Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey there, it's Michael Lewis. Before we get to
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin, dot fm, Slash Plus. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Judging Sam, The Trial of Sam Bankman Freed. I'm
Speaker 1: Michael Lewis. We're two weeks into the trial now and
Speaker 1: the prosecution's almost done making their case and there's a
Speaker 1: lot to unpack. It's been this steady stream with people
Speaker 1: who I know, some of them just casually, but most
Speaker 1: of them pretty well from reporting the book. Seeing them
Speaker 1: in court has just been wildly fascinating. Except I haven't
Speaker 1: seen them in court because I haven't been in court
Speaker 1: because I've been on this book tour instead of Lydia
Speaker 1: jin Kott has been in court and she's been keeping
Speaker 1: me posted, but LJ, I'm so excited to finally have
Speaker 1: a moment to catch up and talk it all through
Speaker 1: with me. So we're recording this on Saturday, October the fourteenth,
Speaker 1: And the biggest thing that's happened since we last spoke
Speaker 1: is that Caroline Ellison is testified. What was she like?
Speaker 2: You know, when she was testifying? Afterwards, I went back
Speaker 2: and I looked at how you bring her on stage
Speaker 2: in your book, and the first sentence is it only
Speaker 2: took a couple of weeks of working for Sam before
Speaker 2: Caroline Ellison called her mother and sobbed into the phone
Speaker 2: that she made the biggest mistake of her life. And
Speaker 2: I don't think that could be a better introduction. And
Speaker 2: it's really what her testimony felt like. It felt like
Speaker 2: she was telling the story of how working for Sam
Speaker 2: was the worst misstake of her life.
Speaker 1: And at any point did she give any indication of
Speaker 1: why she stayed, like what kept her in?
Speaker 2: They did ask at one point if she considered resigning,
Speaker 2: and she said that she told Sam that she was
Speaker 2: thinking about resigning and wanted to resign, and Sam said,
Speaker 2: you can't do that. We need you, and how she
Speaker 2: was afraid that if she left then everything would come
Speaker 2: tumbling down.
Speaker 1: Huh. So, you know, it's funny. Among the documents I
Speaker 1: had my hands on were a fuller sort of account
Speaker 1: of their relationship as detailed on their Google Docs messages,
Speaker 1: and there was a constant theme through it of her
Speaker 1: feeling ill equipped for the job, unhappy in the job,
Speaker 1: it's too stressed in the job, and basically kind of
Speaker 1: wanting to quit all the time, it seemed. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, in the transcript, she talks about how
Speaker 1: like she felt, you know, you were there, so I
Speaker 1: don't know, but she felt more like a victim on
Speaker 1: the stand then she felt in her exchanges, these personal
Speaker 1: exchanges with Sam and in the flesh when I interviewed her,
Speaker 1: she seemed stronger when I met her, and stronger when
Speaker 1: she's standing up to Sam in their relationship. Then she
Speaker 1: sounded like she felt she was on the stand.
Speaker 2: I mean, she told a very strong story on the stand. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the story was that basically she was a victim
Speaker 2: of Sam. And I was thinking, it's interesting that you
Speaker 2: say that, because I did feel differently after seeing her
Speaker 2: on the stand than how I felt for reading your book.
Speaker 2: When I read your book, it seemed weird to me
Speaker 2: that she was so almost giddy when everything came crashing down,
Speaker 2: when other people were so upset about it. And on
Speaker 2: the stand I felt like I understood psychologically more what
Speaker 2: was going on. The way she told the story is
Speaker 2: the whole time she had been like, this is a
Speaker 2: really bad situation, and no one else around her was
Speaker 2: really acknowledging it. And then when it happened, there is
Speaker 2: a sense of relief, even though a terrible thing happened,
Speaker 2: you know. And when she cried, that was when I
Speaker 2: really felt for her in a way that I didn't
Speaker 2: feel for her in the book, right, you know.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you one thing I noticed, and it's
Speaker 1: again it's from reading the transcript, so it's different from
Speaker 1: seeing it. You may just have a different feel for
Speaker 1: this material than I do from having been there. But
Speaker 1: Caroline over and over says she was stressed for these
Speaker 1: few months the last you know, I was the last
Speaker 1: few months have been miserable, but not before then. There's
Speaker 1: not a lot of emphasis on the period before then
Speaker 1: except and this was interesting to me, And this is
Speaker 1: where I thought the prosecution like got away with something
Speaker 1: that they didn't think they were going to get away with.
Speaker 1: She says that the first time she was uncomfortable was
Speaker 1: when Sam told her to pay out of essentially out
Speaker 1: of it what amounted to FTX customer funds. Oh, they're
Speaker 1: sitting in Alameda to pay the billion dollars to see
Speaker 1: Z to buy him out of his stake. That sounds like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this here it is, here's the beginning the slippery slope.
Speaker 1: There's not enough money to do what he wants to do,
Speaker 1: and he's telling her to use money he shouldn't use, right,
Speaker 1: But I just double checked this actually to make sure
Speaker 1: it was true. I talked to the venture people at FTX,
Speaker 1: the former venture people, and as that money was going
Speaker 1: out the door, almost two billion dollars at one point
Speaker 1: eight billion dollars was coming in the door from venture
Speaker 1: capitalists that Sam had raised. And I think I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure what he was doing is trying to pay off
Speaker 1: CZ a moment before the terms of this fundraise was announced,
Speaker 1: because he was raising money at such a higher evaluation
Speaker 1: than he was buying out CZ. And if CZ could
Speaker 1: see what the venture capitalists were paying to buy in
Speaker 1: he would have to have paid him more. And so
Speaker 1: the lines crossed right from the beginning, because the funds
Speaker 1: are mingled right from the beginning. But this other line,
Speaker 1: this line of we're going to spend money we don't
Speaker 1: even have, doesn't seem to be being cross there, but
Speaker 1: they suggested it was, and she suggests she was a
Speaker 1: little young comfortable with it. And that seems strange to me,
Speaker 1: because everybody knew that there was more coming in that
Speaker 1: was going out, and it was a matter of a
Speaker 1: weak difference. And I thought, wow, prosecutors are actually routing
Speaker 1: the defense here, because the defense really should take them
Speaker 1: on on this.
Speaker 2: And what she said was that that incident confirmed for
Speaker 2: her that Alameda's line of I think the quote is
Speaker 2: Alameda's line of credit on FTX could be used as
Speaker 2: a general backstop source of funds for whenever we needed funds, right,
Speaker 2: But I guess it's a story of like a backstop
Speaker 2: for a week, and then it becomes a backstop maybe
Speaker 2: for three months, and then maybe a backstop for three years.
Speaker 1: What the point is they don't need it again until June.
Speaker 1: I guess they're saying of twenty twenty two, just more
Speaker 1: generally most most of what interests me doesn't have much
Speaker 1: effect on whether Sam is convicted or acquitted. You know
Speaker 1: that it's mostly the legal stuff is like its whole
Speaker 1: separate subject. And I kind of thought it was toast
Speaker 1: going into this, but it looks like it's gotten even worse.
Speaker 1: And you would probably agree with that. Right if I said,
Speaker 1: before you stepped into the courtroom, whatever it was, two
Speaker 1: weeks ago, what odds would you have to be given
Speaker 1: to bet that Sam is acquitted? What would you have demanded?
Speaker 2: I mean, as opposed to Sam. I'm not really a
Speaker 2: betting woman, but I I mean, I definitely thought Sam
Speaker 2: was going to be found guilty, just by the very
Speaker 2: fact that most of the time the prosecution wins. But
Speaker 2: I also thought that there was a chance that something
Speaker 2: would come up in the defense that would complicate the story,
Speaker 2: or that there would be a moment where maybe it
Speaker 2: would be a bit un clear, or you know, people
Speaker 2: always talk about there's that wonder. So I was open
Speaker 2: to possibilities at this point, at the end of this week,
Speaker 2: it feels like an incredible reach to try and come
Speaker 2: up with a way to not find him guilty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. So you didn't,
Speaker 1: you won't take my bet. I would have said fifty
Speaker 1: to one two weeks ago, and now I'd say two
Speaker 1: hundred to one. That it's moved that much. But then again,
Speaker 1: we've got to acknowledge that, you know, innocent until proven guilty,
Speaker 1: and he hasn't had a chance to be on the
Speaker 1: stand yet, so and he is going to take the stand,
Speaker 1: and so who knows what? Yeah, oh, yeah he is.
Speaker 1: I asked this PR person just to confirm this, like
Speaker 1: a week ago. Is he still going to take the stand?
Speaker 1: And he said, does a bear shit in the woods?
Speaker 1: And I actually don't know if a bear shits in
Speaker 1: the woods because IVE never seen a bear shit. So
Speaker 1: I told him I don't think no, And I don't
Speaker 1: think that he's the port of bodies either. So that
Speaker 1: we got that to look forward to, and I'm hoping
Speaker 1: is it going to offend you if I come and
Speaker 1: join you for a few days. Do you feel like
Speaker 1: I'll be crawling on you?
Speaker 2: No, I would be so excited if you joined me.
Speaker 2: I'd be so excited to have you meet all my
Speaker 2: court friends.
Speaker 1: I can meet all your friends or your new group. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I'll be excluded in some way
Speaker 1: because you all have been on the inside.
Speaker 2: No, I cannot wait for you to come and get
Speaker 2: to show you my favorite snacks in the cafeteria.
Speaker 1: So you can show me around. And we have to
Speaker 1: show up at six in the morning to get in
Speaker 1: and all that, so I will do that. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Judging Sam the trial of Sam Bankman freed. So
Speaker 1: a couple more, a couple more just kind of questions
Speaker 1: for you. But these are random things that like just
Speaker 1: jumped out at me. And unfortunately, one of the ways
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about this is what I have liked to
Speaker 1: have had this material because I could have done stuff
Speaker 1: with it that I didn't do. And the other thing
Speaker 1: is like, are people basically behaving like I think they are?
Speaker 1: I'm looking at it that way too. So, for example,
Speaker 1: Gary blew my mind that I knew something weird was
Speaker 1: going to happen. I didn't think it was. The problem
Speaker 1: was going to be he was going to speak too
Speaker 1: fast for anybody to understand. I thought they were going
Speaker 1: to have trouble pulling words out of him. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a comic moment when this person who everybody thinks
Speaker 1: doesn't speak, when he gets on a witness stand. Can't
Speaker 1: shut up, but okay, things just jumped out of me.
Speaker 1: The pillow talk between Sam and Caroline. The first thing
Speaker 1: was this coin flip, this idea that he volunteers that
Speaker 1: if you gave him a coin and if it lands
Speaker 1: on heads, humanity the world is wiped out. And if
Speaker 1: it lands on tails, everything is twice as good or
Speaker 1: three times as good as well. So it's an asymmetric bet,
Speaker 1: but it's a fifty to fifty chance of wiping out everything.
Speaker 1: This just clashes spectacularly with the whole effective altruist desire
Speaker 1: to minimize catastrophic risk. My response would be, I'm not
Speaker 1: flipping that coin under any circumstances. There's no odds where
Speaker 1: if there's better than zero odds that wipes out the world.
Speaker 1: I don't even flip the coin. Sam only requires two
Speaker 1: to one odds. This seems nuts, and one of the
Speaker 1: things it speaks to and the Sam bankman free in
Speaker 1: the book does this. He does two things as patterns
Speaker 1: of behavior. He's pretty blithe about shoveling risk on to
Speaker 1: other people, taking risks on behalf of other people. And
Speaker 1: he's pretty blithe about letting other people say things that
Speaker 1: aren't true on his behalf zaying in the book Zaine Tackett,
Speaker 1: who was really the original crypto guy. He was in
Speaker 1: crypto from the beginning, and they called him the og.
Speaker 1: He was sort of the soul of crypto, of old
Speaker 1: crypto that founded its way into Sam's world. And I
Speaker 1: always thought of him as like the moral center of
Speaker 1: the book.
Speaker 2: What was his job at FTX whatever.
Speaker 1: They called him, what his job was a sales He
Speaker 1: was just managing relations with big crypto speculators. And there's
Speaker 1: a moment I thought of as like a big moment
Speaker 1: when Zaye is walking out of the Bahamas and he's
Speaker 1: just really furious that Sam let him lie, that Sam
Speaker 1: encouraged him to go and reassure all their friends that
Speaker 1: everything was okay. And the coin got me thinking about that.
Speaker 1: That that kind of like, really you do that, you
Speaker 1: flip that coin. Now, I don't know if he'd really
Speaker 1: do it, and I don't know the content.
Speaker 2: He said that on a podcast also something similar, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he said. The host asked him, let's say there's a
Speaker 2: game fifty one percent you double the Earth out of
Speaker 2: somewhere else forty nine percent it disappears. Would you play
Speaker 2: the game and would you keep playing that double or nothing?
Speaker 2: And like basically Stam says he would.
Speaker 1: That's nuts. Yeah, that's nuts. I mean, that's that's just
Speaker 1: that's just insane. You know. It's interesting the Jane Street experience.
Speaker 1: And in Jane Street, he comes away with the feeling
Speaker 1: that he's really good at finding these fifty one forty
Speaker 1: nine bets and making them. And from Jane Street's point
Speaker 1: of view, that's fine because they have two hundred other
Speaker 1: people making these fifty one forty nine bets. And if
Speaker 1: you've got you know, a massive number of people making
Speaker 1: a massive number of bets, event you're going to win
Speaker 1: fifty one percent of the time. And that's fine. But
Speaker 1: if it's just one person flipping a coin, that's not fine.
Speaker 1: That's different.
Speaker 2: Like it's almost like he took that lesson from Jane
Speaker 2: Street but didn't understand the context in which he was
Speaker 2: acting in that way.
Speaker 1: I think that's precisely it, this business of there being
Speaker 1: a five percent chance of being president of the United States.
Speaker 2: Yes, Caroline says he told her.
Speaker 1: That this is the sort of thing a boyfriend says
Speaker 1: to a girlfriend and a girlfriend should never repeat. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like whatever, like maybe in a moment he had
Speaker 1: this thought even before things went bad. If there were
Speaker 1: only twenty Americans, so everybody in theory had a one
Speaker 1: in five chance of being president of the United States,
Speaker 1: and Sam was one of them. I wouldn't give him
Speaker 1: a one in five chance of being president of the
Speaker 1: United States. I would say he has about in a
Speaker 1: group of twenty any twenty randomly selected Americans, he has
Speaker 1: about a two percent chance. And it's because people sense
Speaker 1: very quickly when they're with him. He doesn't feel for
Speaker 1: them that he doesn't that he doesn't He doesn't have
Speaker 1: that thing, that thing that politicians need, you know, the
Speaker 1: empathy thing, even if it's faith, he doesn't. He doesn't
Speaker 1: even fake it very well. So it's funny that that
Speaker 1: thought even crossed his mind. Again, I don't know how
Speaker 1: true or whatever it was, but it did jump out
Speaker 1: of the transcripts. How did it play in the courtroom?
Speaker 2: I was in the overflow room. I mean, there were
Speaker 2: some titters in that whole section. The reporters love the
Speaker 2: insight into Sam's mind and how it works and what
Speaker 2: he's thinking about, and the whole time Caroline was talking,
Speaker 2: and especially when she was talking about her relationship with Sam.
Speaker 2: Everyone was just riveted. Those were the most riveting parts
Speaker 2: of her entire testimony. Yeah, but it's not so crazy
Speaker 2: to think that he would become president when he was
Speaker 2: really rich. Really rich people who aren't very empathetic have
Speaker 2: become presidents of the United States in the past.
Speaker 1: I can't think of any I mean, this Trump, but
Speaker 1: he's not really rich.
Speaker 2: That's a good plaint.
Speaker 1: So are you you're so? Are you always in the
Speaker 1: overflow room where you sometimes in the main corporo.
Speaker 2: It's a mix. Basically, it's a mix.
Speaker 1: So what are the rules about laughing?
Speaker 2: For example, the marshals have never specifically stated any rules
Speaker 2: about laughing. They're very firm about the no electronics, no food,
Speaker 2: only water. I think there's a kind of self regulation
Speaker 2: where we just don't want to feel like we're influencing
Speaker 2: the jury. But in the overflow rooms it's really fun.
Speaker 2: It's really like we're at the movies. People are laughing,
Speaker 2: they're talking, sacking in with each other.
Speaker 1: So the overflall room may be better in some ways,
Speaker 1: so you can actually express yourself.
Speaker 2: Yes, the overflow room, it feels like I always wish
Speaker 2: I had popcorn. It feels like we're doing an overnight
Speaker 2: showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show or something.
Speaker 1: Then one time I've been in the courtroom, I was
Speaker 1: so amused I started laughing, and they told me I
Speaker 1: had to leave. Yeah, I thought you couldn't do that.
Speaker 2: I think we naturally keep it down in the court room.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so formal in there. I don't know
Speaker 2: what courtroom you were. In the atmosphere, it just makes
Speaker 2: laughing feel so beyond the pale that it just hasn't
Speaker 2: even come up right right.
Speaker 1: I was shocked. I came up. I'm reading these transcripts
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, did you meet Michael
Speaker 1: Lewis or whenever? Who is like a Lewis? And the
Speaker 1: thing you didn't tell me what you told me? That
Speaker 1: I that I come up in some way. What I
Speaker 1: didn't realize is that they asked her if I was
Speaker 1: present in the discussions about moving money to the wrong place,
Speaker 1: And I thought, what on earth like? But I thought,
Speaker 1: thank god she said no.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, why are they asking that? There was something?
Speaker 1: They must They must have known the answer before they
Speaker 1: asked the question. But the question I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out why were they asking them? Were they asking
Speaker 1: that to show that I wasn't in these these special
Speaker 1: meetings between them. I don't know. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out what that was.
Speaker 2: I think that what they were trying to get at
Speaker 2: is that they were this whole section was about Sam
Speaker 2: and the media, and they were showing how Sam was
Speaker 2: very intentionally trying to portray himself a certain way in
Speaker 2: the media and it wasn't accurate. So I think that
Speaker 2: question was kind of getting at the point that you
Speaker 2: weren't getting the whole story. He was portraying himself as
Speaker 2: this eccentric, capable leader. I'm speculating here, but I'm thinking
Speaker 2: maybe they're asking that to say, but actually you weren't
Speaker 2: seeing the whole thing. You weren't seeing what was happening
Speaker 2: behind closed doories, which were these conversations about about.
Speaker 1: Moving money to the wrong place. Now that's true. I
Speaker 1: wasn't present when they were saying the money is in
Speaker 1: the wrong place. No one was present when they were
Speaker 1: saying money was in the wrong place. It's funny, though
Speaker 1: Sam's never broken character so far as I can tell.
Speaker 1: Like you go back and talk to people in high school,
Speaker 1: he was just like you know, the the high schoolassmates says,
Speaker 1: the same guy. High school classmates I've talked to are
Speaker 1: shocked when they've seen him because they assumed that, especially
Speaker 1: before it all collapsed, they assumed that there was no
Speaker 1: way the person they knew could have become a billionaire.
Speaker 1: And they assumed like he changed, and they realized that
Speaker 1: the world changed, and he was the same guy with
Speaker 1: the funny roly backpack. And I mean, I've spent way
Speaker 1: too much time with him for him to be acting
Speaker 1: all the time. I mean, and that was true even
Speaker 1: before it collapsed. So what I'm saying is what I
Speaker 1: think happened. And it's the story. Here is pr person
Speaker 1: Natalie tells is he goes from being when they create FTX,
Speaker 1: then you have to promote it. How do you promote it?
Speaker 1: It's the person who is the CEO. And Natalie's there
Speaker 1: and she says, he's so weird, but it may be
Speaker 1: weird will work. I'm not going to even try to
Speaker 1: change him. And she throws him on Bloomberg Television and
Speaker 1: she looks him because he's exactly as he is, and
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. It works. They're eating it up. And I
Speaker 1: think it's more true that they ate him up as
Speaker 1: he was, you know, playing video games while he is
Speaker 1: on the television sloppy stream of consciousness, smart, you know,
Speaker 1: a little too open and transparent, seemingly, and so he
Speaker 1: just went with it. And there might have been times
Speaker 1: with it he was a slightly exaggerated version of that,
Speaker 1: but that's actually who he is.
Speaker 2: He went with it, and then it worked, and then
Speaker 2: he really leaned into it, right. I mean, the prosecutors
Speaker 2: were bringing up how originally he slept in his being
Speaker 2: bagchair a lot, maybe in Hong Kong, but once they
Speaker 2: got to the Bahamas, he didn't really sleep in his
Speaker 2: being back chair, according to I think said that.
Speaker 1: And his prietory spent less time as being back chair.
Speaker 1: That was true because in Hong Kong, the housing was
Speaker 1: shitty and the offices were really nice. In the Bahamas,
Speaker 1: the offices were shitty, and the and the condos they
Speaker 1: lived in were really nice. And Nashad Sam, they all
Speaker 1: complained about it. They hated it. They would have heard
Speaker 1: ferd ash shitty housing and a really nice office, so
Speaker 1: nobody wanted to leave the office. So there's no point
Speaker 1: in Sam living in the office when nobody was there
Speaker 1: because they didn't want to be there. In the in
Speaker 1: the Hong Kong and the employees were there all the time,
Speaker 1: and in the Bahamas is just like you couldn't be
Speaker 1: there all the time. And the tick about the sleeping
Speaker 1: in the being back chair, it isn't to reveal his eccentricity.
Speaker 1: That's not why he does it. It's because he's really
Speaker 1: uncomfortable sleeping alone. He wouldn't stay in his hotel rooms
Speaker 1: when he traveled. He'd go curl up in another employees
Speaker 1: on their sofa in their room because he just I
Speaker 1: don't know what that is, but he was really comfortable
Speaker 1: sleeping in a room by himself, and I think the
Speaker 1: bemback chair when people were there was comforting. So he
Speaker 1: wasn't like sleeping on the bean bag to show me
Speaker 1: he was sleeping on the bean bag. They didn't get
Speaker 1: that sense.
Speaker 2: What about Carolyn said that when they arrived in the Bahamas,
Speaker 2: they got these fancy cars and then they Sam traded
Speaker 2: it in for a more shady car because he didn't
Speaker 2: want his image to be having this fancy car.
Speaker 1: So that's possibly true. So that story is Ryan Salem,
Speaker 1: who was the Department of Spending, and who bought all
Speaker 1: the condos. You let Ryan Salem loose with a blank
Speaker 1: check book, and it was unbelievable what he would do. Sam.
Speaker 1: I remember Sam saying, Ryan just does shit no one
Speaker 1: would do, no other person would do. Go to the
Speaker 1: Bahamas and then a week accumulate three hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: of property and buy a piece of land for a
Speaker 1: three hundred million dollar office site, and in addition, by
Speaker 1: Sam a fancy car. So Sam didn't asked for a car.
Speaker 1: Ryan just presented him with his BMW and Sam didn't
Speaker 1: want it. And Ryan was like, like, dude, you're worth
Speaker 1: twenty two billion dollars to get a nice car, and
Speaker 1: SAMSI just don't want a nice car. Now, I'm maybe
Speaker 1: that was the motive. But if that was the motive,
Speaker 1: why live in a thirty eight million dollar condo? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like it's not really working if you're
Speaker 1: if you're selling I'm an asthetic and I don't care
Speaker 1: about material possessions. Why fly on a private jet? Everybody
Speaker 1: knew about that. He certainly wasn't consistent in selling this image,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know, I don't know how much.
Speaker 1: He actually thought about that. He may have set it
Speaker 1: to Caroline at some point. It doesn't really does It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a strong point. So a couple more
Speaker 1: questions about the courtroom. Are you still having fun?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's still really fun.
Speaker 1: The transcripts aren't boring reads to me, and I was
Speaker 1: wondering if it's just me. But it doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: get very slow in the exchanges. The judge seems to
Speaker 1: do a really good job or run in the room.
Speaker 2: Yeah he does. He has this phrase tempest fugut, time flies.
Speaker 2: He tries to keep things moving.
Speaker 1: Couldn't he just say time flies?
Speaker 2: Yes? But this way I got to be like, thank gosh,
Speaker 2: I'm minored in Latin.
Speaker 1: He seems to have a sense of humor. He is.
Speaker 2: He's very funny. We'll be back in a minute with
Speaker 2: one last thing.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you what do they say is
Speaker 1: coming next?
Speaker 2: I think the prosecution is going to spend about one
Speaker 2: more week and they're going to bring a bunch of witnesses,
Speaker 2: including Nishad Sing And you wrote a lot about Nishad
Speaker 2: in your book, so I'm curious what you are thinking
Speaker 2: about and wondering about before we hear from Nishad.
Speaker 1: So when I think of what Nishad's role was on
Speaker 1: the ORG chart on the inside of the flap of
Speaker 1: the book, he's whatever he is. I can't even remember
Speaker 1: what they called him, but what he was right from
Speaker 1: the beginning was the emotional intelligence unit. All the emotional
Speaker 1: fallout from Sam Bankman Freed found its way into Nishad's office,
Speaker 1: and so he was constantly just soothing upset people. And
Speaker 1: there was a line I didn't actually make it into
Speaker 1: the book, but I can remember him saying about Sam
Speaker 1: not long before everything collapsed, that one of the things
Speaker 1: that impressed him about Sam was that he'd started with
Speaker 1: zero EQ, but he'd subcontracted some of his IQ to
Speaker 1: create some EQ and it wasn't as bad as it
Speaker 1: was in the beginning. And he said, if you saw
Speaker 1: Sam three years ago, you would think if the Sam
Speaker 1: you see now is just so much better than the
Speaker 1: Sam of three years ago. But all the problems in
Speaker 1: the world found their way to the Shod. He was
Speaker 1: a little bit like the Green Mile character, like he
Speaker 1: would he'd hold hands with whatever the person was, that
Speaker 1: all the pain would be absorbed into the shod. And
Speaker 1: he also I mean, I'm sure this is going to
Speaker 1: come out in the trial. But when everything was unraveling,
Speaker 1: he was begging Sam to say that the shot had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with what had happened. He was begging
Speaker 1: Sam to kind of make a statement, and there's an
Speaker 1: exchange about that in the book, So I'd be interesting
Speaker 1: how it comes off. Another thing you really need to
Speaker 1: know about him is that he was Sam's little brother's
Speaker 1: best friend in high school. And Sam's parents were unbelievably
Speaker 1: important to Nashad as a kid. As Shad told me,
Speaker 1: they were the first grown ups whoever took me seriously,
Speaker 1: and so I started to take myself a bit more seriously.
Speaker 1: So what you got in the courtroom is maybe even
Speaker 1: more drama than in a way than Caroline, because the
Speaker 1: family did never really get to know her. Nashad was
Speaker 1: almost part of their family, and he's about to get
Speaker 1: on the witness stand and testify against against Sam.
Speaker 2: Michaelis thank you so much for talking to me, thanks.
Speaker 1: For filling me in LJ, and I will come. I
Speaker 1: promise I'll be there for a few days at least
Speaker 1: at the end of the all. This episode of Judging
Speaker 1: Sam was hosted by me Michael Lewis, Lydia Jane Cott
Speaker 1: is our court reporter. Catherine Gerardeau and Nisha Venken produced
Speaker 1: this show. Sophie Crane is our editor. Our music was
Speaker 1: composed by Matthias Bossi and John Evans of stell Wagon Symphonette.
Speaker 1: Judging Sam is a production of Pushkin Industries. Got a
Speaker 1: question or comment for me, There's a website for that
Speaker 1: atr podcast dot com. That's atr podcast dot com. To
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