"I get in trouble when I say things like this" - Michael Lewis on Sam Bankman-Fried
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Acclaimed author Michael Lewis discusses his time with Sam Bankman-Fried and why he thinks both high finance and Effective Altruism shaped the 'Crypto King's' worldview, ultimately landing him in jail. Plus, we hear about the people fighting terrorism, cave-ins and brain-eating amoeba from Michael's new book 'Who Is Government?'.
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:30.5 | On the 10th of November, 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted that he had F'd up. |
| 0:37.5 | As we explored in our last episode, that was something of an understatement. |
| 0:42.8 | FTX, the digital currency exchange platform where individuals could trade cryptocurrencies |
| 0:48.4 | and store their funds for safekeeping, imploded when it emerged that Sam Bankman-Freed had been diverting funds into his |
| 0:56.3 | crypto hedge fund Alameda research. Fraud, yes, but as an effective altruist, he was doing it for a good |
| 1:04.9 | cause, wasn't he? In his own misguided way, he thought he was just following the teachings of Will McCaskill, |
| 1:12.8 | the founder of the effective altruism movement. |
| 1:15.9 | And that can't be bad. |
| 1:17.9 | Can it? |
| 1:19.4 | If you've not listened to that episode yet, please do before listening to this special cautionary conversation with Michael Lewis, |
| 1:26.9 | the man who had a ringside seat for the |
| 1:28.9 | spectacular fall of the cryptocurrency vundekind. Michael, welcome to cautionary tales. |
| 1:35.7 | Tim, good to see you again. It's great to see you. I think the last time we saw each other, |
| 1:40.2 | I was trying to teach you how to play an obscure German board game. No, that's exactly right. |
... |
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