Book Review: Going Infinite | Hacker News Reader

Book Review: Going Infinite

thezvi.substack.com

Lewis has had a real knack for picking problematic protagonists in his later career:

* The Tuohy family for Blind Side

* Kahneman and Tversky --- not really problematic as people! but right in the middle of the reproduction crisis in their field

* Brad Katsuyama, yeesh, who is also the reason Lewis was set up to do a hagiography on SBF

* SBF, of course.

I agree with the "man, can Lewis write" sentiment! He can! You know who else can write, extroardinarily effectively? Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell is less problematic than Lewis (I can't even imagine Gladwell dismissing Michael Oher as suffering from CTE the way Lewis recently did), but it's an article of faith here that Gladwell isn't worth reading, and not so much with Lewis.

So I think your problem with a book like Going Infinite is: SBF is obviously an interesting subject for a book, and, because Lewis was pre-sold on/to him, he had extensive access, and Lewis can definitely write. So if you're the kind of nerd we all are, you're inevitably going to get a bunch of "good stuff" from the book, and you're not so much going to get bogged down in the deeply problematic circumstances of its authorship and intent because you've already got all that context in resident set in your brain, you know SBF is a crook, you don't have to worry that Lewis is trying to paper over that stuff.

But I think when you're considering the book purely on its merits, that context starts to matter just as much as how good the writing is. This book is getting trashed for I think very justifiable reasons.

1) Kahneman had a chapter in his book about social priming, and endorsed the subfield, which was totally decimated by the reproduction crisis. But Kahneman himself didn't research social priming, and I don't think any of his research with Tversky has been challenged by the reproduction crisis. I think it's unfair to say he was "right in the middle" of it, unless I'm missing something.

2) What's wrong with Katsuyama? If you mean IEX was a dumb idea and HFT is good for markets overall then I agree with that. I think that just means Katsuyama is wrong and self-serving, not problematic.

Right, so my meaning here is subtle: that it makes a problematic subject for a book intended to have a clear protagonist, not that Katsuyama is a bad person (I don't know anything about them beyond the book).

Gotcha. I agree that the main premise of Flash Boys was wrong, HFT is unambiguously better for retail traders than the market makers that preceded it.

> So I think your problem with a book like Going Infinite is: SBF is obviously an interesting subject for a book, and, because Lewis was pre-sold on/to him, he had extensive access, and Lewis can definitely write.

I've heard the remark: some books have an unreliable narrator,[1] Going Infinte has two: SBF and Lewis.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

Zvi Mowshowitz also worked at Jane Street Capital and I found his take on SBF's rise and fall pretty compelling and detailed.

Interesting how SBF seemed to almost be running around in a sort of dissociative state. He was sorta aware that there was a whole world out there with consequences but he just completely ignored it. Screw the consequences, just kept doing whatever dumb stuff he wanted to do.

Something most of the think pieces, and interviews with Michael Lewis, discount is just how geeked out on amphetamines this guy was.

not to nitpick, but at least in my experience, "geeked out" is a strange turn of phrase here

"Geeking out" can mean to overshare or obsess about one's geeky passions but it's also used to mean someone who's tweaking on speed.

The drug-using definition predates the nerd-culture definition from what I can tell (the Urban Dictionary entry is older for one thing).

Both predate the internet so that’s not entirely unimpeachable evidence but I can confirm as a first hand source :)

> He was sorta aware that there was a whole world out there with consequences but he just completely ignored it.

Well, this is bog-standard psychopathy. It’s not really that interesting. If he had been born into a lower station in life and gone around doing check-fraud or something, no one would really care. The SBF story is just really one about how class and connections act as an insane multiplier for unrestrained criminality.

Do you have a link to ZM's writing on SBF?

The book review in OP: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/book-review-going-infinite

And his recap of the FTX situation: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/sadly-ftx

Zvi is a really good blogger, just in general. Hyper-prolific and extremely intelligent.

This sort of shoddiness with facts is becoming a concerning pattern for Michael Lewis. He's a great writer, but he really doesn't seem to have a close relationship with the truth. Two other examples:

* Everything about the blind side that is now coming out in court.

* The founders of IEX who are now begging the market making firms to come to the exchange which was designed to get rid of them... and creating a much worse two-tiered system in order to do it.

The next time I try a Michael Lewis book, I am probably going to approach it as a puff piece for a local Bond villain to get a more accurate picture of what's happening.

Yes, I would say that's a good assessment. Anyone who's read Michael Lewis should have similar instincts: He's a great storyteller with a sixth sense for what makes characters jump off a page. But he is not a journalist, and he is does not act as a moral compass for the reader. I certainly do not share his credulity of financial services sector.

I read his books as fiction or quasi-journalism and enjoy them thoroughly.

I like Gay Talese too; he seems to write closer to the truth, but I wouldn't mind if it were just fiction, because it is so well written.

Molly White also wrote a review of this book:

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/review-michael-lewiss-go...

The book exists in a strange space where it was mostly written before SBF's downfall (FTX collapsing and SBF fraud charges).

Given that SBF had worked at Jane Street, it seems strange that he either didn't know about martingales or believed they didn't apply to him.

There was an infamous discussion about that years before he imploded and yes, he believed that it didn't apply to EA.

as someone posted above

> just how geeked out on amphetamines this guy was.

I'm starting to buy into this theory.

It is a compelling argument being made that unaligned AGI would act essentially as SBF did and does. Everything is an optimization problem. If you select the wrong criteria the system explodes but there is no guilt or shame to make corrections.

This is a great review, sounds like its better than the book to be honest.

I really didn’t agree with the author on this book. I however liked his other books

My only issue with the reviewer is the reviewer complaining about SBF's parents saying things like: "why didnt you start him in highschool earlier" or his quote:

"Seriously, what the actual f** was SBF doing in a high school? (Also, why would he want to read the Harry Potter books a second time, one of the deeper unsolved mysteries remaining?) He was doing philosophy better than philosophers, off the cuff. He was bored out of his mind."

However in the previous paragraph when commenting on how great Sam was at philosophy and having intellectuakl stimulating conversatyions with his parents he said: "This must have been so amazing. I can’t wait for this to happen to me with my kids."

The author seems to be pretending they know exactly what a perfect upbringing for a gifted child like Sam would have needed.

When In fact I can imagine raising sam would have been extremely difficult even with the best parents.

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