Lewis bought extra entry to Sam Bankman-Fried than anybody, however his guide doesn’t inform a brand new story. It’s a superbly serviceable primer for individuals who haven’t been following the FTX saga (I’ll in all probability give it to my dad, and he’ll in all probability adore it), however for readers who’ve been following this case it’s a well-known yarn. Stale, even. A part of that is the inevitable consequence of selecting a topic who loves the highlight; in the event you’ve learn any of the prodigious reporting on SBF from the The New Yorker, Vox, Bloomberg, New York journal, The New York Instances, the Monetary Instances, The Wall Avenue Journal, The Washington Put up, Forbes, and so forth and so forth, there’s no large ah-ha second available, only a few reasonably attention-grabbing new anecdotes advised in an interesting means. Anybody who has learn something about Bankman-Fried is aware of the identical broad strokes getting into as they do going out.
What’s worse, Going Infinite suffers immensely by comparability to a different new guide protecting the SBF saga. Bloomberg reporter Zeke Fake’s rollicking Quantity Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, which got here out in September, is the far superior information to understanding the FTX debacle and Bankman-Fried himself.
It’s price noting that each Fake’s and Lewis’ books open with the writers confessing that they’d been initially taken in by SBF and describe conversations they’d had with him earlier than his downfall, however there’s a key distinction. Lewis recounts how impressed he’d been with out hinting that he now not feels that means. Fake takes a distinct strategy. The opening line is a quote from Bankman-Fried: “I’m not going to lie,” SBF guarantees Fake. “This was a lie,” Fake writes. This accomplishes two issues: First, it indicators instantly to the reader that Fake now will get it, that he is aware of Bankman-Fried was stuffed with it. Second, it’s humorous.
The Credulity Police might definitely ticket Fake for some transgressions; as he confesses in Quantity Go Up, he’s the creator of a softball profile of SBF for Bloomberg Businessweek, one wherein he didn’t even think about scrutinizing how FTX labored as a enterprise. (He additionally finally ends up spending $20,000 of his personal cash on an NFT and will get swept up in that scene’s ridiculous enthusiasm.) However Fake breezily fesses as much as the whole lot, emphasizing that he wasn’t onto Bankman-Fried earlier than the remainder of the world. “I’d prefer to let you know that I used to be the one that uncovered all of it, the heroic investigator who noticed by certainly one of historical past’s best frauds,” Fake writes. “However I bought tricked like everybody else.”
As an alternative of treating Bankman-Fried like a captivating puzzle to pore over, Fake pegs him as a cross between a nerd and a troll. As an alternative of conserving focus solely on SBF, he locations the ex-FTX CEO inside a broader menagerie of crypto freaks, together with Heather Morgan, additionally identified by her rap title “Razzlekhan.” Like Bankman-Fried, Morgan was an odd child who grew as much as be a clumsy grownup who lived eccentrically, liked consideration, and finally discovered herself pleading “not responsible” to jaw-dropping monetary crimes. (Morgan and her boyfriend had been arrested for allegedly laundering $4.5 billion in stolen cryptocurrency.)
Shortly after Morgan’s arrest, there was a rush of curiosity in turning her story into content material—a Netflix documentary from the Tiger King crew is within the works, along with a podcast and a fictionalized collection. Fake factors this out for example of how frenzied public curiosity in crypto true crime had turn out to be, not as proof that there are layers to Morgan which can be price a lot cautious consideration. He presents her appropriately: as an audacious buffoon, no extra and no much less.