On Background: Who Buys Distressed Assets?
Against the Rules with Michael Lewis
Pushkin Industries
4.4 • 9.9K Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andy Mitchell could be called a "doctor for business." His firm, Lantern Asset Management, buys up businesses in immediate need of cash and willing to sell at bargain-basement prices. Michael Lewis calls up Mitchell to get the "distressed asset" angle on the company at the center of Lewis's next book: the now extremely distressed crypto exchange, FTX. But along the way, we hear about other businesses on the skids, including the maker of Twinkies, and the Weinstein Company.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. |
| 0:07.0 | Hey there against the rules, listeners, it's Michael Lewis here. |
| 0:16.2 | You might have heard that I've been working on a new book about the crypto exchange FTX |
| 0:20.5 | and its founder, Sam Beckman-Free. |
| 0:22.4 | And I'm still working on it, talking to experts on background here in this feed. |
| 0:28.4 | And I'm finally able to tell you just a bit more about the book itself, like the title, for instance, |
| 0:33.7 | and when it will be published. |
| 0:36.0 | So here we go. |
| 0:38.6 | My next book is going to be called Going Infinite, The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon. |
| 0:46.0 | It's coming out October 3rd. |
| 0:49.5 | And rather than tell you what's in it, because I think a lot of the pleasure is going to come from you not knowing what's in it, |
| 0:55.3 | how about I just read you a little jacket copy? |
| 0:57.7 | And I quote, |
| 0:59.2 | Michael Lewis takes you along on a quest to understand who Sam Beckman-Free really is. |
| 1:04.2 | What motivated him and what his spectacular rise and fall means for the rest of us? |
| 1:09.2 | Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks whose eyes twitched across zoom meetings |
| 1:14.0 | as he played video games on the side? |
| 1:17.0 | Right on the roller coaster with me is I traced the ups and downs of a character |
| 1:21.0 | who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own until it all came undone. |
| 1:26.2 | I didn't write those words, but I think they sound okay. |
| 1:29.1 | I'd read that book if I weren't still writing it. |
| 1:32.6 | Going Infinite, The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon will be available October 3rd, 2023. |
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