Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

During Chapter 8, Lewis himself enters the narrative, traveling to the Bahamas to meet with and observe Sam. Upon arriving at Sam's makeshift office, housed in one of the many “jungle huts” (169) in the company's temporary headquarters, Lewis notes FTX’s completely lax security. He comments that Sam is someone who would be easy to steal from and easy to kidnap—and that kidnapping is a real possibility in the high-stakes world of crypto.

Lewis describes a short meeting between Sam, Ramnik, and Nishad, in which Sam consulted the other two men on whether he should contribute funds to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Ramnik and Nishad cautioned Sam against investing; they believed that he should say no, or only contribute a small amount. At the same time, they understood that Sam might not take their advice at all. Indeed, Sam later messaged Musk’s team to say he would be willing to contribute $5 billion if Twitter was moved onto a blockchain.

It was not uncommon for Sam to invest large sums of money after little to no deliberation. He invested in hundreds of ventures, mostly using money from Alameda Research. Others regarded Alameda Research as “Sam's private fund” (173).

Sam did not have the typical oversight and due diligence that one might expect from a traditional investor or the head of a large company. He essentially had no board of directors. Eventually, the team assembled two other people to act as pseudo-board members, though their only responsibility was to electronically sign agreements that Sam sent them at odd hours. Sam could not recall the names of these two people and viewed them as mere formalities rather than active participants in decision-making. Sam also believed that there was no need for a CFO. He thought that “grown-ups” got in the way of making quick decisions.

Lewis describes how Sam used money to influence politics, noting that his spending fell into three categories. The first category consisted of his donations to politicians and groups that promoted the interests of the crypto industry. The second category encompassed EA causes. Sam tried to obscure the source of these donations because recipients were worried about how their association with crypto could be perceived.

One of Sam’s EA causes was pandemic prevention. As part of this effort, he tried to influence politicians such as Mitch McConnell to take an interest in pandemics. He also wanted to get new politicians elected who supported pandemic prevention. His team donated huge sums of money to candidates across the country while attempting to hide the fact that their money came from crypto.

Oregon Congressional candidate Carrick Flynn is an example of one of Sam’s failed attempts at getting a candidate elected. Flynn was an EA, and interested in pandemic prevention, but he was too sensitive to criticism. Sam’s team made an enormous push to get Flynn elected, but Flynn didn’t have the right temperament for debates, public speaking, or dealing with the intense scrutiny that comes with a political campaign.

Sam’s third category of political spending was focused on preventing a Trump presidency, as well as the election of pro-Trump political candidates. Sam planned to give Mitch McConnell $15-30 million to defeat pro-Trump candidates running for US Senate. He also entertained the idea of paying Trump not to run.

Lewis describes a 2022 meeting between Sam and other effective altruists, in which the EAs debated how to spend their money. The EAs had shifted their goals since the initial blossoming of the movement in 2012. By 2020, they had decided to focus on future problems, like pandemics or rogue artificial intelligence, rather than alleviating immediate concerns, such as poverty or global health.

Sam believed he didn’t have much time left to keep making money and contributing to EA causes. He believed he would not have much “expected value,” or EV, after the age of 40 and assumed that he only had 10-15 years left to make a significant impact. Lewis points out that Sam, in fact, only had five more weeks until the crypto industry experienced a major collapse.

According to Lewis, nothing seemed amiss at FTX in the weeks leading up to the collapse. However, by late October, crypto “banks and sort of banks” (191) experienced a run, or a sudden rush of people trying to withdraw their funds, causing widespread panic and a collapse in the value of cryptocurrencies. Unlike traditional banks, crypto banks had no protections, and there were no government bailouts. The closest thing the industry had was Sam; Ramnik, on his behalf, stepped in to try to stabilize the situation, evaluating and approving purchases of failed crypto banks to prevent a complete collapse.