For the past year and a half, journalist Michael Lewis has been following crypto entrepreneur and former CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried. The resulting book, "Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon", is out October 3. When Michael started his reporting, SBF was heralded as a wunderkind, a genius, a crypto innovator, a major philanthropist and political donor. Now, Sam Bankman-Fried is standing trial on multiple charges, including wire fraud, securities fraud, and misusing billions of dollars of customer funds. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Michael was there – with unprecedented access – to see it all happen. In this episode, Pushkin's Jacob Weisberg interviews Michael about how he chose Sam as his book subject, what he thought the book was going to be about, and when he sensed things were going to come crashing down for Sam and FTX.

This conversation was recorded on September 13.

Questions for Michael? Submit them by clicking the link in our show notes or visiting atrpodcast.com

To listen to all of our coverage ad-free, sign up for Pushkin plus on the Against The Rules show page in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin.fm/plus

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.