{"id":153206,"date":"2023-10-20T04:03:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T12:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=153206"},"modified":"2024-11-11T11:12:10","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T19:12:10","slug":"going-infinite-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-new-tycoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=153206","title":{"rendered":"Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Lewis writes in his new book<\/a>:<\/p>\n

* He didn\u2019t mean to be rude. He didn\u2019t mean to create chaos in other people\u2019s lives. He was just moving through the world in the only way he knew how. The cost this implied for others simply never entered his calculations. With him it was never personal. If he stood you up, it was never on a whim, or the result of thoughtlessness. It was because he\u2019d done some math in his head that proved that you weren\u2019t worth the time. \u201cYou\u2019re always going to be apologizing to different people, and you\u2019ll do that every day,\u201d said Natalie. <\/p>\n

He\u2019d occasionally surprise her with some kindness \u2014 for example, after he\u2019d met privately with President Clinton, and asked him what the United States might do if China invaded Taiwan. Whatever Clinton had told Sam had prompted him to seek her out afterward and suggest that she move her parents out of Taiwan.<\/p>\n

* \u201cMy mom is working full – time on the effectiveness of political campaign donations, and my brother is in DC with policymakers,\u201d Sam said, returning Anna Wintour\u2019s face to his laptop. \u201cWe\u2019re doing a decent amount to see just how hard we can make it to steal an election. It\u2019s sad that\u2019s the forum we have to fight in, but it is.\u201d
\n For a surprisingly long time, Sam\u2019s spending on American elections had flown under the radar. Back in 2020, he\u2019d sent $5.2 million to Joe Biden\u2019s presidential campaign without anyone asking or even thanking him for it. He was Biden\u2019s second – or third – biggest donor, and yet the campaign had never even bothered to call him. Since then, Sam had tossed tens of millions more dollars at one hundred different candidates and political action committees (PACs), in ways that made his identity difficult to detect. It was yet another game \u2014 How to Influence American Politics \u2014 that he was learning by doing, and it was pretty fun, especially when you had the special power of invisibility. But then he \u201cfucked up,\u201d as he put it. He let it slip in some interview that he was thinking of hurling a billion dollars into the next presidential election. That remark had awakened the beast.<\/p>\n

* Natalie Tien was prepared for Anna Wintour\u2019s people to be disappointed when she told them that Sam wouldn\u2019t be there. It was their outrage that surprised her. \u201cThey called and shouted and said Sam will never set foot in fashion again!\u201d said Natalie. So much for pulling more women into crypto. Natalie didn\u2019t understand why the Met Gala was such a big deal. Sam\u2019s last – minute decision not to go would not create anything like the havoc caused by some of his other internal calculations. CEOs had flown to the Bahamas under the mistaken impression that Sam had agreed to buy their companies. The World Economic Forum had to scramble to fill a stage and cancel media interviews after Sam decided, the night before he was meant to deliver a big speech in Davos, not to. Sam had failed to fly to Dubai to give the keynote at Time magazine\u2019s party for the world\u2019s 100 Most Influential People, even after Time had named him to their list and flattered him in print. \u201cIn a crypto landscape ridden with scams, hedonism, and greed, Bankman – Fried offers a kinder and more impactful vision brought forth by the nascent technology,\u201d Time had written, the week before Sam stiffed them. Tyra Banks and will.i.am and all the rest of the world\u2019s other most influential people were treated to hastily prepared remarks delivered by a not entirely sober FTX employee named Adam Jacobs, who was bewildered to be standing in for Sam. \u201cI\u2019m like, What is the head of payments doing giving this speech?\u201d said Jacobs. \u201cWhy am I drinking with will.i.am?\u201d
\n But the people at Time magazine hadn\u2019t made a stink. No one except Anna Wintour\u2019s people did: the general rule of life as late as May 2, 2022, was that Sam got to be Sam.<\/p>\n

* When I\u2019d asked Sam for a list of people who could describe what he was like before the age of eighteen, he\u2019d taken a deep breath and said, \u201cThat\u2019s slim pickings.\u201d He suggested his parents, Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried. He mentioned that he had a younger brother, Gabe. Apart from that, he said, he had no early relationships that would cast any light on him, and there were no experiences in his childhood that mattered much. \u201cI\u2019m a little confused about my childhood,\u201d he said. \u201cI just can\u2019t figure out what I did with it. I look at the things I did, and I cannot successfully add up to twenty – four hours a day. I daydreamed some. I read some books. I played some video games, but that wasn\u2019t until high school. I had one or two frien ds I\u2019d hang out with now and again.\u201d The names of those friends, with one exception, would not ever spring to mind. He was happy to supply me with his date of birth: March 5, 1992. Beyond that, he didn\u2019t have much to say, and didn\u2019t think his childhood had anything to say about him \u2014 which struck me as odd, as he had spent roughly two – thirds of his life in it.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d gone to school for thirteen years with other children. He\u2019d been admitted to colleges, which would have required teachers to write him recommendations. His parents were well – known professors. Most Sundays, I\u2019d learn, Joe and Barbara hosted a dinner that guests remember fondly to this day. \u201cThe conversation was intoxicating,\u201d recalls Tino Cu\u00e9llar, a Stanford law professor who would go on to become a judge on California\u2019s supreme court and then head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. \u201cFifteen percent of it was what was going on in your life, fifteen percent was politics, and the rest was ideas. How we thought about what we thought about \u2014 aesthetics, music, whatever.\u201d Sam had been at those dinners but could not think of any one of their guests who\u2019d be worth my talking to. Pressed, he suggested I call his brother, who was now employed by Sam to distribute Sam\u2019s money to political candidates. Gabe, three years younger, told me that I was wasting my time. \u201cWe weren\u2019t close growing up,\u201d he said, when I reached him. \u201cI don\u2019t think Sam liked school that much, but I don\u2019t really know. He kept to himself. I would interact with him as another tenant in my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam\u2019s parents were only a bit more helpful. Sam had been their first child, and so it had taken them longer than it might have to figure out that there was no point in parenting him by any book. \u201cChildhood was a funny thing for Sam,\u201d said Joe. \u201cHe was never comfortable with kids, or with being a kid.\u201d They\u2019d briefly attempted to inflict upon him a normal childhood before realizing that there was no point. The trip to the amusement park was a good example. When Sam was a small child, his mother had located a Six Flags or Great America park. She\u2019d hauled him dutifully from amusement to amusement until she realized Sam wasn\u2019t amused. Instead of throwing himself into the rides, he was watching her . \u201cAre you having fun, Mom?\u201d he asked finally, by which he meant, Is this really your or anyone else\u2019s idea of fun? \u201cI realized I had been busted,\u201d said Barbara.<\/p>\n

By the time Sam was eight she had given up on the idea that his wants and needs would be anything like other children\u2019s. She remembered the instant that happened. She had been at Stanford for over a decade, a frequent contributor of difficult papers to academic journals. \u201cI was walking him to school, and he asked me what I was doing,\u201d recalled Barbara. \u201cI told him I was giving some paper, and he asked, \u2018What\u2019s it on?\u2019 \u201d I gave him a bullshit answer, and he pressed me on it, and by the end of the walk we were in the middle of a deep conversation about the argument. The points he was making were better than any of the reviewers\u2019. At that moment my parenting style changed.\u201d
\n To their friends who came to dinner on Sunday nights, Joe was always light, Barbara more serious. Joe was funny, Barbara trenchant. Gabe was a bright and cheery little kid whom everyone loved. Sam was always a presence, but he was quieter and more watchful and less accessible than his little brother. To their dinner guests it seemed that Joe and especially Barbara were both a little afraid for, and of, their elder son. And that they were concerned about how he would ever fit into the world. \u201cWe worried that Gabe\u2019s light was going to shine, and Sam would hide his under a bushel,\u201d said Barbara.<\/p>\n

Sam himself took a bit longer to recognize the gulf between himself and other children. He didn\u2019t really know why he didn\u2019t have friends the way other kids did. Between the ages of eight and ten, he was sideswiped by a pair of realizations that, taken together, amounted to an epiphany. The first came one December day during the third grade. Christmas was approaching, and a few of his classmates brought up the critical subject of Santa Claus.<\/p>\n

The Bankman – Frieds weren\u2019t big on the usual holidays. They celebrated Hanukkah but with so little enthusiasm that one year they simply forgot it, and, realizing that none of them cared, stopped celebrating anything. \u201cIt was like, \u2018Alright, who was bothered by this fact? The fact that we forgot Hanukkah.\u2019 No one raised their hand,\u201d Sam said. They didn\u2019t do birthdays, either. Sam didn\u2019t feel the slightest bit deprived. \u201cMy parents were like, I dunno, \u2018Is there something you want? Alright, bring it up. And you can have it. Even in February. Doesn\u2019t have to be in December. If you want it, let\u2019s have an open and honest conversation about it instead of us trying to guess.\u2019 \u201d Sam, like his parents, didn\u2019t see the point in anyone trying to imagine what someone else might want. The family\u2019s indifference to convention came naturally and unselfconsciously. It was never, Look how interest ing we are, we don\u2019t observe any of the rituals that define so many American lives. \u201cIt\u2019s not like they said, \u2018Gifts are dumb,\u2019 \u201d recalled Sam. \u201cThey never tried to convince us about gifts. It didn\u2019t happen like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of what the Bankman – Frieds did was for show; they weren\u2019t that kind of people. They just really thought about what they did before they did it. In his twenties Sam would learn that his parents had never married. In silent protest of the fact that their gay friends could not legally marry, they\u2019d joined in a civil union. And they never said a word about it to their children, or to anyone else, as far as Sam could tell. Later, Sam understood that \u201cthey were clearly being driven by a different underlying belief system.\u201d As a small child he knew only that there were things other children took for granted that he did not.<\/p>\n

* Sam had heard of God too. \u201cGod was like a thing on TV,\u201d he said. \u201cGod came up. But I didn\u2019t think anyone actually believed in God.\u201d It told you something not just about Sam but about his upbringing that he could live for almost ten years inside the United States of America without realizing that other people believed in God. \u201cI never asked myself, \u2018Why does God come up if no one believes in it?\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cI had never gone through that process before. I hadn\u2019t drilled down into \u2018Do people believe in it?\u2019 \u201d Now Henry was telling him not only that he believed in God but that his parents did too. So did lots of other grown – ups. \u201cAnd I freaked out,\u201d recalled Sam. \u201cThen he freaked out. We both freaked out. I remember thinking, Wait a minute, do you think I\u2019m going to hell? Because that seems like a big deal. If hell exists, why do you, like, care about McDonald\u2019s? Why are we talking about any of this shit, if there is a hell. If it really exists. It\u2019s fucking terrifying, hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was Santa all over again, only worse. God \u2014 or rather the fact that anyone believed in him \u2014 rocked Sam\u2019s world. Just sideswiped his view of other people and what was going on inside their minds. He tried to confront adults \u2014 mainly friends of his parents\u2019 who came to dinner \u2014 about God. He always found it easier to talk to grown – ups than to children and had always been better at it than other children \u2014 a fact he attributed to the idiotic childishness of other children. His parents\u2019 friends were at their dinner table every Sunday, and available for inspection. \u201cI\u2019d ask them, \u2018Do you believe in God?\u2019 They\u2019d equivocate \u2014 like, say something about a Being that started the Clock of the Universe. And I\u2019d think, Quit fucking around: it\u2019s a binary question. Just yes or no.\u201d He didn\u2019t understand the unwillingness of even really smart grown – ups to get the right answer to this question. \u201cIt was weird to me,\u201d he said. \u201cI never understood why people bothered pretending about this shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

* In some deep way, he sensed, he remained cut off from other human beings. He could read them, but they couldn\u2019t read him. \u201cThere were some things I had to teach myself to do,\u201d he said. \u201cOne is facial expressions. Like making sure I smile when I\u2019m supposed to smile. Smiling was the biggest thing that I most weirdly couldn\u2019t do.\u201d Other people would say or do things to which he was meant to respond with some emotional display.<\/p>\n

* He felt nothing in the presence of art. He found religion absurd. He thought both right – wing and left – wing political opinions kind of dumb, less a consequence of thought than of their holder\u2019s tribal identity. He and his family ignored the rituals that punctuated most people\u2019s existence. He didn\u2019t even celebrate his own birthday. What gave pleasure and solace and a sense of belonging to others left Sam cold. When the Bankman – Frieds traveled to Europe, Sam realized that he was just staring at a lot of old buildings for no particular reason. \u201cWe did a few trips,\u201d he said. \u201cI basically hated it.\u201d To his unrelenting alienation there was one exception: games. In sixth grade Sam heard about a game called Magic: The Gathering . For the next four years it was the only activity that consumed him faster than he could consume it.<\/p>\n

* In their day jobs, his parents continually wrestled with the tension, in American law, between individual freedoms and the collective good. Both identified, broadly speaking, as utilitarians: any law should seek not to maximize some abstract notion of freedom but rather the greatest good for the greatest number. They never pushed their views on Sam, but Sam of course heard them. And his parents mostly made sense to him. Around the time he stopped reading books, he turned to utilitarian message boards on the internet. He might not have felt connections to individual individual people, but that only made it easier for him to consider the interests of humanity as a whole. \u201cNot being super close to that many particular people made it more natural to care not about anyone in particular but about everyone,\u201d he said. \u201cThe default wiring I had was, \u2018Yeah, there\u2019s not anyone who doesn\u2019t matter. So I guess I should care the same amount about everyone.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

* Sam would later explain:<\/p>\n

“When I was about 12 years old I was first becoming politically aware and started to think through social issues. Gay marriage was a no brainer \u2014 you don\u2019t have to be a hardcore utilitarian to see that making people\u2019s lives miserable because they\u2019re completely harmlessly a little bit different than you is stupid. But abortion was nagging me a bit. I was pretty conflicted for a while: having unwanted kids is bad, but so was murder.”<\/p>\n

Then Sam framed abortion as a utilitarian might. Not by dwelling on the rights of the mother or the rights of the unborn child but by evaluating the utility of either course of action.<\/p>\n

“There are lots of good reasons why murder is usually a really bad thing: you cause distress to the friends and family of the murdered, you cause society to lose a potentially valuable member in which it has already invested a lot of food and education and resources, and you take away the life of a person who had already invested a lot into it. But none of those apply to abortion. In fact, if you think about the actual consequences of an abortion, except for the distress caused to the parents (which they\u2019re in the best position to evaluate), there are few differences from if the fetus had never been conceived in the first place. In other words, to a utilitarian abortion looks a lot like birth control. In the end murder is just a word and what\u2019s important isn\u2019t whether you try to apply the word to a situation but the facts of the situation that caused you to describe it as murder in the first place. And in the case of abortion few of the things that make murder so bad apply.”<\/p>\n

* He\u2019d always just thought that he\u2019d wind up being some kind of professor, like his parents. \u201cI had sort of implicitly assumed that academia was the center of morality,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was where people were at least thinking of how to have the most impact on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Lewis writes in his new book: * He didn\u2019t mean to be rude. He didn\u2019t mean to create chaos in other people\u2019s lives. He was just moving through the world in the only way he knew how. The cost … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42960,42979,42961,29723],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crypto","category-michael-lewis","category-sbf","category-stanford"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t