Michael Lewis, author of a new book about the rise and fall of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, titled Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, spoke about his findings on the show. 60 Minutes. According to the writer, Bankman-Fried was ready to pay the politician about $5 billion, but the founder of FTX was not even sure that this figure was mentioned by Donald Trump himself. The businessman was exploring legal ways to make an offer, and even after the collapse of FTX, the exchange’s founder was still having similar conversations.
Bankman-Fried believed that Trump was trying to undermine democracy in the United States, so he was willing to pay a large sum of money so that the politician would not run for president of the United States. However, this idea was not destined to come true, since Bankman-Fried soon lost that same $5 billion.
The author of the book said that he spent more than 70 days in the Bahamas. He had met Bankman-Fried more than a hundred times over the past two years. The writer spoke with the businessman to create a book or movie script based on the events surrounding FTX. Lewis also interviewed Bankman-Fried’s parents. According to the journalist, even Bankman-Fried’s closest friends and colleagues believed that he was a “terrible manager” and unsuitable for managing people. Bankman-Fried believed that people should not be commanded, and these beliefs failed him, Lewis is sure. Bankman-Fried knew little about FTX’s corporate governance: he told the journalist that there were two people on the exchange’s board of directors whose job was only to sign documents. The names of these people are unknown, and the composition of the directors has already changed.
Recalling the fallout from FTX’s collapse in November 2022, Lewis compared it to the destruction of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which was wiped out by the eruption of Vesuvius.
“After the collapse of FTX, everything seemed frozen in time: clothes and belongings left behind… Many people ran to the airport, leaving company cars with keys in the cabin right on the side of the road,” Lewis said.
The Bankman-Fried trial is scheduled to begin on October 4. He faces seven charges, including fraud. Last month, the defendant demanded that the US Justice Department’s requests be withdrawn, calling them unreasonable and excessive.
Recently, former Alameda Research engineer Adithya Baradwaj spoke about working with Bankman-Fried and the ideas he was passionate about at the time.
Source: Bits
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