On Wednesday night, I just happened to stumble upon The Big Short on television, and, blue-blooded bear that I am, I simply couldn’t stop watching it. I’ve seen it before, obviously, but watching the film again back my bear juices all hot and bothered, but I stopped it about twenty minutes before the end, because I always get extra-ticked-off when they review how basically all the bad guys got away with it.
I then turned my attention toward a book that I had just received, and which had only hit the shelves that very day, which was Going Infinite, the book about Samuel Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall. It occurred to me it must be Michael Lewis day, because right on the heels of watching a movie based on one of his many books, I started reading a new one by the same guy.
It was good timing that the book hit the streets on literally the same day the SBF trial began. The mutterings I’ve read about the book have been quite “meh” so far, and having finished the 254 page book over the course of two evenings, I’m inclined to agree.
Much like the Elon biography, with which I loved the first half and kind of flipped through the second half, the SBF book provided the same experience. I loved reading about his early life, his weird parents, and his days in college (turns out SBF went to the same high school as my beloved son). After the halfway point of the book, it started seeming rushed and less interesting, and by the end I was just kind of skimming it.
This could have been 50% longer and 300% better if they had waited half a year and really digested the trial and its aftermath. Instead, it seems like they wanted to get it out in time for all the hub-bub around the trial. I personally think the guy is going to get a long prison sentence, although I realize cynics love to prattle on about how he’s going to walk, just like they did with Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani. And, like then, I’ll be right and they’ll be wrong.
Anyway, I’m not inclined to recommend you buy the book, but if you’re really into SBF, you probably won’t do much better. Or you could spend time with a book that got much better reviews!
