Some scenes from the future FTX movie.
Below are some scenes from an upcoming Michael Lewis book that will be turned into an award-winning movie:
A packed conference ballroom. On the stage are SBF, disheveled, in cargo shorts and a weathered t-shirt, and the Interviewer.
Interviewer: “So, where’s the FTX yield comes from?”
SBF (chuckles): “The way I see it, there’s a gold rush out there. And I’m in the business of selling shovels. I don’t care where the gold that they’re digging is real or a fool’s gold. They’ll still need shovels.”
The Interviewer, SBF and the audience all chuckle knowingly.
The Interviewer voiceover as the camera glides over the blue Caribbean water towards the Bahamian coast:
“I liked this guy. He wasn’t a fanatic. A wild-eyed crypto true believer is not the person to operate an exchange. The person you want operating an exchange is a clear-eyed trader. You want someone whose basic attitude to financial assets is, like, “if someone wants to buy and someone wants to sell, I will put them together and collect a fee.”
Sunlit sprawling Penthouse in the Bahamas. The whole polycule is present, spread out on couches and pool chairs. Copies of Forbes magazine with 30 under 30 cover featuring a young nerdy woman with Harry Potter glasses spread out on the floor.
Young nerdy woman from the magazine cover, Caroline, lies on the couch, propping up her head.
Caroline: “So, like, yeah. Such a pain operationally and, like, accounting-wise.” She takes a toke of her joint. “Does anybody keep a spreadsheet or something?”
Silence.
Nerd on a beanbag: “Accounting is dumb.”
Caroline: “Yeah, like. There’s nothing like regular amphetamine use to make you appreciate how dumb a lot of normal, non-medicated human experience is.”
SBF leans over to Nerd: “Did you test-run that thing for Alameda that we were talking about?”
Hubris and turmoil for the next two and a half hours.
Final scene. SBF looks at the camera.
SBF: “If the music is right, and you got your dancing shoes on – you dance. You do things simply because you can. And if you don’t, then someone else will, and that’s bad. What’s my next step, you ask? Air. Fresh, clean air can’t be taken for granted. There’s eight billion people out there and they all need to breathe. And who can deliver it to them cheaply and efficiently? A ragtag team of dreamers. Guys like me. Iconoclasts. Innovators. Disruptors.” Soaring music plays. Curtain fall.
Oscar for Adam McKay. Pulitzer for Michael Lewis.