Book · How it goes wrong
Going Infinite
Michael Lewis · 2023
Michael Lewis inside FTX before and during its collapse — a contested book that is more useful for what it demonstrates than for what it argues.
Why it is here
Lewis had extraordinary access to FTX before the collapse and continued reporting through it. The result is a portrait that many readers found insufficiently sceptical, and the criticism is fair enough to be part of the value.
What it demonstrates unintentionally is proximity capture: how an observer with exceptional access can end up with a less accurate picture than one reading the public record from a distance. That is a live risk for any angel who becomes close to a founder.
Read it alongside Number Go Up, which covers the same period from an explicitly sceptical distance, and note that the more distant account has held up better.
Read it if
You want to see what access does to judgement, in a case where the outcome is known.
Skip it if
You want a reliable account of what happened at FTX — read it as a primary source about its author's vantage point.