Here is one version of the back story of Sam Bankman-Fried, young and momentarily wildly successful cryptocurrency mogul. As of this writing, SBF has been found guilty in a New York courtroom of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy and is awaiting sentencing. His three closest associates, Nishad Singh, Gary Wang, and Caroline Ellison, pleaded guilty and testified against him. Once lauded as one of the world’s youngest billionaires, his crypto exchange FTX, and investment firm Almeda Research, once posting unprecedented earnings, crumbled in a matter of days when a run on the crypto token FTT led to bankruptcy. It was revealed that investors couldn’t be repaid, since their funds had been used at Almeda Research, and for many unauthorized purchases.

Sam Bankman-Fried is a peculiar, complex character. Lewis spent a great deal of time with him, and is largely sympathetic. While very intelligent, with strength in mathematics, he lacks any sort of ability to feel or display an emotional life, referred to as anhedonia. Those who know him best complain that he never really listens to anyone, only engaging when it suits his needs, never making eye contact, displaying emotion, or seemingly caring at all about others. Obsessed with video games, Sam attracts a tribe of fellow nerdish types who aspire to do something significant with their lives. They adhere to a philosophy known as Effective Altruism (EA), a reasoned, rational approach to decision making that uses data and probabilities to make choices that lead to their estimated greatest use of time and resources to benefit humanity and leverage solutions to significant problems. This group of friends viewed themselves as gifted individuals who wanted to use their time and talent to accrue as much money as possible to hurl at humanity’s problems. Of course, this assumes that large sums of money can make problems solvable— I think poverty and cancer have largely disproven that notion, for starters.

After school at MIT, then a short stint of success as a trader at Jane Street Capital, Sam learns about the world of crypto. Here, with the crucial assistance from Gary Wang, an excellent coder, Sam dreams up the idea of creating his own token, FTT, and his own exchange, FTX, to make the money necessary to fulfill his EA dreams. First headquartered in Hong Kong, then moving to the Bahamas, FTX could not initially find a home in the US due to regulations around trading crypto. With Gary’s expertise in designing programs trading crypto in legal but somewhat underhanded ways, the money starts rolling in. The thirty or so FTX employees believe themselves to be billionaires, and keep their earnings in FTX. Unbeknownst to them, Sam has been funneling customers’ money to Almeda Research, his trading firm run by one-time girlfriend Caroline Ellison. While quite successful, it could not supply the billions needed when customers made a run for their money. Also, many billions were spent on US election campaigns in an effort to build a cadre of legislators friendly to crypto; huge sums toward marketing; and various extravagances.

So the question remains: were Sam and his cohorts just naively incompetent? Did Sam have an inflated sense of his talents, but lousy organizational and finance skills? Was the collapse due to stupid choices and mismanagement, but essentially good intentions? Or was Sam indeed culpable, knowingly making dishonest choices, well aware of his decisions to misuse funds and bilk his investors? The jury has decided the latter, while Lewis tries to present his viewpoint somewhat supporting the former. Sam definitely had neurotypical qualities that impeded his normal functioning and ability to form and sustain healthy relationships. In spite of the groups’ desires to pursue the goals of EA, they seem largely like a group of narcissists, dispensing with the path of building careers and expertise step by step, instead believing themselves capable of the highest levels of financial success in a stroke. The story has the qualities of a cautionary tale for this generation, who come to believe that their abilities make dues paying unnecessary. Highly recommended, especially for a book group discussion.