Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

by Michael Lewis

The authorities in the Bahamas had jailed Sam and after a lot of the usual Sam-induced complications extradited him to the United States. In an indictment brought by the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, the US Department of Justice charged Sam with various crimes and then allowed him to post $250 million bond as bail. Sam hadn’t posted $250 million. Sam’s parents had posted their home and assumed the risk that he would jump bail—in which case they would, in theory, owe $250 million to the US government. They didn’t have $250 million. The prosecutors didn’t mind; they seemed to care mainly that the press report that Sam Bankman-Fried was still in possession of at least $250 million. Once that happened, lots of people who should have known better but who’d fallen into the habit of speaking without thinking took to Twitter to say that Sam’s ability to fork over $250 million made up their minds about his guilt. But most people hadn’t waited even that long. “Your son is a dirty, filthy rotten typical criminal hooky-nosed selfish greedy jew,” someone calling himself J. Revick had emailed Joe Bankman, the day FTX filed for bankruptcy. All the Bankman-Frieds received lots of messages like it. Joe had written back: “Isn’t Revick a Jewish name?” Mobs now gathered and sentiment now hardened more quickly than ever. From a distance, it was soon easy to make up one’s mind about what had happened inside Sam’s World, even before Sam had his day in court. From a ...