I feel like as much as Sam Bankman-Freed has been in the center of a vortex that you're close

to the center as well. Can you just tell me what your life has been like the past

couple months? Surprisingly controversial. This material just landed in my lap and I

really did think when I was writing it I never had more fun writing a book than I had writing this one.

I knew that some people were going to be a little bit upset with the book,

but I caught basically it was going to be taken as a thrill ride and it would just be a fun read

for everybody. What I wasn't prepared for

was just the sheer volume of the most popular non-fiction authors on the planet.

His books include Liar's Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short, Flash Boys,

and now Going Infinite, The Rise and fall of a new tycoon. The tycoon in question is Sam

Bankmanfreed, who was briefly everyone's favorite cryptocurrency billionaire, and Michael Lewis Road shotgun for some of the rise and most of the fall.

The fall was fast and hard. Bankman freed was recently convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in a New York courtroom.

The controversy comes from people who argue that Michael Lewis went soft on Bankman Freed instead of

blasting him as a crook and a cheat. Here is how a New York Times review put it.

Lewis had, in the months leading up to the disaster, a front row seat from which he could apparently see nothing.

It troubles me that people want to put Sam Bankmanfried into a simple box and put him on a shelf and not think too much more about this.

Why? It troubles you why?

Because he's so much more and this is so much more interesting than that.

Today on Freeconomics Radio... this is so much more interesting than that.

Today on Freak economics radio,

interesting is just the start of it.

Sam Bankman-Freed bared all to Michael Lewis,

...