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A review by yevolem
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis
5.0
Based on the most liked reviews here I'd have thought that I read an entirely different book. I find it interesting when people seem to think that giving a book a low score is a form of activism or otherwise making some sort of statement out of doing so. A book is not the person (the map is not the territory.) Another similar example is how the three most liked reviews for Game of Thrones are 1 stars. Many other examples exist, especially the more political the book is. This is a biography, not an expose, a corporate history or anything else. Considering how neurodivergent, let alone closed off, SBF is, and many of the others written about here are, I believe that this was about the best that could be expected. A writer can only go by what can be learned, unless they begin fabricating.
Contrary to what many would have you have believe, I don't know how you could read this, understand it, and come out thinking that almost anyone that Lewis has written about isn't dubious at best. I assume it's intentional this Lewis wrote this as a story, because there's so much foreshadowing and metaphors. If this were fiction, it should've been obvious how this would all end given how blatant Lewis is about SBF's worldview and relationships. Almost no one trusts SBF, many are scared of him, no one understands him, and several immediately assume he's involved in criminal activities. His relationships are toxic, his self-reports are condemning, and yet despite all of this many still go along with him.
The title of this biography is bad and the cover is worse. I would've been more amused if the title were instead, The Friendliest Utility Monster. I've only read a few biographies, but they've intentionally been of a certain type. I'm very interested in those people who have what Bud Tribble described as a reality distortion field, in that case of Steve Jobs. It's an intriguing phenomenon that I believe that temporarily destroys a susceptible person's ability to understand probability and maybe even norms. Humans seek out patterns and when they come across a pattern that can't be comprehended it can be disorienting and evoke all sorts of behaviors. It's like inducing anomie in someone, which I find to be fascinating.
I found this to be hilarious and invigorating. It's also tragic in its own way because sometimes the course of an individual life and their interactions with society seem almost predetermined based on initial starting conditions. I don't know whether it's how common it is, but there's just something about reading about real people like this that's so much more vivacious than fictional characters for me. Though, I don't know that I'd want to read about someone who's a paragon of virtue, or otherwise considered greatly to be a good person. That's admirable, though not interesting to me.
The rest of this is my thoughts on book excerpts. I considered including a lot more, but this is already more than enough.
Unfortunately true and definitely an indictment. This wouldn't be out of place as the opening lines for an organized crime series.
If even your family doesn't know about you at all, then that's some very early on and consistent behavior that is fundamental to a person's identity and probably has a genetic basis. People aren't born tabula rasa.
If you have both nature and nurture to have zero empathy, then it's likely that a person may never develop any, or at least have an extraordinary struggle to develop its rudiments later in life.
They are, and many have done for very well for themselves financially by exploiting this. SBF's operations were delusions upon delusions if nothing else.
As it states, this is a very utilitarian way of thinking and if you think about it, it's offputting, if not disturbing. It's certainly not conducive to close relationships. Not having a hierarchy of caring causes many problems. If you consider your family, friends, and colleagues to be equivalent to strangers then it won't go well.
I have to wonder how different SBF's life may have been if he didn't have this meeting and somehow had entirely avoided Effective Altruism and specifically the idea of "earn to give". Any cult based on a meme ideology isn't going go well in the long term, which is ironic, considering longtermism. Ranting about EA is outside the scope what I'm writing here though. A similar rant tangent would be how much more likely those in engineering are to join an extremist organization, as are those in similar fields to a lesser extent.
For SBF, Asher was the same as the competitors, because he cared about everyone the same, which was basically not at all. Asher showed weakness, so it was maximally exploited, which is what his job was. The difference being of course being that friendly fire isn't well-regarded. SBF is entirely right about the situation. He read them and they couldn't read him. His bosses would've done well to have read Simon Baron Cohen's Zero Degrees of Empathy. Just because someone understands doesn't mean they care.
I'm reminded of a passage from Robert Silverberg's Dying Inside:
That isn’t intended as a grab for your pity, just as a simple statement of fact, objective and cool. The nature of my condition diminishes my capacity to love and be loved. A man in my circumstances, wide open to everyone’s innermost thoughts, really isn’t going to experience a great deal of love. He is poor at giving love because he doesn’t much trust his fellow human beings: he knows too many of their dirty little secrets, and that kills his feelings for them. Unable to give, he cannot get. His soul, hardened by isolation and ungivingness, becomes inaccessible, and so it is not easy for others to love him. The loop closes upon itself and he is trapped within.
There's not much stronger condemnation than to have the people who you believe can understand you more than anyone else to completely turn on you because they correctly understood you. This happens over and over again.
None of it mattered though because all that had to be done was allow those who didn't believe to leave and to allow only the true believers, enablers, and sycophants to remain. SBF retained full control the entire time.
They'd have been right, but then they found reasons to go against their better judgment. Maybe they had the wrong reasons, but it doesn't matter so much when it comes to the same correct conclusion.
Very friendly advice from one criminal organization to another. Technically FTX wasn't dealing in crypto, they were doing derivatives, the same way that something dealing in commodities future isn't technically buying and selling the actual product itself, but rather a contract for it.
I don't know how it was in person, but all behavior in the book indicates that. It's as if this were the fable of the The Scorpion and the Frog and SBF is constantly yelling I AM THE SCORPION AND I WILL STING YOU! and then all the frogs are surprised by it happening even though he had stung many other frogs. Eventually the same ending happened to him and all others around him. It's just as said in the book, "People don’t see what they aren’t looking for".
Contrary to what many would have you have believe, I don't know how you could read this, understand it, and come out thinking that almost anyone that Lewis has written about isn't dubious at best. I assume it's intentional this Lewis wrote this as a story, because there's so much foreshadowing and metaphors. If this were fiction, it should've been obvious how this would all end given how blatant Lewis is about SBF's worldview and relationships. Almost no one trusts SBF, many are scared of him, no one understands him, and several immediately assume he's involved in criminal activities. His relationships are toxic, his self-reports are condemning, and yet despite all of this many still go along with him.
The title of this biography is bad and the cover is worse. I would've been more amused if the title were instead, The Friendliest Utility Monster. I've only read a few biographies, but they've intentionally been of a certain type. I'm very interested in those people who have what Bud Tribble described as a reality distortion field, in that case of Steve Jobs. It's an intriguing phenomenon that I believe that temporarily destroys a susceptible person's ability to understand probability and maybe even norms. Humans seek out patterns and when they come across a pattern that can't be comprehended it can be disorienting and evoke all sorts of behaviors. It's like inducing anomie in someone, which I find to be fascinating.
I found this to be hilarious and invigorating. It's also tragic in its own way because sometimes the course of an individual life and their interactions with society seem almost predetermined based on initial starting conditions. I don't know whether it's how common it is, but there's just something about reading about real people like this that's so much more vivacious than fictional characters for me. Though, I don't know that I'd want to read about someone who's a paragon of virtue, or otherwise considered greatly to be a good person. That's admirable, though not interesting to me.
The rest of this is my thoughts on book excerpts. I considered including a lot more, but this is already more than enough.
When you had $22.5 billion, people really, really wanted to be your friend. They’d forgive you anything.
Unfortunately true and definitely an indictment. This wouldn't be out of place as the opening lines for an organized crime series.
“We weren’t close growing up,” he said, when I reached him. “I don’t think Sam liked school that much, but I don’t really know. He kept to himself. I would interact with him as another tenant in my house.”
To their dinner guests it seemed that Joe and especially Barbara were both a little afraid for, and of, their elder son.
If even your family doesn't know about you at all, then that's some very early on and consistent behavior that is fundamental to a person's identity and probably has a genetic basis. People aren't born tabula rasa.
Sam, like his parents, didn’t see the point in anyone trying to imagine what someone else might want.
If you have both nature and nurture to have zero empathy, then it's likely that a person may never develop any, or at least have an extraordinary struggle to develop its rudiments later in life.
“Mass delusions are a property of the world, as it turns out,” he said.
They are, and many have done for very well for themselves financially by exploiting this. SBF's operations were delusions upon delusions if nothing else.
““Not being super close to that many particular people made it more natural to care not about anyone in particular but about everyone,” he said. “The default wiring I had was, ‘Yeah, there’s not anyone who doesn’t matter. So I guess I should care the same amount about everyone.’ ”
As it states, this is a very utilitarian way of thinking and if you think about it, it's offputting, if not disturbing. It's certainly not conducive to close relationships. Not having a hierarchy of caring causes many problems. If you consider your family, friends, and colleagues to be equivalent to strangers then it won't go well.
One other oddly big thing happened to Sam at the beginning of his junior year. Completely out of the blue, a twenty-five-year-old lecturer in philosophy at Oxford University named Will Crouch* reached out and asked to meet with him. Sam never learned how the guy had found him—probably from the writing Sam had been doing on various utilitarian message boards. MacAskill belonged to a small group inside Oxford that had embraced ideas hatched long ago by an Australian philosopher named Peter Singer.
I have to wonder how different SBF's life may have been if he didn't have this meeting and somehow had entirely avoided Effective Altruism and specifically the idea of "earn to give". Any cult based on a meme ideology isn't going go well in the long term, which is ironic, considering longtermism. Ranting about EA is outside the scope what I'm writing here though. A similar rant tangent would be how much more likely those in engineering are to join an extremist organization, as are those in similar fields to a lesser extent.
What he’d done to Asher was no more than what Jane Street was doing to competitors in financial markets every day. “It was not like I was unaware I was being a piece of shit to Asher,” he said. “The relevant thing was: Should I decide to prioritize making the people around me feel better, or proving my point?” Sam thought his bosses had misread his social problems. They thought he needed to learn how to read other people. Sam believed the opposite was true. “I read people pretty well,” he said. “They just didn’t read me.”
For SBF, Asher was the same as the competitors, because he cared about everyone the same, which was basically not at all. Asher showed weakness, so it was maximally exploited, which is what his job was. The difference being of course being that friendly fire isn't well-regarded. SBF is entirely right about the situation. He read them and they couldn't read him. His bosses would've done well to have read Simon Baron Cohen's Zero Degrees of Empathy. Just because someone understands doesn't mean they care.
“To truly be thankful, you have to have felt it in your heart, in your stomach, in your head—the rush of pleasure, of kinship, of gratitude,” he wrote. “And I don’t feel those things. But I don’t feel anything, or at least anything good. I don’t feel pleasure, or love, or pride, or devotion. I feel the awkwardness of the moment enclosing on me. The pressure to react appropriately, to show that I love them back. And I don’t, because I can’t.”
I'm reminded of a passage from Robert Silverberg's Dying Inside:
That isn’t intended as a grab for your pity, just as a simple statement of fact, objective and cool. The nature of my condition diminishes my capacity to love and be loved. A man in my circumstances, wide open to everyone’s innermost thoughts, really isn’t going to experience a great deal of love. He is poor at giving love because he doesn’t much trust his fellow human beings: he knows too many of their dirty little secrets, and that kills his feelings for them. Unable to give, he cannot get. His soul, hardened by isolation and ungivingness, becomes inaccessible, and so it is not easy for others to love him. The loop closes upon itself and he is trapped within.
they called a meeting to announce that they had persuaded the rich effective altruists who had lent them the $170 million to demand its return
There's not much stronger condemnation than to have the people who you believe can understand you more than anyone else to completely turn on you because they correctly understood you. This happens over and over again.
And so, on April 9, 2018, his entire management team, along with half of his employees, walked out the door
None of it mattered though because all that had to be done was allow those who didn't believe to leave and to allow only the true believers, enablers, and sycophants to remain. SBF retained full control the entire time.
“Sam forgets how many people thought he was a scammer at first,” said Ryan. “You’d expect to find a Sam behind any scam.”
They'd have been right, but then they found reasons to go against their better judgment. Maybe they had the wrong reasons, but it doesn't matter so much when it comes to the same correct conclusion.
It was a weird conversation—the CEO of one crypto exchange calling the CFO of another to inform him that, if he didn’t want to lose money on his new futures contract, he’d need to improve his market manipulation.
Very friendly advice from one criminal organization to another. Technically FTX wasn't dealing in crypto, they were doing derivatives, the same way that something dealing in commodities future isn't technically buying and selling the actual product itself, but rather a contract for it.
“He has absolutely zero empathy,” she said. “That’s what I learned that I didn’t know. He can’t feel anything.
I don't know how it was in person, but all behavior in the book indicates that. It's as if this were the fable of the The Scorpion and the Frog and SBF is constantly yelling I AM THE SCORPION AND I WILL STING YOU! and then all the frogs are surprised by it happening even though he had stung many other frogs. Eventually the same ending happened to him and all others around him. It's just as said in the book, "People don’t see what they aren’t looking for".