On Background from Against the Rules
Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion
Pushkin Industries
4.4 • 9.9K Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2023
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Michael Lewis's next book is all about Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the crypto-currency exchange FTX, who now faces federal charges. As with all of his books, Lewis is talking with experts to get background context on the world his characters inhabit. For the first time, these interviews will be recorded, on the record.
In this special monthly series from Against the Rules, we'll hear Lewis in conversation with experts such as a tech wizard who traces secrets on the blockchain; a scholar of white-collar crime and punishment; a regulator who knows what crypto firms are – and aren’t – allowed to do with other people’s billions; and an insider who can follow the influence of crypto on campaign finance.
“On Background” from Michael Lewis and Against the Rules drops monthly, starting February 14th, 2023.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. |
| 0:07.0 | I want to say hi to all listeners of Against the Rules. |
| 0:13.0 | I know you've been patient. |
| 0:15.2 | It's Michael Lewis here. |
| 0:16.6 | You've been waiting a long time for season 4 and you're going to wait a bit more. |
| 0:19.9 | Though I've been thinking about it a lot. |
| 0:22.5 | But at the same time I've been working on a new book about the crypto exchange FTX and |
| 0:26.7 | its founder, Sam Bankman Fried. |
| 0:29.0 | Who I met now about a year and a half ago. |
| 0:31.7 | And so I've been marinating in this story as this story has happened. |
| 0:36.2 | It's recently taken some pretty dramatic turns. |
| 0:38.8 | And I can't give it all away. |
| 0:39.8 | I'm not going to give very much of it away. |
| 0:41.3 | But it involves lots of trips to the Bahamas and court dates and crypto trading and ankle |
| 0:46.0 | bracelets. |
| 0:47.0 | I feel a real obligation to this story. |
| 0:49.3 | So I'd love to if you just hang tight while I finish writing it. |
| 0:53.2 | However, there's one thing I always do when I sit down to tell a complicated story. |
| 0:58.4 | I do a whole lot of interviews that are just on background. |
| 1:01.4 | Stuff that's going to end up on the cutting room floor just to educate myself around the |
| 1:05.4 | boundaries of the subject. |
| 1:07.6 | It's stuff that will just never make it into the book. |
... |
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