Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

In the final chapter, Lewis introduces John Ray, a specialist in recovering money from collapsed companies, who was tasked with taking over FTX as CEO after the company filed for bankruptcy. Ray was brought on by Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm that had previously served FTX. After Ray was appointed CEO, he hired Sullivan & Cromwell to handle FTX’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Ray liked to make snap judgments. He categorized people as either good, naive, or criminal, and he believed that Sam was a criminal. He didn't trust Sam and refused to talk to him. Ray instead conducted his own investigation of FTX. He interviewed and fired most of the employees at FTX and Alameda.

Ray uncovered evidence that he thought pointed to crimes. However, Lewis claims that these allegations may not be as clear-cut as Ray believed. Lewis argues that his access to Sam and his inner circle afforded Lewis a much deeper understanding of the situation, and he provides alternative explanations for some of the actions that Ray saw as criminal. Lewis implies that Ray’s snap judgments and refusal to engage with Sam may have hindered his ability to fully grasp the complexities of the situation and make informed decisions.

Ray discovered what he believed to be evidence that FTX had smothered whistleblower complaints. Lewis claims that this evidence has a reasonable explanation: According to his conversations with Nishad, several disgruntled, fired employees tried to “shake down” (238) FTX by threatening to make false accusations against the company. Instead of risking bad publicity, FTX decided to quietly pay off these employees, in a strategy they nicknamed Operation Warm Blanket. Lewis does not account for the fact that whistleblowers are often accused of being disgruntled and acting for revenge—this is a standard line of company defense.

Ray and his team determined that FTX owed customers $8.6 billion. To recover this money, Ray decided to “claw back” (241) money Sam had given to other people—a technical term for reclaiming funds that were obtained in a criminal way. To do this, Ray filed lawsuits against various individuals and entities connected to Sam, seeking to recoup donations and investments they had received from FTX.

Dan Friedberg, FTX’s general counsel, raised concerns over Sullivan & Cromwell’s conflict of interest in controlling the bankruptcy proceedings for FTX, but was ignored. Instead, since Ray believed Friedberg to be a criminal, Ray brought a lawsuit against him. Ray claimed that FTX granted Friedberg over one hundred million tokens of Serum (a cryptocurrency created by an organization called the Solana Foundation) in 2020, which were now worth over $33.7 billion. However, Lewis claims that Friedberg’s Serum was actually not worth that much.

After six months of investigating, Ray recovered about $7 billion. Lewis argues that this shows that the money was never missing: “It was still there” (247).

Sam’s bail amount was set at $250 million. His parents posted their house as collateral to cover his bail. When Sam made bail, the public saw it as evidence of his ability to still access significant financial resources, which Lewis implies may have falsely contributed to the perception that Sam’s actions were criminal in nature. He claims that those who viewed Sam at a distance held a black-and-white view of Sam’s criminality, but that those close to him knew there must be more to the story.

Caroline, Gary, and Nishad pleaded guilty to financial crimes, but Sam insisted on his innocence. Awaiting trial, Sam stayed with his parents in his childhood home, an ankle monitor affixed to his leg. As a form of security, his parents bought him a large German shepherd that was trained to kill when given a command in German. Sam had no interest in the dog and did not bother learning the command words. Lewis notes how dangerous it was to have a trained attack dog in Sam’s presence, potentially posing a threat to his safety and the safety of others: It “would have been very Sam Bankman-Fried to have been eaten by his own guard dog” (251).

Lewis describes visiting the FTX headquarters in the Bahamas six months after the collapse. Many former employees described their experience working for FTX as dreamlike—that it was difficult to believe it had happened. In the Bahamas, Lewis searched for a particular item. In an unmarked shed in an unassuming storage facility, Lewis found what he was looking for: the tungsten cube.