscure this fact from customers. Right, he ordered his employees

2564
02:11:25,080 --> 02:11:27,800
Speaker 2: to hide from customers that their money was going straight

2565
02:11:27,840 --> 02:11:31,440
Speaker 2: into another company. This was proven when they like actually,

2566
02:11:31,520 --> 02:11:34,400
Speaker 2: during the court case, they had the people who programmed

2567
02:11:34,520 --> 02:11:39,000
Speaker 2: the exchange on Sam's behalf like post code, and I

2568
02:11:39,000 --> 02:11:42,520
Speaker 2: found an analysis of ftx's code by Molly White, who

2569
02:11:42,600 --> 02:11:45,400
Speaker 2: does a newsletter called Citation Needed, which is quite good.

2570
02:11:45,760 --> 02:11:48,760
Speaker 2: Molly knows code and stuff, so here's her analyzing that.

2571
02:11:49,440 --> 02:11:51,960
Speaker 2: Prosecutors questioned Wang, who was the guy who was coding

2572
02:11:52,000 --> 02:11:55,320
Speaker 2: the exchange, about the FTX insurance fund, which was ostensibly

2573
02:11:55,320 --> 02:11:58,400
Speaker 2: supposed to protect both FDx and its customers from trades

2574
02:11:58,440 --> 02:12:01,160
Speaker 2: that went badly even more quick then the exchange's risk

2575
02:12:01,240 --> 02:12:04,800
Speaker 2: engine could account for. FTX published the funds supposed balance

2576
02:12:04,840 --> 02:12:07,919
Speaker 2: on their website and bragged widely about its existence, including

2577
02:12:07,920 --> 02:12:11,040
Speaker 2: a testimony to US Congress. However, according to Wang, the

2578
02:12:11,120 --> 02:12:14,920
Speaker 2: numbers showed on the website was falsified. And the question

2579
02:12:15,040 --> 02:12:17,280
Speaker 2: is like, is this a real number, Wang, No, so

2580
02:12:17,320 --> 02:12:19,920
Speaker 2: it's a fake number. Yes, was the real number higher

2581
02:12:20,000 --> 02:12:23,960
Speaker 2: or lower than the fake number lower? And yeah, the

2582
02:12:24,000 --> 02:12:26,120
Speaker 2: way that they would do this so like they're supposed

2583
02:12:26,160 --> 02:12:28,920
Speaker 2: to have this insurance fund, which is part of what

2584
02:12:29,120 --> 02:12:32,040
Speaker 2: makes FTX safer than the other exchanges is that we

2585
02:12:32,200 --> 02:12:34,360
Speaker 2: keep you can't do a run on the bank because

2586
02:12:34,360 --> 02:12:37,840
Speaker 2: our entire like like all of our deposits are backed

2587
02:12:37,880 --> 02:12:40,560
Speaker 2: up by cash, right, so we can't collapse the way

2588
02:12:40,560 --> 02:12:44,640
Speaker 2: that other exchanges do. And like to make people feel

2589
02:12:44,720 --> 02:12:47,280
Speaker 2: comfortable they had, they would show them they had, like

2590
02:12:47,680 --> 02:12:50,160
Speaker 2: you could see like what the insurance fund was. That

2591
02:12:50,200 --> 02:12:52,400
Speaker 2: they would regularly brag, we have this much money in

2592
02:12:52,440 --> 02:12:53,400
Speaker 2: our insurance fund.

2593
02:12:53,840 --> 02:12:56,320
Speaker 3: It can number accurate. Like no.

2594
02:12:56,920 --> 02:13:01,120
Speaker 2: All they were doing is so the code snippets show

2595
02:13:01,160 --> 02:13:04,200
Speaker 2: that like they had Sam ordered Nashad Sing to write

2596
02:13:04,200 --> 02:13:07,440
Speaker 2: some code that would update the insurance fund amount randomly

2597
02:13:07,800 --> 02:13:10,320
Speaker 2: by adding it to the daily trading volume, like the

2598
02:13:10,320 --> 02:13:13,320
Speaker 2: amount of Basically they would it would calculate how much

2599
02:13:13,320 --> 02:13:16,760
Speaker 2: has been traded today, and that would multiply that by

2600
02:13:16,800 --> 02:13:20,160
Speaker 2: a random number somewhere around seventy five hundred and then

2601
02:13:20,200 --> 02:13:23,520
Speaker 2: divide it by a billion, So it would this was how.

2602
02:13:23,400 --> 02:13:26,920
Speaker 3: An alleged it was. Just describe how you do business.

2603
02:13:27,040 --> 02:13:30,800
Speaker 2: They're like, Bulso there was never an insurance, a real

2604
02:13:30,880 --> 02:13:34,360
Speaker 2: insurance fund of any like meaningful amount of money. They

2605
02:13:34,440 --> 02:13:37,120
Speaker 2: just pretended it was there by having a computer do

2606
02:13:37,280 --> 02:13:39,840
Speaker 2: a random equation, so it seemed like it was fluctuating

2607
02:13:39,880 --> 02:13:40,400
Speaker 2: over time.

2608
02:13:40,920 --> 02:13:44,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's not legal to do.

2609
02:13:44,160 --> 02:13:46,200
Speaker 2: No, No, that's that there.

2610
02:13:46,680 --> 02:13:49,440
Speaker 3: And I feel like this, like this level of like

2611
02:13:50,840 --> 02:13:54,720
Speaker 3: splitting hairs in the New Yorker wouldn't happen unless the

2612
02:13:54,720 --> 02:13:58,360
Speaker 3: two main players, Michael Lewis and Sam Bake Midfreed, weren't

2613
02:13:58,840 --> 02:14:03,320
Speaker 3: tremendously privileged like for any other people. You would be like, yeah,

2614
02:14:03,360 --> 02:14:05,840
Speaker 3: so this was a lie, and then this happened, like

2615
02:14:05,880 --> 02:14:07,400
Speaker 3: you wouldn't be splitting hairs like this.

2616
02:14:07,680 --> 02:14:09,960
Speaker 2: To be fair, The actual thrust of that New Yorker

2617
02:14:10,040 --> 02:14:12,880
Speaker 2: article is like, Michael Lewis is, what the fuck is

2618
02:14:12,880 --> 02:14:15,640
Speaker 2: happening with this guy? Because he's clearly falling, Like the

2619
02:14:15,680 --> 02:14:17,840
Speaker 2: New york article is very critical of him. It's bringing

2620
02:14:17,920 --> 02:14:21,520
Speaker 2: up that he is not calling Sam Bankman free to

2621
02:14:21,560 --> 02:14:23,400
Speaker 2: fucking con man when he clearly is right.

2622
02:14:23,880 --> 02:14:27,800
Speaker 3: So they're like headline, Michael Lewis, Loki fell off.

2623
02:14:28,040 --> 02:14:31,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, Loki, he fell off. That's right, Molly I also

2624
02:14:31,600 --> 02:14:34,000
Speaker 2: brings up something else that was left out of court,

2625
02:14:34,000 --> 02:14:36,480
Speaker 2: but the prosecution published evidence of it, and I found

2626
02:14:36,520 --> 02:14:39,640
Speaker 2: this really telling. Elsewhere in the code, it's possible to

2627
02:14:39,680 --> 02:14:42,280
Speaker 2: observe that the amount of FTT, which is the token

2628
02:14:42,720 --> 02:14:46,200
Speaker 2: created that represented basically voting shares. It was like it

2629
02:14:46,240 --> 02:14:49,600
Speaker 2: was ftx's funny money was actually represented by a hard

2630
02:14:49,600 --> 02:14:52,400
Speaker 2: coded value in the user interface and was not pulling

2631
02:14:52,400 --> 02:14:54,760
Speaker 2: from an external data source to get a real number.

2632
02:14:55,080 --> 02:14:57,800
Speaker 2: So again they're lying about how much money is in

2633
02:14:57,840 --> 02:14:59,840
Speaker 2: this fund. And part of how you can tell is

2634
02:15:00,200 --> 02:15:02,840
Speaker 2: when you would ask to see the insurance fund, it

2635
02:15:02,880 --> 02:15:06,400
Speaker 2: wouldn't consult back to the servers. It was just it

2636
02:15:06,440 --> 02:15:10,040
Speaker 2: was doing the calculation on your own machine, right, which

2637
02:15:10,080 --> 02:15:12,040
Speaker 2: is evidence that like, there was never any attempt to

2638
02:15:12,040 --> 02:15:17,400
Speaker 2: give people accurate information. Wow, it's fun stuff. There's other

2639
02:15:17,440 --> 02:15:19,520
Speaker 2: fund reveals during the court case.

2640
02:15:19,480 --> 02:15:20,880
Speaker 3: For example twists. Yeah.

2641
02:15:20,960 --> 02:15:24,240
Speaker 2: During ftx's days as a functioning business, a lot of

2642
02:15:24,280 --> 02:15:27,240
Speaker 2: crypto people notice there was a potential conflict of interest

2643
02:15:27,320 --> 02:15:30,360
Speaker 2: between FTX and Alameda. They were like, hey, it seems

2644
02:15:30,400 --> 02:15:33,600
Speaker 2: like you run both these companies and like traders on

2645
02:15:33,760 --> 02:15:37,800
Speaker 2: Alameda are using our trading on FTX. Is it possible

2646
02:15:37,840 --> 02:15:40,640
Speaker 2: that they're getting preferential treatment on the exchange that you

2647
02:15:40,760 --> 02:15:44,360
Speaker 2: also owned. There's a really telling Twitter conversation on Molly's

2648
02:15:44,360 --> 02:15:47,800
Speaker 2: blog where someone asks this and SBF says, Alameda is

2649
02:15:47,800 --> 02:15:50,960
Speaker 2: the liquidity provider, but their account is just like everyone else's,

2650
02:15:51,200 --> 02:15:53,879
Speaker 2: and the respondent rightfully says, I guess we're just supposed

2651
02:15:53,920 --> 02:15:56,000
Speaker 2: to trust you, And it turned out they were right

2652
02:15:56,040 --> 02:15:58,280
Speaker 2: to be worried. One of the chief selling points about

2653
02:15:58,320 --> 02:16:01,720
Speaker 2: FTX is that it's crash proof. Right. Crypto exchanges have

2654
02:16:01,800 --> 02:16:04,520
Speaker 2: this weird habit, like twenty years old now, of getting

2655
02:16:04,560 --> 02:16:07,360
Speaker 2: really big and then collapsing, taking everyone's money with them.

2656
02:16:07,720 --> 02:16:10,360
Speaker 2: Sometimes this is due to hacks, but also there's a

2657
02:16:10,360 --> 02:16:12,880
Speaker 2: lot of because there's no regulation, a lot of times

2658
02:16:13,000 --> 02:16:16,440
Speaker 2: major traders will go bust and that causes losses for

2659
02:16:16,520 --> 02:16:20,120
Speaker 2: the whole exchange, which gets socialized. Right, everybody loses money

2660
02:16:20,160 --> 02:16:24,080
Speaker 2: because one bad gambler gambled too much. One of ftx's

2661
02:16:24,560 --> 02:16:27,320
Speaker 2: like selling points was that it was different. They had

2662
02:16:27,320 --> 02:16:31,160
Speaker 2: an algorithm to automatically freeze trades on an account once

2663
02:16:31,200 --> 02:16:33,959
Speaker 2: that account had suffered losses equal to the amount of

2664
02:16:34,000 --> 02:16:36,560
Speaker 2: money they'd put in the exchange. Right, so you can't

2665
02:16:36,640 --> 02:16:40,160
Speaker 2: lose more money than you put in is the basic idea.

2666
02:16:40,600 --> 02:16:43,200
Speaker 2: So that's how it was supposed to work, and that's

2667
02:16:43,200 --> 02:16:46,800
Speaker 2: how it worked initially. But the limit that Alameda had

2668
02:16:46,840 --> 02:16:48,879
Speaker 2: for its gambling to make sure that it couldn't get

2669
02:16:48,879 --> 02:16:52,240
Speaker 2: in over its skis, was removed later on Sam Bankman

2670
02:16:52,280 --> 02:16:56,000
Speaker 2: Freed's orders, and in court, Gary Wang, Sam's business partner,

2671
02:16:56,080 --> 02:17:00,280
Speaker 2: explained how Sam directed them to do this, explain that

2672
02:17:00,280 --> 02:17:02,840
Speaker 2: Alameda had not started out with such a high credit limit,

2673
02:17:02,879 --> 02:17:05,320
Speaker 2: but that periodically the trading firm had run into issues

2674
02:17:05,360 --> 02:17:08,640
Speaker 2: placing trades because they didn't have enough collateral. Sam Bankman

2675
02:17:08,680 --> 02:17:10,960
Speaker 2: Freed kept asking him to increase their credit limit to

2676
02:17:11,000 --> 02:17:13,560
Speaker 2: prevent it from happening. According to Wang, the limit was

2677
02:17:13,600 --> 02:17:16,320
Speaker 2: originally set to a few million dollars, but then it

2678
02:17:16,360 --> 02:17:18,600
Speaker 2: was increased to a billion. After they ran up against

2679
02:17:18,640 --> 02:17:20,680
Speaker 2: that limit too, Bankman Freed asked him to set it

2680
02:17:20,720 --> 02:17:22,840
Speaker 2: to a number so large they wouldn't likely hit the

2681
02:17:22,879 --> 02:17:25,520
Speaker 2: limit at that point. Wang set it to around sixty

2682
02:17:25,560 --> 02:17:27,520
Speaker 2: five billion. And when I read that, what I see

2683
02:17:27,560 --> 02:17:30,320
Speaker 2: is this is a gambler in Vegas who's like taking

2684
02:17:30,360 --> 02:17:33,160
Speaker 2: out loans to keep gambling because he's run out of money,

2685
02:17:33,360 --> 02:17:34,240
Speaker 2: Like he's like, hey.

2686
02:17:34,080 --> 02:17:37,240
Speaker 3: You just imagine like someone like on their knees in

2687
02:17:37,440 --> 02:17:41,920
Speaker 3: like shitty pinstripe. Yeah's being like, come on, man, yeah.

2688
02:17:41,760 --> 02:17:44,119
Speaker 2: Give me, just give me some credit. Man, I'm good

2689
02:17:44,160 --> 02:17:44,560
Speaker 2: for it.

2690
02:17:44,959 --> 02:17:47,640
Speaker 3: But he got up to sixty five billion in credit.

2691
02:17:48,000 --> 02:17:50,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which is insane. Now, when you pair all

2692
02:17:50,959 --> 02:17:53,960
Speaker 2: this with the stories that SBF tells that Lewis tells

2693
02:17:53,959 --> 02:17:57,240
Speaker 2: of SBF's gaming addiction, you might conclude, was this kid

2694
02:17:57,360 --> 02:17:59,840
Speaker 2: just a fucking gambling addict, which is, by the way,

2695
02:17:59,840 --> 02:18:01,760
Speaker 2: that's my interpretation.

2696
02:18:01,280 --> 02:18:04,280
Speaker 3: There, I mean there. To me, it sounds like this

2697
02:18:04,360 --> 02:18:07,680
Speaker 3: shit is neo. Points to him like it really is.

2698
02:18:07,720 --> 02:18:11,760
Speaker 3: Like if there's anything that got the millennial generation hooked

2699
02:18:11,800 --> 02:18:17,560
Speaker 3: on capitalism and random gambling, it was Neopets. And if

2700
02:18:17,560 --> 02:18:20,560
Speaker 3: anyone has proof that Sam Bankminfreed was a Neopets user,

2701
02:18:20,720 --> 02:18:23,920
Speaker 3: he just sounds like the worst version of a Neopets user.

2702
02:18:24,280 --> 02:18:28,080
Speaker 3: To me, the worst endgame for a Neopets user is

2703
02:18:28,360 --> 02:18:31,000
Speaker 3: what you've been describing to me for for several hours.

2704
02:18:31,280 --> 02:18:33,440
Speaker 2: And I think you and I were not invested in

2705
02:18:33,520 --> 02:18:36,680
Speaker 2: Sam Bankman Freed ever being particularly smart. So we can

2706
02:18:36,720 --> 02:18:41,039
Speaker 2: see this Lewis, He's a Neopets userwis, I bet I

2707
02:18:41,120 --> 02:18:44,080
Speaker 2: was better at it than him. Well, that's the other thing.

2708
02:18:44,120 --> 02:18:46,680
Speaker 2: He was never very good at games. Like people found

2709
02:18:46,680 --> 02:18:49,000
Speaker 2: his like League of Legends account and were like, yeah,

2710
02:18:49,000 --> 02:18:51,480
Speaker 2: he was mid Like I'm sure he wasn't good at

2711
02:18:51,520 --> 02:18:54,560
Speaker 2: storybook Brawl, right, Like, he's just he was never good

2712
02:18:54,560 --> 02:18:54,840
Speaker 2: at this.

2713
02:18:55,240 --> 02:18:57,080
Speaker 3: But it was the first time that Michael Lewis had

2714
02:18:57,120 --> 02:19:00,000
Speaker 3: heard of story But yeah, so Sam bank Freed said

2715
02:19:00,080 --> 02:19:02,680
Speaker 3: he was the best at it, why not believe him?

2716
02:19:02,760 --> 02:19:05,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's just the idea. Like, again, Lewis can't

2717
02:19:05,280 --> 02:19:07,959
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, this kid had a gambling problem, and

2718
02:19:08,040 --> 02:19:11,840
Speaker 2: he also owned a bank, so it became everyone's issue.

2719
02:19:12,120 --> 02:19:14,080
Speaker 3: But like, you're not a bank man.

2720
02:19:14,520 --> 02:19:16,879
Speaker 2: It's hard to portray someone as smart if they're just

2721
02:19:16,920 --> 02:19:19,920
Speaker 2: addicted to gambling, right, because that's not a smart person thing.

2722
02:19:19,959 --> 02:19:22,000
Speaker 2: It Actually a lot of smart people are horrible addicts

2723
02:19:22,040 --> 02:19:22,880
Speaker 2: in a variety of ways.

2724
02:19:22,920 --> 02:19:25,439
Speaker 3: But like, but it's a serious press.

2725
02:19:25,200 --> 02:19:27,560
Speaker 2: In a Hollywood way. Make it look like somebody's a

2726
02:19:27,600 --> 02:19:31,199
Speaker 2: genius if they just can't control themselves, right.

2727
02:19:31,080 --> 02:19:33,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a serious, serious problem.

2728
02:19:33,600 --> 02:19:36,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and again, no shame on people who have

2729
02:19:36,080 --> 02:19:38,920
Speaker 2: that problem. But like that that does not work with

2730
02:19:39,000 --> 02:19:43,440
Speaker 2: how Lewis wants to portray him, right, and yeah, speaking

2731
02:19:43,480 --> 02:19:45,160
Speaker 2: of things that don't work.

2732
02:19:46,480 --> 02:19:49,960
Speaker 3: Shit, everything you're about to advertise.

2733
02:19:49,640 --> 02:19:52,560
Speaker 2: We won't have to work if you purchase these products.

2734
02:19:52,800 --> 02:19:54,400
Speaker 3: Okay, good, good self crush.

2735
02:19:54,560 --> 02:19:58,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually will continue to work more accurate.

2736
02:20:00,080 --> 02:20:11,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, both both true. We're back. So you know, I

2737
02:20:11,760 --> 02:20:13,520
Speaker 2: think it's clear from the stuff that came out in

2738
02:20:13,520 --> 02:20:15,440
Speaker 2: the court case that I just read some of, there's

2739
02:20:15,440 --> 02:20:18,320
Speaker 2: no way Alameda NFTX would have done the things that

2740
02:20:18,800 --> 02:20:21,560
Speaker 2: I just described if they hadn't meant to disguise the

2741
02:20:21,600 --> 02:20:24,240
Speaker 2: reality of their business from the world, which is fraud. Right.

2742
02:20:24,440 --> 02:20:27,080
Speaker 2: The reality is that Sam Bankman Freed used to positor

2743
02:20:27,120 --> 02:20:30,120
Speaker 2: money to gamble, and he was gambling in part on

2744
02:20:30,200 --> 02:20:32,720
Speaker 2: his own chances. He wasn't just gambling. This is the

2745
02:20:32,720 --> 02:20:35,640
Speaker 2: thing that is important to understand. Past a certain point.

2746
02:20:36,120 --> 02:20:39,600
Speaker 2: Most of his gambling was not him betting on cryptocurrencies.

2747
02:20:39,760 --> 02:20:39,920
Speaker 5: Right.

2748
02:20:40,280 --> 02:20:41,880
Speaker 2: The big shit he did that made the news, the

2749
02:20:41,920 --> 02:20:45,720
Speaker 2: billion dollars that he pumped into naming renaming that stadium

2750
02:20:45,720 --> 02:20:48,400
Speaker 2: in Florida, to bringing in all these celebrities to these

2751
02:20:48,480 --> 02:20:51,520
Speaker 2: high dollars Super Bowl ads, that was a gamble he

2752
02:20:51,600 --> 02:20:54,560
Speaker 2: was pulling a slot machine on his own chances of

2753
02:20:54,600 --> 02:20:57,800
Speaker 2: ascending to the halls of power, right, sounds like yeah,

2754
02:20:57,879 --> 02:21:01,000
Speaker 2: yeah yeah. One of my favorite side bits from the

2755
02:21:01,040 --> 02:21:04,080
Speaker 2: court cases that on the stand when she was being questioned,

2756
02:21:04,160 --> 02:21:07,400
Speaker 2: Carolyn Ellison told everybody that Sam confided in her he

2757
02:21:07,480 --> 02:21:10,160
Speaker 2: thought he'd had a five percent chance of becoming president

2758
02:21:10,200 --> 02:21:11,679
Speaker 2: of the United States.

2759
02:21:11,520 --> 02:21:16,280
Speaker 3: Which, well, I mean it sounds ridiculous, but also like,

2760
02:21:16,720 --> 02:21:19,000
Speaker 3: look at some of the dumbasses we've got. He's probably

2761
02:21:19,040 --> 02:21:21,039
Speaker 3: not wrong that he eman. He at least could have

2762
02:21:21,120 --> 02:21:24,920
Speaker 3: been like who is that fucking loser from Starbucks? He

2763
02:21:24,959 --> 02:21:25,920
Speaker 3: could have always been that.

2764
02:21:26,480 --> 02:21:27,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, he could have. I think he could have had

2765
02:21:27,879 --> 02:21:30,640
Speaker 2: a failed presidential but no, like yeah, oh yeah, no,

2766
02:21:31,200 --> 02:21:34,000
Speaker 2: they're all dumb, Like Joe Biden and Donald Trump are

2767
02:21:34,040 --> 02:21:37,440
Speaker 2: both have both done very stupid things, different kinds of

2768
02:21:37,520 --> 02:21:40,599
Speaker 2: very stupid things, but they both have charisma.

2769
02:21:40,840 --> 02:21:42,160
Speaker 3: Right, that's true, that's.

2770
02:21:42,760 --> 02:21:44,600
Speaker 2: They But like, like you could again say what you

2771
02:21:44,640 --> 02:21:46,680
Speaker 2: will about Joe Biden, he wouldn't have been in politics

2772
02:21:46,680 --> 02:21:49,240
Speaker 2: this long if he couldn't make enough people like him,

2773
02:21:49,400 --> 02:21:53,320
Speaker 2: And obviously Donald Trump is very charismatic. Sam Bankman Free

2774
02:21:53,360 --> 02:21:55,800
Speaker 2: just isn't like you don't become the president, if you

2775
02:21:55,840 --> 02:21:59,199
Speaker 2: are avoid of charisma.

2776
02:21:58,000 --> 02:22:00,000
Speaker 3: No, we and we've learned that time and time.

2777
02:22:00,480 --> 02:22:02,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing, like he was

2778
02:22:02,720 --> 02:22:06,680
Speaker 2: always all of his sudden rise to public prominence was

2779
02:22:06,720 --> 02:22:09,640
Speaker 2: not based on him actually being interesting. It was based

2780
02:22:09,680 --> 02:22:11,960
Speaker 2: on him spending tens of millions of dollars to get

2781
02:22:12,000 --> 02:22:14,640
Speaker 2: like Bill Clinton, to pretend to be his buddy. Like

2782
02:22:14,760 --> 02:22:16,880
Speaker 2: that was all there ever was to it. You know,

2783
02:22:17,320 --> 02:22:20,480
Speaker 2: in my general research on the crypto industry, and if

2784
02:22:20,480 --> 02:22:23,560
Speaker 2: you're looking for actual good reading, don't buy Going Infinite.

2785
02:22:23,560 --> 02:22:25,760
Speaker 2: You won't get anything valuable at it. If you do

2786
02:22:25,800 --> 02:22:28,480
Speaker 2: want to get something valuable and a deeper understanding about

2787
02:22:28,520 --> 02:22:31,000
Speaker 2: like how grifty this whole industry was, and also how

2788
02:22:31,040 --> 02:22:33,959
Speaker 2: grifty Sam was. There's a book called Number Go Up

2789
02:22:34,000 --> 02:22:39,320
Speaker 2: by Zeke Foe Zeke Faux really good book, Number Go Up,

2790
02:22:39,320 --> 02:22:41,880
Speaker 2: which I do recommend to people curious for the dark

2791
02:22:41,920 --> 02:22:45,959
Speaker 2: side of crypto. Zeke also spent time with Sam in

2792
02:22:46,000 --> 02:22:48,480
Speaker 2: the Bahamas, and I found this passage from his book

2793
02:22:48,520 --> 02:22:51,200
Speaker 2: relevant to what I just mentioned. A few hours into

2794
02:22:51,240 --> 02:22:53,360
Speaker 2: our conversation, bank man Freed told me he had to

2795
02:22:53,360 --> 02:22:54,840
Speaker 2: make a call. I had asked him if there was

2796
02:22:54,840 --> 02:22:57,600
Speaker 2: anyone who'd support his version of events, and he said

2797
02:22:57,640 --> 02:22:59,600
Speaker 2: I could talk with one of his few remaining supporters.

2798
02:22:59,640 --> 02:23:02,640
Speaker 2: While I in walked a haughty man with a long,

2799
02:23:02,720 --> 02:23:05,920
Speaker 2: scraggly beard, a pot belly, and mismatched socks, one of

2800
02:23:05,920 --> 02:23:08,359
Speaker 2: them with a pac man design who was an employee

2801
02:23:08,400 --> 02:23:11,200
Speaker 2: of FTX who'd stuck around to help bankman Freed try

2802
02:23:11,240 --> 02:23:13,720
Speaker 2: to find an investor to rescue the exchange. I threw

2803
02:23:13,720 --> 02:23:16,360
Speaker 2: out an easy question, why are you still here? I asked.

2804
02:23:16,560 --> 02:23:20,600
Speaker 2: He started off by saying he wanted to help ftx's customers. Then, unprompted,

2805
02:23:20,640 --> 02:23:22,160
Speaker 2: he told me he thought there wasn't much of a

2806
02:23:22,280 --> 02:23:24,680
Speaker 2: risk that bankment Freed would ever get in trouble. I

2807
02:23:24,760 --> 02:23:27,400
Speaker 2: firmly believe once somebody becomes a certain level of rich,

2808
02:23:27,440 --> 02:23:30,040
Speaker 2: they're never poured again. He said, they don't go to jail,

2809
02:23:30,200 --> 02:23:31,600
Speaker 2: nothing bad happens to them.

2810
02:23:32,080 --> 02:23:36,039
Speaker 3: Wait, he has his own Zuckerberg quote. He has his

2811
02:23:36,120 --> 02:23:38,520
Speaker 3: own You can be unethical and still be late. That's

2812
02:23:38,560 --> 02:23:40,680
Speaker 3: the way I live my life. Haha. Wait, read it

2813
02:23:40,720 --> 02:23:42,200
Speaker 3: again for me so I can really take it in.

2814
02:23:43,360 --> 02:23:46,240
Speaker 2: This is Sam's friend who stuck by him after his

2815
02:23:46,320 --> 02:23:49,960
Speaker 2: business collapsed. I firmly believe once somebody becomes a certain

2816
02:23:50,040 --> 02:23:52,360
Speaker 2: level of rich. They're never poured again, they don't go

2817
02:23:52,440 --> 02:23:55,199
Speaker 2: to jail, nothing bad happens to them.

2818
02:23:55,440 --> 02:23:56,000
Speaker 3: Poetry.

2819
02:23:56,280 --> 02:23:58,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to think. In

2820
02:23:58,879 --> 02:24:01,440
Speaker 2: that moment too, all of the smarter people have just

2821
02:24:01,480 --> 02:24:02,320
Speaker 2: fled the island.

2822
02:24:03,200 --> 02:24:07,840
Speaker 3: And in that moment he was infinite that yeah, wow, wow.

2823
02:24:07,720 --> 02:24:11,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, speless. It's so funny too, because like, I don't know, man,

2824
02:24:11,200 --> 02:24:14,680
Speaker 2: just historically, do you remember, like Marie Antoinette was pretty

2825
02:24:14,800 --> 02:24:17,800
Speaker 2: rich and like that didn't end well, you know, like

2826
02:24:17,800 --> 02:24:21,800
Speaker 2: like there's a lot had a lot of money. It

2827
02:24:21,840 --> 02:24:24,960
Speaker 2: didn't go well for him. You know, bad things happened

2828
02:24:24,959 --> 02:24:25,920
Speaker 2: to rich people too.

2829
02:24:26,640 --> 02:24:30,920
Speaker 3: Wow, And that's that's your main political stance, as I recall.

2830
02:24:30,800 --> 02:24:33,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I will hang out with anybody rich because

2831
02:24:33,400 --> 02:24:38,400
Speaker 2: nothing bad can happen to them. Obviously untrue. I kind

2832
02:24:38,480 --> 02:24:42,560
Speaker 2: of suspect that that that sort of I don't know,

2833
02:24:43,400 --> 02:24:46,280
Speaker 2: you know the fact that so much of what was said,

2834
02:24:46,440 --> 02:24:48,840
Speaker 2: like Zeke Foe is probably is clearly someone who's smart

2835
02:24:48,920 --> 02:24:51,600
Speaker 2: enough to like understand when he's being lied to by

2836
02:24:51,640 --> 02:24:54,280
Speaker 2: these people and understand their fundamental absurdity, and that comes

2837
02:24:54,320 --> 02:24:58,039
Speaker 2: across in his book. I don't think Lewis got that right.

2838
02:24:58,120 --> 02:25:02,040
Speaker 2: He believed fundamentally in the fundament honesty at the center

2839
02:25:02,080 --> 02:25:04,920
Speaker 2: of Sam Bankman Freed, and I kind of suspect that's

2840
02:25:04,959 --> 02:25:07,200
Speaker 2: why he covered his face with his hands that day

2841
02:25:07,280 --> 02:25:10,119
Speaker 2: in court. He's not a dumb man, and he must

2842
02:25:10,120 --> 02:25:12,480
Speaker 2: have realized by that point the evidence that came out

2843
02:25:12,480 --> 02:25:15,480
Speaker 2: in the trial was and made it undeniable that he

2844
02:25:15,560 --> 02:25:18,480
Speaker 2: got conned too. One of the most remarkable things about

2845
02:25:18,480 --> 02:25:21,640
Speaker 2: Going Infinite is how much detail Lewis provides about ftx's

2846
02:25:21,680 --> 02:25:25,400
Speaker 2: collapse without ever calling Sam a liar. The Guardian's review

2847
02:25:25,440 --> 02:25:28,200
Speaker 2: noted this too. He thought bankman Freed hadn't lied to

2848
02:25:28,280 --> 02:25:30,000
Speaker 2: him at all, or at least that he'd only lied

2849
02:25:30,000 --> 02:25:32,440
Speaker 2: by a mission, not by commission. Late in the book,

2850
02:25:32,480 --> 02:25:34,880
Speaker 2: Lewis asks bankman Freed, what would you have done if

2851
02:25:34,920 --> 02:25:38,120
Speaker 2: I'd ask you specifically about FTX customer funds being used

2852
02:25:38,120 --> 02:25:40,760
Speaker 2: by Alameda? Bankman Freed admits that he would have changed

2853
02:25:40,760 --> 02:25:43,600
Speaker 2: the subject or rustled up a word salad and whatever

2854
02:25:43,640 --> 02:25:47,279
Speaker 2: the facades erected by other effective altruists. Lewis considers bankment

2855
02:25:47,280 --> 02:25:50,480
Speaker 2: Freed to be enigmatic, but essentially genuine, and certainly not

2856
02:25:50,560 --> 02:25:52,959
Speaker 2: out to enrich himself because he has no desire for

2857
02:25:53,000 --> 02:25:56,440
Speaker 2: the things that money can buy. Lewis's refusal to believe

2858
02:25:56,480 --> 02:25:58,520
Speaker 2: that Sam Bankman Freed is a liar in the most

2859
02:25:58,600 --> 02:26:01,640
Speaker 2: venal base sense of the world word is based, I think,

2860
02:26:01,720 --> 02:26:04,440
Speaker 2: on a sense of professional pride. That explains why he's

2861
02:26:04,440 --> 02:26:06,600
Speaker 2: so adamant about pushing the line that there was no

2862
02:26:06,720 --> 02:26:09,560
Speaker 2: money missing, and it's why he continued to defend Sam's

2863
02:26:09,560 --> 02:26:12,640
Speaker 2: dissembling as a fun, quirky character trait while the trial

2864
02:26:12,760 --> 02:26:15,560
Speaker 2: was going on see as part of the Cash in

2865
02:26:15,640 --> 02:26:20,640
Speaker 2: Ongoing Infinite, Michael Lewis launched a podcast Judging Sam The

2866
02:26:20,720 --> 02:26:22,440
Speaker 2: Trial of Sam Bankman Freed.

2867
02:26:22,840 --> 02:26:25,680
Speaker 3: Oh it was a doe.

2868
02:26:26,520 --> 02:26:26,720
Speaker 2: Who?

2869
02:26:27,000 --> 02:26:30,920
Speaker 3: But everyone on this call knows that the first sign

2870
02:26:31,000 --> 02:26:34,800
Speaker 3: that your life is about to be fucking torched. Yes,

2871
02:26:35,080 --> 02:26:36,200
Speaker 3: is starting a podcast.

2872
02:26:36,800 --> 02:26:39,840
Speaker 2: That's right, right, It's the last refuse, refuge of fools

2873
02:26:39,840 --> 02:26:43,920
Speaker 2: and scoundrels. Yeah, please pay for the cool sound free

2874
02:26:43,959 --> 02:26:48,080
Speaker 2: subscription at what do we call it, Sophie so uh.

2875
02:26:48,240 --> 02:26:50,840
Speaker 2: The trial Judging Sam is part of Lewis's Against the

2876
02:26:50,920 --> 02:26:53,600
Speaker 2: Rules podcast on Pushkin, and I can't speak for the

2877
02:26:53,600 --> 02:26:56,200
Speaker 2: regular episodes of that podcast. I have not listened to

2878
02:26:56,320 --> 02:26:59,160
Speaker 2: any of the other ones, but I can say his

2879
02:26:59,240 --> 02:27:03,320
Speaker 2: Sam Bankman Read Trial podcast is an uneven effort at best.

2880
02:27:03,720 --> 02:27:06,080
Speaker 2: Most of the work is done by Lydia Jean. She's

2881
02:27:06,320 --> 02:27:09,800
Speaker 2: a journalist, She's okay. I don't have any huge issues

2882
02:27:09,800 --> 02:27:11,520
Speaker 2: with her. I think we get a little too much,

2883
02:27:11,600 --> 02:27:14,279
Speaker 2: like here's what the court kitchen is like, here's anecdotes

2884
02:27:14,320 --> 02:27:16,480
Speaker 2: from the fun lives of the journalists covering it.

2885
02:27:16,760 --> 02:27:19,920
Speaker 3: That also gets Yeah. Then it's like my least favorite

2886
02:27:19,920 --> 02:27:22,600
Speaker 3: part of every public radio and I love public radio,

2887
02:27:22,680 --> 02:27:25,680
Speaker 3: but the broadcast where it begins with six minutes of

2888
02:27:25,720 --> 02:27:28,640
Speaker 3: a guy stepping on leaves and you're like, oh my god,

2889
02:27:28,680 --> 02:27:31,640
Speaker 3: I get it. You're in fucking New Hampshire in October.

2890
02:27:31,280 --> 02:27:36,080
Speaker 2: What hot fall where you NPR people leave? We understand, yes,

2891
02:27:37,000 --> 02:27:39,440
Speaker 2: but every podcast on this trial does something like that.

2892
02:27:39,480 --> 02:27:41,080
Speaker 2: I think it's just because they have to. They were

2893
02:27:41,080 --> 02:27:44,280
Speaker 2: doing like basically daily episodes and needed to fill run time,

2894
02:27:44,440 --> 02:27:47,400
Speaker 2: and like, look, is that lazy? Yes? Have we all

2895
02:27:47,400 --> 02:27:51,800
Speaker 2: been there? Yes? So I simply can't throw stones at

2896
02:27:51,800 --> 02:27:52,600
Speaker 2: this class house.

2897
02:27:52,640 --> 02:27:58,120
Speaker 3: What are what are you talking about? As someone who's

2898
02:27:58,120 --> 02:28:01,600
Speaker 3: never had a daily podcast, I can this behavior because

2899
02:28:01,720 --> 02:28:03,080
Speaker 3: I've never had to do it.

2900
02:28:04,000 --> 02:28:08,640
Speaker 2: So Lucas Lydia takes most of the have the lifting

2901
02:28:08,680 --> 02:28:11,879
Speaker 2: on this show because Lewis was on tour for his book, right,

2902
02:28:12,000 --> 02:28:14,480
Speaker 2: and so he couldn't be there for most of it.

2903
02:28:14,520 --> 02:28:15,800
Speaker 2: He was barely at the trial.

2904
02:28:15,879 --> 02:28:19,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was screaming at women in cathedrals. He was busy.

2905
02:28:19,520 --> 02:28:24,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he does occasionally come on and one of

2906
02:28:24,320 --> 02:28:27,360
Speaker 2: the episodes that does shit like he shows up to

2907
02:28:27,520 --> 02:28:30,160
Speaker 2: court on the day that Sam takes the trial or

2908
02:28:30,200 --> 02:28:33,520
Speaker 2: it takes the stand in his own defense and you know,

2909
02:28:33,600 --> 02:28:36,360
Speaker 2: during this portion where he's like Sam's being cross examined,

2910
02:28:36,400 --> 02:28:38,840
Speaker 2: he says, I don't recall more than one hundred times.

2911
02:28:39,200 --> 02:28:41,959
Speaker 2: Here's how a right up from the Verge summarizes his

2912
02:28:42,000 --> 02:28:45,600
Speaker 2: time on the stand. Bank mcfreed's demeanor suggested a spoiled

2913
02:28:45,680 --> 02:28:48,120
Speaker 2: child complaining he didn't get the biggest scoop of ice

2914
02:28:48,160 --> 02:28:50,360
Speaker 2: cream at his birthday party. He didn't want to answer

2915
02:28:50,400 --> 02:28:53,160
Speaker 2: the prosecutor's questions or his lawyer's questions. He wanted to

2916
02:28:53,160 --> 02:28:56,119
Speaker 2: answer his own questions, which he liked better. He often

2917
02:28:56,160 --> 02:28:59,160
Speaker 2: replied to yes and no questions with nonsense. We were

2918
02:28:59,160 --> 02:29:01,680
Speaker 2: getting introduced to a document where Bankman Freed listed his

2919
02:29:01,760 --> 02:29:06,080
Speaker 2: priorities including getting accounting right on FTX. Cohen and Bankman Freed.

2920
02:29:06,120 --> 02:29:08,520
Speaker 2: Cohens's lawyer and bankman Freed used this to show how

2921
02:29:08,560 --> 02:29:10,760
Speaker 2: devoted bankman Freed was to getting to the bottom of

2922
02:29:10,800 --> 02:29:14,160
Speaker 2: the general fiasco with Alameda's money. The idea was to

2923
02:29:14,200 --> 02:29:17,119
Speaker 2: display in real time ftx's revenue and expenses, where its

2924
02:29:17,120 --> 02:29:19,240
Speaker 2: bank accounts were, how much investor money it had, and

2925
02:29:19,320 --> 02:29:22,800
Speaker 2: so on. This did reveal Bankman Fried's priorities. Getting accounting

2926
02:29:22,879 --> 02:29:27,560
Speaker 2: right was ranked ninth, so so for the stories bankman

2927
02:29:27,600 --> 02:29:30,320
Speaker 2: Freed wanted to tell, we had to rely on Bankman Freed.

2928
02:29:30,640 --> 02:29:33,240
Speaker 2: We moved on to bankman Freed's argument about hedging, which

2929
02:29:33,280 --> 02:29:35,120
Speaker 2: I still do not understand except as a way for

2930
02:29:35,200 --> 02:29:37,760
Speaker 2: him to say he's a smarter trader than his ex girlfriend,

2931
02:29:37,959 --> 02:29:40,519
Speaker 2: the former Alimeter Research CEO, Carolynellis.

2932
02:29:40,640 --> 02:29:42,680
Speaker 3: God, this is more stand up behavior.

2933
02:29:43,720 --> 02:29:46,160
Speaker 2: The actual evidence suggests that Ellison is both a better

2934
02:29:46,200 --> 02:29:49,320
Speaker 2: trader and much savvier than bankman Freed. She modeled out

2935
02:29:49,320 --> 02:29:52,359
Speaker 2: her risk scenario that matched almost exactly what happened at FTX,

2936
02:29:52,360 --> 02:29:54,320
Speaker 2: for instance, to try to keep him from sinking two

2937
02:29:54,360 --> 02:29:58,080
Speaker 2: billion into venture investing, and like what happens is he's

2938
02:29:58,120 --> 02:30:01,480
Speaker 2: putting you know, all this money and advertising into like

2939
02:30:01,520 --> 02:30:04,000
Speaker 2: playing celebrities. He's putting like two billion dollars into these

2940
02:30:04,080 --> 02:30:07,440
Speaker 2: random series of investments, and she's like, hey, we've taken

2941
02:30:07,480 --> 02:30:10,000
Speaker 2: depositor money to gamble with. We have to keep more

2942
02:30:10,040 --> 02:30:13,720
Speaker 2: cash on hand otherwise the whole exchange could collapse. Sam

2943
02:30:13,760 --> 02:30:16,800
Speaker 2: ignores her, the exchange collapses, and then he blames her

2944
02:30:16,959 --> 02:30:19,840
Speaker 2: for not hedging, right, And a hedge is when you

2945
02:30:19,879 --> 02:30:22,520
Speaker 2: take like a bet that one thing will happen, you

2946
02:30:22,560 --> 02:30:25,120
Speaker 2: take the opposite bet at a smaller amount of money,

2947
02:30:25,200 --> 02:30:28,560
Speaker 2: so that if no matter what happens, you can't lose

2948
02:30:28,600 --> 02:30:32,560
Speaker 2: too much money, right. But there's no hedging the kind

2949
02:30:32,560 --> 02:30:35,320
Speaker 2: of risks that FDx was taking because the fundamental risk

2950
02:30:35,480 --> 02:30:37,120
Speaker 2: was we don't have enough money. If there's a run

2951
02:30:37,160 --> 02:30:38,000
Speaker 2: on the bank, you.

2952
02:30:37,959 --> 02:30:40,160
Speaker 3: Know, well, it's like there are risk goes. We're never

2953
02:30:40,240 --> 02:30:44,160
Speaker 3: gonna die. Like, you can't you can't hedge that. Yeah,

2954
02:30:45,200 --> 02:30:47,600
Speaker 3: what is well to me is like everything you're describing

2955
02:30:47,920 --> 02:30:51,840
Speaker 3: is ridiculous, and it makes total sense that it fucking

2956
02:30:51,879 --> 02:30:54,800
Speaker 3: imploded in the catastrophic way that it did. But then

2957
02:30:54,840 --> 02:30:58,400
Speaker 3: you also, I mean, so much of it sounds like

2958
02:30:59,040 --> 02:31:02,000
Speaker 3: the kind of stuff that for example, michael Lewis might

2959
02:31:02,040 --> 02:31:06,040
Speaker 3: report on is a tremendous scam that worked out great

2960
02:31:06,160 --> 02:31:07,039
Speaker 3: for everybody.

2961
02:31:07,480 --> 02:31:11,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's so you know again, that quote

2962
02:31:11,600 --> 02:31:15,400
Speaker 2: from the Verge is pretty similar to how most reporters

2963
02:31:15,440 --> 02:31:18,600
Speaker 2: who were there at the trial described it. It is

2964
02:31:18,760 --> 02:31:23,080
Speaker 2: wildly different from how michael Lewis describes how Sam reacts

2965
02:31:23,160 --> 02:31:27,120
Speaker 2: on the stage, right, Oh okay, yeah, And it's interesting because,

2966
02:31:27,160 --> 02:31:29,240
Speaker 2: like obviously most people were able to see, Oh yes,

2967
02:31:29,280 --> 02:31:32,039
Speaker 2: Sam is just lying on the stand. He's obfuscating, he's

2968
02:31:32,080 --> 02:31:35,720
Speaker 2: refusing to answer answer the question. But Michael Lewis not

2969
02:31:35,760 --> 02:31:38,119
Speaker 2: only does Michael Lewis like being lied to by Sam

2970
02:31:38,120 --> 02:31:41,760
Speaker 2: Bankman freed, he thinks Sam's defensive cloud of bullshit right

2971
02:31:41,879 --> 02:31:44,800
Speaker 2: this like word salad, is better than the truth. And

2972
02:31:44,840 --> 02:31:48,080
Speaker 2: he says this in his fucking podcast, Jamie, You're gonna

2973
02:31:48,120 --> 02:31:48,840
Speaker 2: love this clip.

2974
02:31:50,040 --> 02:31:52,360
Speaker 7: Today. He didn't get in as much trouble as he

2975
02:31:52,480 --> 02:31:54,520
Speaker 7: got yesterday, though not as.

2976
02:31:54,440 --> 02:31:58,240
Speaker 5: Nothing, but still a little bit more than other witnesses.

2977
02:31:59,040 --> 02:31:59,760
Speaker 2: That's true.

2978
02:32:00,000 --> 02:32:02,000
Speaker 7: And the bigger point is the judge is sitting there

2979
02:32:02,240 --> 02:32:05,000
Speaker 7: listening to see if Sam is actually answering the.

2980
02:32:05,000 --> 02:32:07,240
Speaker 5: Question, because he knows he doesn't do that yet.

2981
02:32:07,200 --> 02:32:09,560
Speaker 7: Or generating a word salad for us all to consume.

2982
02:32:10,040 --> 02:32:12,680
Speaker 7: And I was thinking about this again to day why

2983
02:32:12,800 --> 02:32:17,000
Speaker 7: Sam's word salads are so fun, Like why he gets

2984
02:32:17,080 --> 02:32:19,800
Speaker 7: waiting Like most people when they don't answer a question,

2985
02:32:20,480 --> 02:32:23,120
Speaker 7: your alarm bells go off pretty quickly, like that you

2986
02:32:23,240 --> 02:32:26,880
Speaker 7: just redirected in some way. He's really really good at

2987
02:32:26,920 --> 02:32:29,840
Speaker 7: starting the answer in a place where you think, oh,

2988
02:32:29,879 --> 02:32:32,959
Speaker 7: that's where the beginning of the answer belongs, and then

2989
02:32:33,000 --> 02:32:36,520
Speaker 7: making a little jump into things are actually interesting to

2990
02:32:36,560 --> 02:32:39,840
Speaker 7: know about. So you're not bored, You're actually interested in

2991
02:32:39,840 --> 02:32:40,320
Speaker 7: what he's saying.

2992
02:32:40,360 --> 02:32:42,240
Speaker 5: You're saying like there's substance to it. He's not just

2993
02:32:42,240 --> 02:32:45,080
Speaker 5: saying nothing. He's saying something that's substantive and makes you

2994
02:32:45,120 --> 02:32:48,160
Speaker 5: think it's just not what you asked. But then you're

2995
02:32:48,200 --> 02:32:49,920
Speaker 5: thinking and you forget what you asked.

2996
02:32:50,280 --> 02:32:51,680
Speaker 7: That's exactly what happens.

2997
02:32:52,360 --> 02:32:56,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's like he's just saying that. Like, yes,

2998
02:32:57,040 --> 02:33:01,080
Speaker 2: Sam's lies. He's really good at lying, like and it's

2999
02:33:01,080 --> 02:33:03,640
Speaker 2: fun to listen to him lie as if that's a

3000
02:33:03,680 --> 02:33:06,440
Speaker 2: defense right where they're saying, like, well, they really painted

3001
02:33:06,440 --> 02:33:09,879
Speaker 2: a different picture of Sam because they you know, he

3002
02:33:09,959 --> 02:33:12,640
Speaker 2: got to get up on the stage and bullshit. That's good.

3003
02:33:12,959 --> 02:33:15,720
Speaker 3: That's a very interesting exchange to listen to as well,

3004
02:33:15,760 --> 02:33:18,160
Speaker 3: because it's, like, you know, because it's very clear that

3005
02:33:18,200 --> 02:33:21,240
Speaker 3: Michael Lewis has very little to do with this podcast.

3006
02:33:21,840 --> 02:33:23,960
Speaker 3: I don't know, like I can think of a number

3007
02:33:23,959 --> 02:33:28,040
Speaker 3: of examples of a like big name podcaster coming on

3008
02:33:28,120 --> 02:33:30,240
Speaker 3: their show to like be combative with the people who

3009
02:33:30,240 --> 02:33:32,280
Speaker 3: are actually making the show for them, and that like

3010
02:33:32,360 --> 02:33:35,000
Speaker 3: exchange too is like no, like I know what you're saying,

3011
02:33:35,320 --> 02:33:40,080
Speaker 3: but yeah, and even in what she's describing, like the

3012
02:33:40,120 --> 02:33:43,600
Speaker 3: court approaches either he's a genius or he's like an

3013
02:33:43,640 --> 02:33:47,039
Speaker 3: incompetent sweetie pie but you're just like or he's a

3014
02:33:47,120 --> 02:33:49,520
Speaker 3: malevolent dumb ass, or he don't seem to be the

3015
02:33:49,560 --> 02:33:50,400
Speaker 3: King con Man.

3016
02:33:50,800 --> 02:33:55,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like, yeah, I love this idea that like, yeah,

3017
02:33:55,480 --> 02:33:58,039
Speaker 2: we're getting to see the real Sam, who is a

3018
02:33:58,080 --> 02:34:01,240
Speaker 2: guy who never answers your action will question. But like

3019
02:34:01,720 --> 02:34:04,279
Speaker 2: I want to continue the clip because Lewis says something

3020
02:34:04,440 --> 02:34:06,240
Speaker 2: very very ridiculous right after this.

3021
02:34:06,560 --> 02:34:10,360
Speaker 7: Okay, he's really really good at starting the answer in

3022
02:34:10,440 --> 02:34:12,840
Speaker 7: a place where you think, oh, that's where the beginning

3023
02:34:12,920 --> 02:34:15,920
Speaker 7: of the answer belongs, and then making a little jump

3024
02:34:16,120 --> 02:34:19,760
Speaker 7: into things are actually interesting to know about. So you're

3025
02:34:19,760 --> 02:34:22,240
Speaker 7: not bored, You're actually interested in what he's saying.

3026
02:34:22,280 --> 02:34:24,160
Speaker 5: You're saying like there's substance to it. He's not just

3027
02:34:24,160 --> 02:34:27,000
Speaker 5: saying nothing. He's saying something that's substantive and makes you

3028
02:34:27,040 --> 02:34:30,080
Speaker 5: think it's just not what you asked. But then you're

3029
02:34:30,120 --> 02:34:31,840
Speaker 5: thinking and you forget what you asked.

3030
02:34:32,200 --> 02:34:37,040
Speaker 7: That's exactly what happens. It's engaging. It's like, maybe it's

3031
02:34:37,120 --> 02:34:40,240
Speaker 7: even better than the answer to the question.

3032
02:34:40,520 --> 02:34:42,760
Speaker 2: Like, rye, it's what you should ask.

3033
02:34:43,240 --> 02:34:45,240
Speaker 7: Maybe it's not even what you should have asked. That's

3034
02:34:45,280 --> 02:34:46,080
Speaker 7: exactly right.

3035
02:34:46,800 --> 02:34:50,039
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Sam the answer the question. Sam answers that

3036
02:34:50,080 --> 02:34:52,760
Speaker 2: aren't what he's being asked or what you should have asked, right,

3037
02:34:52,879 --> 02:34:55,240
Speaker 2: Like he's smarter than you, the interviewer, and he knows

3038
02:34:55,280 --> 02:34:57,600
Speaker 2: what you actually should have asked, which I just thought

3039
02:34:57,640 --> 02:35:00,920
Speaker 2: was a wild thing for a journalist to say. This

3040
02:35:01,000 --> 02:35:02,480
Speaker 2: is you know, we're getting to the end here. But

3041
02:35:02,520 --> 02:35:04,720
Speaker 2: the last thing I wanted to bring up was maybe

3042
02:35:04,760 --> 02:35:07,879
Speaker 2: the most interesting case of Michael Lewis following Sam's crap,

3043
02:35:07,959 --> 02:35:11,640
Speaker 2: which is him believing that Sam's outfit, his hairstyle, his

3044
02:35:11,680 --> 02:35:15,520
Speaker 2: poor hygieneral evidence of his brilliance, right, Sam just didn't

3045
02:35:15,560 --> 02:35:18,600
Speaker 2: have time to like take care of his appearance in

3046
02:35:18,640 --> 02:35:20,879
Speaker 2: any way. He was too smart to waste any of it,

3047
02:35:21,000 --> 02:35:24,000
Speaker 2: like his brain power on that and that article in

3048
02:35:24,080 --> 02:35:26,560
Speaker 2: Jacobin gives a really good summary of how the actual

3049
02:35:26,640 --> 02:35:29,720
Speaker 2: testimony of Sam's former friends in court blew this idea

3050
02:35:29,800 --> 02:35:33,160
Speaker 2: out of the water. The prosecutor followed with questions about

3051
02:35:33,200 --> 02:35:36,920
Speaker 2: Sam's approach to public relations. Ellison explained he was trying

3052
02:35:36,959 --> 02:35:38,800
Speaker 2: to cultivate an image of himself as a sort of

3053
02:35:38,920 --> 02:35:42,039
Speaker 2: very smart competence somewhat acentric founder. I was sitting in

3054
02:35:42,040 --> 02:35:44,760
Speaker 2: an overflow room on that day, so when the prosecutor asked,

3055
02:35:44,800 --> 02:35:47,360
Speaker 2: how would you describe the defendant's personal appearance through twenty

3056
02:35:47,400 --> 02:35:49,959
Speaker 2: twenty two, the room was allowed to erupt into laughter.

3057
02:35:50,280 --> 02:35:52,520
Speaker 2: Ellison replied, he looked like he didn't put a lot

3058
02:35:52,560 --> 02:35:55,680
Speaker 2: of effort into his personal appearance. He dressed sort of sloppery, sloppily,

3059
02:35:55,720 --> 02:35:57,760
Speaker 2: and didn't cut his hair often. He said he thought

3060
02:35:57,800 --> 02:35:59,760
Speaker 2: his hair had been very valuable. He said ever since

3061
02:35:59,840 --> 02:36:02,400
Speaker 2: j Street, he thought he had gotten higher bonuses because

3062
02:36:02,440 --> 02:36:04,160
Speaker 2: of his hair, and it was an important part of

3063
02:36:04,280 --> 02:36:05,920
Speaker 2: ftx's narrative and image.

3064
02:36:06,520 --> 02:36:12,160
Speaker 3: God Yeah, first, embarrassing, but also I think, you know,

3065
02:36:12,600 --> 02:36:18,040
Speaker 3: clearly predicated on the dipshit billionaires that came before him,

3066
02:36:18,240 --> 02:36:22,640
Speaker 3: Like there is a clear aesthetic and a clear like

3067
02:36:22,840 --> 02:36:25,720
Speaker 3: you know, slovenly genius thing that he's like, it's.

3068
02:36:25,560 --> 02:36:29,120
Speaker 2: Strategic and that's interesting, right, the fact that Sam is

3069
02:36:29,160 --> 02:36:33,560
Speaker 2: standing on the shoulders of giants of Steve Jobs, unwashed shoulders,

3070
02:36:34,000 --> 02:36:37,879
Speaker 2: like you know, Mark Zuckerberg's hoodie and whatever.

3071
02:36:37,600 --> 02:36:40,600
Speaker 3: Was like this genocideary that he wears.

3072
02:36:40,800 --> 02:36:43,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's like yeah. Lewis describes it as

3073
02:36:44,000 --> 02:36:46,560
Speaker 2: like everything in Sam's appearance felt less like a decision

3074
02:36:46,600 --> 02:36:48,960
Speaker 2: than a decision not to make it decision and no,

3075
02:36:49,120 --> 02:36:52,000
Speaker 2: what everyone says at FTX is like he was obsessed

3076
02:36:52,040 --> 02:36:54,720
Speaker 2: with like his hair. When they were spending trying to

3077
02:36:54,720 --> 02:36:57,480
Speaker 2: build their two hundred million dollars or whatever new headquarters.

3078
02:36:57,720 --> 02:37:00,279
Speaker 2: His only design note was that it should be shaped

3079
02:37:00,360 --> 02:37:02,560
Speaker 2: so it looked from the side like his hairs do,

3080
02:37:03,280 --> 02:37:06,760
Speaker 2: because he thought that, like he thought it was iconic, right, like.

3081
02:37:07,120 --> 02:37:09,879
Speaker 3: Which is also based on the what we were just

3082
02:37:10,320 --> 02:37:14,560
Speaker 3: listening to what the like logo to that podcast is

3083
02:37:14,560 --> 02:37:16,920
Speaker 3: is the shape of his hair. Everyone's playing into it.

3084
02:37:16,879 --> 02:37:20,680
Speaker 2: It's yeah, fucking it's fucking wild anyway, Jamie, that's my episode.

3085
02:37:21,040 --> 02:37:23,600
Speaker 2: Do you think we should fire Michael Lewis into the sun?

3086
02:37:24,600 --> 02:37:26,960
Speaker 3: Well, I was, I was thinking earlier. I am very

3087
02:37:27,000 --> 02:37:29,720
Speaker 3: curious because you know, I think it's like a waste

3088
02:37:29,720 --> 02:37:32,400
Speaker 3: of time to ask, like, well, Michael Lewis have another

3089
02:37:32,520 --> 02:37:34,840
Speaker 3: opportunity to course cract his career. Of course he will,

3090
02:37:35,120 --> 02:37:35,800
Speaker 3: of course he will.

3091
02:37:36,120 --> 02:37:39,920
Speaker 2: Yes, He's gonna write seventy more books.

3092
02:37:40,240 --> 02:37:43,120
Speaker 3: Well, what I'm curious about is like where he goes

3093
02:37:43,200 --> 02:37:45,200
Speaker 3: from here. I feel like it's pretty telling if you've

3094
02:37:45,240 --> 02:37:48,400
Speaker 3: been con to this fucking degree because no one clocked

3095
02:37:48,480 --> 02:37:51,560
Speaker 3: him in the blind side, but now he's been pretty

3096
02:37:51,600 --> 02:37:57,039
Speaker 3: severely clocked as like giving in to his worst biases

3097
02:37:57,480 --> 02:38:00,360
Speaker 3: and reporting it as fact. And I do want you're like,

3098
02:38:01,200 --> 02:38:03,879
Speaker 3: if that's the position you're in, and you will absolutely

3099
02:38:03,959 --> 02:38:08,000
Speaker 3: read another book because you're unkillable financially. Like, I wonder

3100
02:38:08,080 --> 02:38:10,520
Speaker 3: which direction he's going to go it. Is he going

3101
02:38:10,600 --> 02:38:13,160
Speaker 3: to be hyper cautious, is he going to play it safe?

3102
02:38:13,360 --> 02:38:15,520
Speaker 3: Is he going to be self reflective at all? Or

3103
02:38:15,600 --> 02:38:18,160
Speaker 3: is he going to double down on the falling for

3104
02:38:18,280 --> 02:38:21,120
Speaker 3: it kind of stuff? I genuinely don't know because I

3105
02:38:21,200 --> 02:38:23,440
Speaker 3: just like, it's very hard to discern what kind of

3106
02:38:23,440 --> 02:38:27,400
Speaker 3: person like. It seems like he's certainly, you know, like

3107
02:38:27,520 --> 02:38:29,920
Speaker 3: high in his own supply and is like, well, you know,

3108
02:38:30,000 --> 02:38:32,400
Speaker 3: of course anyone could have fallen for it, but he

3109
02:38:32,640 --> 02:38:35,160
Speaker 3: is sort of conceding to the fact that he fell

3110
02:38:35,200 --> 02:38:37,320
Speaker 3: for it. I just am curious what happens to someone

3111
02:38:37,320 --> 02:38:37,920
Speaker 3: from there.

3112
02:38:38,120 --> 02:38:40,640
Speaker 2: My suspicion, and maybe I'll be wrong about this. I

3113
02:38:40,640 --> 02:38:42,960
Speaker 2: think we'll know pretty soon. I think he's going to

3114
02:38:43,040 --> 02:38:47,320
Speaker 2: do another Sam. I specifically think he's going to yeah, second,

3115
02:38:47,400 --> 02:38:51,280
Speaker 2: a second Sam has hit the Michael Lewis bibliography, and

3116
02:38:51,360 --> 02:38:53,560
Speaker 2: it's going to be Sam Altman, like he's going to

3117
02:38:53,600 --> 02:38:55,840
Speaker 2: do with Sam Altman, the Open AI guy who just

3118
02:38:55,879 --> 02:38:58,360
Speaker 2: got fired from his job. He's going to do a

3119
02:38:58,400 --> 02:38:59,400
Speaker 2: book on Sam Altman.

3120
02:38:59,480 --> 02:39:04,120
Speaker 3: I suspect you're You're probably right, You're probably because then

3121
02:39:04,240 --> 02:39:06,879
Speaker 3: he'll be like and I would know I can see

3122
02:39:06,920 --> 02:39:10,000
Speaker 3: through Sam's now having been conned by one. I certainly

3123
02:39:10,080 --> 02:39:11,080
Speaker 3: won't be coming.

3124
02:39:10,879 --> 02:39:14,280
Speaker 2: By Sammy want Sam on you Sam me twice, won't

3125
02:39:14,320 --> 02:39:17,119
Speaker 2: get Sammed again? You know, I am father.

3126
02:39:17,040 --> 02:39:20,800
Speaker 3: Of Sam Sammy chit wow, yeah no.

3127
02:39:21,040 --> 02:39:26,640
Speaker 2: That that's my guess as to where this goes is Sam.

3128
02:39:25,440 --> 02:39:28,200
Speaker 3: What and why is Michael Lewis being presented with the

3129
02:39:28,240 --> 02:39:30,280
Speaker 3: second Sam doesn't seem fair?

3130
02:39:30,720 --> 02:39:34,200
Speaker 2: Second Sam, Well, I've already done that joke once and

3131
02:39:34,240 --> 02:39:37,320
Speaker 2: it worked and it all it always works, j it

3132
02:39:37,400 --> 02:39:39,520
Speaker 2: always works. Yeah.

3133
02:39:39,760 --> 02:39:45,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well I don't feel well, you know, I've I

3134
02:39:45,600 --> 02:39:48,480
Speaker 3: would say that this is like in the top twenty

3135
02:39:48,520 --> 02:39:52,120
Speaker 3: percentile of Bastards episodes. I've come out feeling like, you know,

3136
02:39:52,200 --> 02:39:55,640
Speaker 3: I don't feel that bad. I usually feel like really dire.

3137
02:39:55,680 --> 02:39:58,560
Speaker 3: I feel I feel pretty good. Yeah, he's in forever.

3138
02:39:58,800 --> 02:39:59,879
Speaker 3: He's in forever jail.

3139
02:40:00,480 --> 02:40:04,560
Speaker 2: M hm, he's in he is in forever jail, right, Yeah,

3140
02:40:04,600 --> 02:40:09,240
Speaker 2: speaking of forever jail, Jamie, talent is like a jail

3141
02:40:09,520 --> 02:40:14,200
Speaker 2: that locks you into, for example, making a weekly podcast.

3142
02:40:14,400 --> 02:40:16,920
Speaker 2: And I am happy that you and I are about

3143
02:40:16,920 --> 02:40:17,760
Speaker 2: to be cell mates.

3144
02:40:18,680 --> 02:40:22,120
Speaker 3: We are. I'm so excited. Yeah, we get to do

3145
02:40:22,200 --> 02:40:24,080
Speaker 3: the fun thing where we're like, we can't talk much

3146
02:40:24,080 --> 02:40:26,560
Speaker 3: about it yet, but there's a weird podcast.

3147
02:40:26,920 --> 02:40:29,840
Speaker 2: Jamie Loftus Weekly is coming to the Cool Zone Network.

3148
02:40:30,360 --> 02:40:33,640
Speaker 2: You were going to be the cool hand Luke of

3149
02:40:33,720 --> 02:40:34,480
Speaker 2: our podcast.

3150
02:40:34,560 --> 02:40:38,000
Speaker 3: Pre Welcome God. I would love to be the cool

3151
02:40:38,040 --> 02:40:40,959
Speaker 3: hand look of the podcast. I gotta get some new outfits.

3152
02:40:41,160 --> 02:40:43,280
Speaker 2: Got to get some new outfits. Gotta no, that's not

3153
02:40:43,320 --> 02:40:44,560
Speaker 2: the one. Is that the one where he throws a

3154
02:40:44,560 --> 02:40:46,520
Speaker 2: baseball at the wall or is that the Great Escape?

3155
02:40:48,000 --> 02:40:51,080
Speaker 2: I feel like a long time neither of I not

3156
02:40:51,120 --> 02:40:53,840
Speaker 2: since I was like seven, so I don't know why.

3157
02:40:53,840 --> 02:40:55,640
Speaker 3: He's a cool head. Look when you were seven?

3158
02:40:56,080 --> 02:40:57,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, my mom loved that movie.

3159
02:40:58,000 --> 02:40:58,320
Speaker 3: Nice.

3160
02:40:58,879 --> 02:41:01,440
Speaker 2: My mom had very strict rules on like what I

3161
02:41:01,480 --> 02:41:04,320
Speaker 2: could watch on as movies as a kid, unless it

3162
02:41:04,360 --> 02:41:06,480
Speaker 2: was a movie she liked, which is why I was

3163
02:41:06,520 --> 02:41:10,800
Speaker 2: in first grade when we watched Alien so ooh.

3164
02:41:11,200 --> 02:41:13,920
Speaker 3: That explains so much about you to me too.

3165
02:41:15,920 --> 02:41:18,960
Speaker 2: She was so excited that all the men die and

3166
02:41:18,959 --> 02:41:21,400
Speaker 2: and and the woman didn't that, Like, Yeah, she wanted

3167
02:41:21,440 --> 02:41:23,480
Speaker 2: me to see that movie at a very young age.

3168
02:41:23,760 --> 02:41:26,000
Speaker 3: What a legacy, truly.

3169
02:41:26,120 --> 02:41:29,000
Speaker 2: The sentence because men are stupid was uttered two or

3170
02:41:29,040 --> 02:41:30,400
Speaker 2: three times during.

3171
02:41:30,200 --> 02:41:34,640
Speaker 3: That movie, which does unpack a lot of the plot

3172
02:41:34,680 --> 02:41:37,840
Speaker 3: intended or not. Huh there. My mom would let me

3173
02:41:37,879 --> 02:41:40,520
Speaker 3: watch soap operas very young and would I would be like,

3174
02:41:40,520 --> 02:41:42,840
Speaker 3: what do they mean when they say making love? And

3175
02:41:42,840 --> 02:41:45,480
Speaker 3: she would say, what do you think? I don't know?

3176
02:41:45,600 --> 02:41:46,320
Speaker 3: I'm seven?

3177
02:41:47,800 --> 02:41:50,360
Speaker 2: Yeah you haven't, you have not equipped me to answer

3178
02:41:50,400 --> 02:41:50,960
Speaker 2: that question.

3179
02:41:51,080 --> 02:41:57,680
Speaker 3: Mother, Well, yes, weekly podcast coming soon early next year?

3180
02:41:57,920 --> 02:42:01,240
Speaker 3: Was it about you? Guess? Don't contact me about it

3181
02:42:01,240 --> 02:42:02,000
Speaker 3: because you're wrong?

3182
02:42:02,520 --> 02:42:07,400
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, a second Jamie has hit the cool zone.

3183
02:42:07,600 --> 02:42:09,880
Speaker 2: I mean, you've done more than two podcasts. This joke

3184
02:42:10,000 --> 02:42:10,720
Speaker 2: never worked, But.

3185
02:42:12,320 --> 02:42:15,400
Speaker 3: A first Jamie has hit the cool zone weekly?

3186
02:42:15,840 --> 02:42:16,240
Speaker 2: That's right?

3187
02:42:16,800 --> 02:42:19,320
Speaker 3: What podcast is this of ours?

3188
02:42:20,120 --> 02:42:20,320
Speaker 5: Oh?

3189
02:42:20,360 --> 02:42:22,640
Speaker 3: God? How many? How many? This is? This will be?

3190
02:42:22,680 --> 02:42:22,760
Speaker 5: What?

3191
02:42:22,879 --> 02:42:23,560
Speaker 3: Oh my god?

3192
02:42:23,680 --> 02:42:26,120
Speaker 2: Oh possible to say? It's impossible to say.

3193
02:42:27,160 --> 02:42:30,800
Speaker 3: I think it's like six. Yeah, I think it's like six.

3194
02:42:31,280 --> 02:42:34,240
Speaker 3: We've entered the half dozen range. It's getting dangerous. That's

3195
02:42:34,240 --> 02:42:37,680
Speaker 3: so cool for us. I know we're forever wives, Sam

3196
02:42:37,720 --> 02:42:41,640
Speaker 3: Bankman freed forever, Jill for ever jail us forever wives.

3197
02:42:42,080 --> 02:42:46,200
Speaker 2: Oh uh so, Jamie, anything else you wanted to plug

3198
02:42:46,280 --> 02:42:50,119
Speaker 2: before we ride on out of here, like Michael dog bit.

3199
02:42:51,000 --> 02:42:53,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the holidays. Are you looking for something to

3200
02:42:53,760 --> 02:42:57,039
Speaker 3: get for your loved or hated one? I won't know.

3201
02:42:57,480 --> 02:42:59,720
Speaker 3: Buy a copy of Raw Dog. It's my book about

3202
02:42:59,720 --> 02:43:02,200
Speaker 3: hot dogs. And if you don't like hot dogs. The

3203
02:43:02,280 --> 02:43:05,040
Speaker 3: title's funny. And I think that's you know, about sixty

3204
02:43:05,080 --> 02:43:08,080
Speaker 3: percent of the purchases I've gotten have been off bat alone.

3205
02:43:08,240 --> 02:43:10,400
Speaker 3: So you should buy raw Dog and.

3206
02:43:10,760 --> 02:43:14,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, buy raw Dog, and now I'm not going to

3207
02:43:14,959 --> 02:43:16,440
Speaker 2: make a raw Dog jake. That's just going to get

3208
02:43:16,480 --> 02:43:21,040
Speaker 2: me in trouble anyway. Buy a Cooler Zone Media subscription

3209
02:43:21,240 --> 02:43:24,200
Speaker 2: and you won't have to hear ads, or don't buy

3210
02:43:24,200 --> 02:43:27,560
Speaker 2: a Cooler Zone Media subscription and continue to listen to ads.

3211
02:43:28,040 --> 02:43:30,959
Speaker 2: It's I don't care live your life. I'm not your

3212
02:43:30,959 --> 02:43:31,600
Speaker 2: fucking dad.

3213
02:43:32,200 --> 02:43:36,400
Speaker 3: If you really want to hear the advertisings that Robert's disparaging,

3214
02:43:36,560 --> 02:43:38,760
Speaker 3: I personally think it's more fun to imagine it. So

3215
02:43:38,800 --> 02:43:40,880
Speaker 3: you should get a Cooler Zone Media subscription.

3216
02:43:41,200 --> 02:43:44,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, once everyone's on Cooler Zone Media, then we can

3217
02:43:44,160 --> 02:43:47,760
Speaker 2: finally get that sweet Lockheed Martin subscription that I've or

3218
02:43:48,840 --> 02:43:50,760
Speaker 2: whatever ad deals that I've been wanting to have.

3219
02:43:52,440 --> 02:43:55,640
Speaker 3: Robert can finally live inside a grenade like it's always

3220
02:43:55,680 --> 02:43:56,160
Speaker 3: been his dream.

3221
02:43:56,280 --> 02:44:00,360
Speaker 2: That's been my dream, that's been my dream, Jamie. Yeah,

3222
02:44:00,879 --> 02:44:01,840
Speaker 2: all right, we're done.

3223
02:44:01,920 --> 02:44:02,640
Speaker 3: Bye, we did it.

3224
02:44:06,879 --> 02:44:09,600
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

3225
02:44:09,959 --> 02:44:13,240
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

3226
02:44:13,400 --> 02:44:16,600
Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

3227
02:44:16,680 --> 02:44:19,840
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

3228
02:44:19,840 --> 02:44:23,920
Speaker 1: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

3229
02:44:24,000 --> 02:44:27,680
Speaker 1: and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash

3230
02:44:27,879 --> 02:44:30,039
Speaker 1: at Behind the Bastards