Best Of: Michael Lewis Runs Toward Pleasure

The Next Big Idea

Next Big Idea Club

Self-improvement, Arts, Books, Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is one of our favorite conversations from the last year. On the surface, it's an interview we did with Michael Lewis to coincide with the paperback release of Going Infinite, his book about Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of FTX. Michael, who spent months hovering over Sam's shoulder, believes he wasn't some malevolent grifter: he was an awkward kid undone by a “pathological ability to foist risk upon other people without asking their permission." But what we love about this episode is that it's not only about the rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried. It's also about Michael's approach to writing — and living. He opens up about losing his daughter, shares what draws him to a story, and explains how taking pleasure in the world produces his best work. 🏛️ Check out Michael's latest book, Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service 🎁 Get 25% off a Next Big Idea Club subscription when you use the code PODCAST at https://nextbigideaclub.com/

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn Presents
0:02.0	I'm Rufus Griscombe, and this is the next big idea.
0:10.0	Today, Michael Lewis on Sam Bankman-Fried, the art of storytelling and being unreasonably happy.
0:35.6	The first time we tried to get Michael Lewis on the show was back in February 2022.
0:37.1	He just released an audiobook of
0:38.8	Liar's Poker, the book that made him famous 30 years ago. We thought it was a good time to talk
0:44.4	with him about what he'd learned in the three decades since, decades in which he'd become
0:49.1	America's foremost financial journalists and arguably the nation's greatest storyteller.
0:55.4	His team declined. Michael was out of the country, they said, working on a new book.
1:00.3	When pressed for details, the only thing they'd tell us was, trust me, it's fascinating.
1:06.6	Nine months later, on November 11, 2022, their cryptic response suddenly made sense.
1:13.6	The cryptocurrency world is reeling after the meltdown of one of its most popular trading platforms.
1:20.4	Sam Bankman-Fried stepping down as CEO of FTX as his crypto exchange files for bankruptcy.
1:27.3	His net worth was more than $26 billion.
1:31.1	It's now down to zero.
1:33.0	There's so much we don't know.
1:34.2	Well, here's what we know.
1:35.4	He's broke.
1:36.6	And he's in big trouble. He's in big trouble.
1:39.7	That same day, a Hollywood agent fired off an email to movie execs.
1:49.2	It read, for the past six months or so, Michael Lewis has been traveling with and interviewing Sam Bankman-Fried.
1:51.3	His childhood, early success on Wall Street, embrace of effective altruism, and the creation
	...

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