Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis

Going Infinite — Why I Recommend It

Going Infinite gives a front-row seat to the meteoric rise and spectacular collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. It’s a fast, unsettling reminder that brilliant ideas and explosive growth can’t outrun weak guardrails. This isn’t a crypto book—it’s a leadership and judgment book for anyone who signs the front of checks. If you’re scaling a business, hiring fast, or juggling big opportunities with thin systems, this story is a wake-up call.

What It’s Really About

It’s about the dangerous cocktail of speed, story, and unchecked power. You see how a compelling mission (“we’re changing the world”), a smart inner circle, and a culture built for velocity can slowly separate from reality. The lesson isn’t that ambition is bad—it’s that ambition without verification is a liability. The book shows how shortcuts become habits, how habits become culture, and how culture becomes risk.

Why This Matters to Business Owners

• Speed without systems breaks things. Growth is not a strategy; it’s a stress test for your controls.

• Story can blind due diligence. Charisma and mission can’t replace board oversight, cash controls, and simple reconciliations.

• Risk is a leadership duty. If you can’t explain an exposure in plain English, you shouldn’t scale it.

• Culture compounds—good or bad. Small allowances around ethics, approvals, or data quality turn into big failures under pressure.

10 Practical Takeaways You Can Use Monday Morning

1. Separate vision from verification. Celebrate bold thinking—and then walk the numbers, authority levels, and approvals line-by-line.

2. Install a “two-keys” rule for money. No single person should be able to move cash, crypto, credits, discounts, or refunds alone.

3. Make reconciliation daily, not monthly. Cash in bank, cash in books—prove it every day. Exceptions are logged, signed, and closed.

4. Define “permission slips.” Where do results excuse behavior? Close those gaps: pricing overrides, vendor prepayments, related-party deals, side accounts.

5. Demand plain-English risk. If your CFO/Controller can’t whiteboard the exposure in five minutes, you pause until they can.

6. Strengthen the dissent channel. Create a formal way for smart people to say, “This doesn’t add up,” without career risk. Reward it.

7. Treat governance as a growth lever. Independent eyes, real audit, real treasury, clear authority matrix, and documented close—these accelerate safe scale.

8. Audit mission-driven claims. “We’re doing good” is not a control. Check the math, the custody, and the counterparty—every time.

9. Instrument the business. Build a simple risk dashboard: cash on hand, reconciled variances, open exceptions, override counts, vendor concentration, and related-party exposure.

10. Practice failure in advance. Run tabletop drills: What if a major account fails? A transfer is misdirected? A manager overrides controls? Who catches it, how fast, and with what authority?

Field Notes for Leaders

• Your calendar is your culture. If your week has no time for reconciliation, one-on-ones, and post-mortems, you’re broadcasting that speed outranks discipline.

• Your language sets the tone. Swap “Don’t slow us down” for “Move fast on ideas, slow on money.”

• Your heroes teach the rules. Celebrate the person who found the flaw, not just the person who made the sale.

Who Should Read This

• Founders scaling fast or raising capital

• CFOs/COOs who often play “adult in the room”

• Boards and advisors who need sharper oversight questions

• Any leader who senses their story is outrunning their systems

A Line I Keep Coming Back To

The bigger the mission and the faster the growth, the more boring your controls must be.

How to Read It (Quick Plan)

• Pass 1: Read for the story—observe where small exceptions start.

• Pass 2: Skim with a pen. After each chapter, ask: Where could this happen here? Note one control, one metric, and one meeting you’ll implement.

• Pass 3 (one hour): Build your Minimum Viable Governance checklist and schedule the first cadence meeting.

A Simple Minimum Viable Governance Checklist

• Authority matrix with dollar limits and two-signature rules

• Daily cash and AR reconciliations with exception logs

• Override report (discounts, price changes, credits) reviewed weekly

• Vendor onboarding protocol: background checks, related-party disclosure, dual approvals

• Dissent protocol: anonymous channel + monthly “red team” review

• Board rhythm: financials, variances, risk dashboard, and exception closure status—every meeting

Final Word

Going Infinite is a gripping cautionary tale. It reminds leaders that confidence isn’t competence, velocity isn’t value, and “trust me” isn’t a control. If you’re building something that matters, let this book push you to tighten the guardrails while you step on the gas.