Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
by Michael Lewis
Published By: W. W. Norton & Company, October 3, 2023
Genre: Nonfiction | Biography & Memoir, Science & Technology, Business & Finance
Page Count: 288
Audiobook Length: 8 hours 56 minutes
Audiobook Narrator: Michael Lewis
ISBN: 9781324074335
Amazon | Kobo | Barnes & Noble
Publisher’s Description
From the #1 bestselling author of The Big Short and Flash Boys, the high-octane story of the enigmatic figure at the heart of one of the 21st century’s most spectacular financial collapses
‘I asked him how much it would take for him to sell FTX and go do something other than make money. He thought the question over. “One hundred and fifty billion dollars,” he finally said-though he added that he had use for “infinity dollars”…’
Sam Bankman-Fried wasn’t just rich. Before he turned thirty he’d become the world’s youngest billionaire, making a record fortune in the crypto frenzy. CEOs, celebrities, and world leaders vied for his time. At one point he considered paying off the entire national debt of the Bahamas so he could take his business there.
Then it all fell apart.
Who was this Gatsby of the crypto world, a rumpled guy in cargo shorts, whose eyes twitched across TV interviews as he played video games on the side, who even his million-dollar investors still found a mystery? What gave him such an extraordinary ability to make money – and how did his empire collapse so spectacularly?
Michael Lewis was there when it happened, having got to know Bankman-Fried during his epic rise. In Going Infinite he tells us a story like no other, taking us through the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live on his own. Both a psychological portrait of a preternaturally gifted ‘thinking machine’, and a wild financial roller-coaster ride, this is a twenty-first-century epic of high-frequency trading and even higher stakes, of crypto mania and insane amounts of money, of hubris and downfall. No one could tell it better.
About the Author
Michael Lewis is a renowned author with bestsellers like The Big Short and Moneyball. He’s also a columnist for Bloomberg View and has written for publications like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Lewis grew up in New Orleans, holds degrees from Princeton and the London School of Economics, and lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and children.
Click here for our full biography of Michael Lewis.