Rhea Rao

This book is so fascinating, both in terms of the psych of SBF and SBF’s anecdotes reflecting who he is as a person. The more I read up on SBF’s trials/FTX news the more I realize, SBF ended up where he is now not so much because of his lack of morals (although that’s surely one of the major reasons), but because of his complete inconsideration of/contempt for risk. He’s so in love with good case scenarios that even his rationality, which he prides himself in, takes a back seat. Exhibit a: he scoffed at Kelly Criterion bc he thinks his utility function is linear instead of logarithmic. But Kelly Criterion is employed by trading firms not because of the theory of marginal utility, but bc it maximizes chance of survival. No point in strategizing if you are forced to fold. Exhibit b: his Jane Street intern coin flip bet, where his later bets literally had negative expected values, but he was so addicted to the game, that he ignored the negative EVs. Exhibit c: the murderer Bob argument. It’s not that SBF is bad at trade sizing, he just doesn’t think about it at all. He goes all in on everything, arguably in every aspect of his life too. I think every ENTP/OCD personality can resonate with him, he’s ENTP on steroid. Positively insane. Going Infinite actually explains his mind quite well, and it makes the $8B loss seems so congruent with who SBF is as a person. Majority of the readers are saying that Michael Lewis took a sympathetic view towards SBF. But Michael Lewis has been honest in the book - he never hid the fact that SBF knowingly used customer fund, he just tries to explain WHY he did what he did. Michael Lewis nailed the narrative coming from SBF, and I find this book underrated & educational.