Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

by Michael Lewis

What’s the difference between art and entertainment? “It’s a bullshit distinction dreamed up by academics trying to justify the existence of their jobs,” wrote Sam, and handed the exam back.

At math camp Sam found people drawn to the flavor of utilitarianism that appealed to him. “For the first time I wasn’t one of the smartest,” said Sam. “Each of the campers was more interesting than the most interesting person in high school. They were smarter in every way. They were also more quantitative. But they had more distance from standard culture and felt less pressure or less ability to conform.”

They were now all living in Sam’s world, and they weren’t hiding their unhappiness. “He was demanding and expecting everyone to work eighteen-hour days and give up anything like a normal life, while he would not show up for meetings, not shower for weeks, have a mess all around him with old food everywhere, and fall asleep at his desk,” said Tara Mac Aulay, a young Australian mathematician who was, in theory, running the company with Sam. “He did zero management and thought that if people had any questions, they should just ask him. Then in his one-on-ones with people, he’d play video games.”

For example, they all professed to care about “humanity,” while at the same time often being a bit slow to love actual people. “It doesn’t really start with people,” said George. “It starts with suffering. It’s about preventing suffering. They care about animals in the same way. They also care about not having the earth blown up by an asteroid. But it’s not a longing for a connection.”

The truth was that grown-ups bored him. All they did was slow him down.

One day some historian of effective altruism will marvel at how easily it transformed itself. It turned its back on living people without bloodshed or even, really, much shouting.

To Zane it didn’t matter. There was one question he dwelled on: Why had neither he nor anyone else he knew seen this coming? He had the beginning of an answer. “Sam’s oddness,” he said. “His oddness mixed with just how smart he was allowed you to wave away a lot of the concerns. The question of why just goes away.”

He’d entered the mode that maybe came most naturally to him. I thought of it as Sam's patiently-explaining-things-to-an-idiot mode. He’d have made a great high school physics teacher.