Review: “Going Infinite “— History Fast Forwards 32x these days
I read somewhere that pestilence was the disease of agricultural revolution, cancer of industrial revolution and insanity is the disease of the information revolution. “Going Infinite..” is such a story of insanity.
In 1643, a single bulb of Tulip could cost well over a million dollars in today’s currency. Tulip mania raged for decades till the fever broke. Between 2020–21, FTX/Alameda — the exchange and “research farm” founded by SBF — was worth well over $100B. It declared bankruptcy in 2022. History repeats itself. These days, with social media, it rather fast forwards at 32x speed by skipping the boring bits! This book is a narrative of what happened.
Michael Lewis is a very engaging writer. He especially excels in narrative interspersed with piercing insights. Manfred, the tattered childhood comfort toy of SBF, as his lone company in the week of 11 November, 2022 is such a brilliant piece in this relatively short book. Another was his treatment of EA — Effective Altruism, and his thesis of how that made SBF into whatever he became. In software, we have a so called ‘fundamental theorem’ — “any problem can be solved by adding an extra layer of indirection”. For many high IQ people disaffected with rampant capitalism — blindly chasing money — EA was THIS layer of indirection. Rather than run after billions, try to maximize the “utility value” of your life — e.g., by saving maximum possible lives in Bangladesh. Now, to do so, maximize your money! Going for the infinite dollars now has pride associated, not guilt. SBF and his co-worker/Alameda Research chief/romantic interest’s “life/work memos” were highly illuminating as well.
Where the book, I think, significantly falls short of is last of the three questions it tried to answer — one, who is SBF and what he wanted to do; two, what happened with FTX — from $100B to 0 in under a year; three, who or what is responsible for that fortune reversal, if not fraud. The final question is being answered in the court — but Lewis mostly hand-waved at it with a few superficial theories. In the very last chapter, he even posited that — essentially — all the “missing $8B is mostly there”. I am not an expert in finance, and one of the 84% of Americans who never invested in crypto, but Lewis’s theory sounded a lot like “Twinkie Defense”. It read like another case of “if it does not fit, acquit”.
His theory stands on shaky ground because few very similar “serious FTX accounting gaps” surfaced even within the book and “mysteriously resolved” on their own. The “missing $440M” Ripple/Bitcoin exchange value and Turkey/Mauritius “hacker” stolen value are two such examples. Why was there no board of directors for FTX? Why did no one ever tallied the money in/money out in a simple spreadsheet like Lewis did, leave alone appoint a proper CFO? Who took the conscious decision to not write any “risk engine” — an essential primitive to move or store money? With obvious sympathy to the central character, author bypasses these critical “RCA” questions.
Engaging and entertaining read for sure — especially as a gossipy business drama. But a little less focus on naming conventions of superrich people’s yachts (bad puns!) and little more on balance sheet, or lack thereof, could have made this a good case study to learn from. Especially for those who — these days — seem to genuinely abhor capitalism!
