Pushkin. Hey there, it's Michael Lewis. Before we get to this episode, I want to let you know that you can listen to each episode of Judging Sam The Trial of Sam Bankman Freed ad free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber, and with your subscription you'll also get exclusive access to ad free and early bingeable podcasts like Paul McCartney's new podcast, McCartney A Life and Lyrics, Malcolm Gladwell's revisionist history, The Happiness Lab from Doctor Lorie Santos, and
tons of other top shows from Pushkin. Sign up an Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin, dot fm, Slash Plus. Welcome to Judging Sam The Trial of Sam Bankman Freed. I'm Michael Lewis. Bankman Freed was worth tens of billions of dollars before ftx is cryptocurrency exchange came apart at the scenes, and now he's being tried for financial crimes. They could send him to prison for the rest of his life.
I'm Lydia Jean Kott. It's the evening of October sixteenth, and if you've been listening to our show, you know that I spend every day at the courthouse we're putting on the trial. Today was honestly supposed to be pretty uneventful, but it turned out to be anything But I called Michael Lewis on my lunch break to explain what happened.
This call is now being recorded. Hi, there you are. I think what happened this morning? Who's on the stand?
We all thought it was going to be not at all a big day, So I actually came in kind of later and I checked him with the photographers.
I was like, why are you guys even here?
And they were like, just forget maybe a picture of Sam's parents. But yeah, Mishad took the stand.
So he's the one by far I know the most of the other insiders. I mean I spent endless time with him, and he's the one who I'm least sure of how he's going to be, and I assume he's going to be on you usual, Like, it's so personal. He's still in Sam since he was fourteen, and he's so close to the family that it's just it's a really peculiar situation. So I just kind of wonder how he would be on the stand, And so what did you think?
Yeah, that's interesting. She actually said he was always intimidated by Sam at first, and then when I asked him to follow up, he talked about how I think the quote I wrote down is Sam is a formidable character, brilliant. I always had a stuck for him. Over time that eroded. I became distressful.
What was his demeanor to me?
She looked confident and I checked in. I talked to the reporters who were in the courtroom when he came in because I was in the overflow, and they said that he walked in for the comfortably too. I mean I could see him, you know, he was visiting a bit in his seat. He like, is that kep thing where you like pushed their glasses up right when she sat down. And then the first half was all about Sam's spending and how it made that.
Yeah, yeah, is everywhere atturn. He's trying to shut down Sam buying stuff.
Yeah, And he talked about, yeah, he would have had a fight about it, and Nishad found it humiliating, and that Sam told Nishad that the real insidious problem was disagreeing with him.
Basically.
The prosecution also asked Nashad to tell the story of a Super Bowl party in La Sam was there, Nishad said to consider giving millions of dollars a venture capital to K five, an investment company led by the host of the party, Michael Kivas. Nashad testified that he was against this investment and that it was an example of this kind of reckless spending that made him uncomfortable. Nashad testified that Sam disagreed. He said being connected to Kivas
would bring in quote infinite connections. For FTX, I recapped what happened for Michael, and he told me he was at that party.
I was at that dinner.
Yeah, wow, I told you this.
At the end of dinner, Michael Kieva said, you've got to meet Hillary and I never met I never met Hillary Clinton. And he brought me over and Hillary was she was She's like, look at me. She says, like, what are you doing here? Because everybody else was so famous. And I said, I said that there's this guy. There were eighty people there, though. I said, there's this guy in there who I'm thinking about writing about. And she says the guy with the hair, the guy with the hair.
And I said, how did you how did you know that? She goes, She says, I thought he's exactly a character for you. It was a really funny exchange.
That is funny that shows she's a fan. It was funny because Michead had to go through and say, like, who all these people were? So he said Hillary Clinton, you know, former presidential candidate, and Sprig Kendall and Chris Jenner. He said, I honestly could not tell you what they.
Do, which made anybody else. Did they have Bezos there?
Ye ye, yes, he's on there.
Did they have Leo DiCaprio, He's on the list. Chris Rock?
Chris Rock was not on the list.
How about that? I can give you a better list. All right, Well send me anything when you come out. I'm really curious about the shot I I to be continued.
Why after I spoke to Michael, I headed back into the courthouse and a lot more happened. There's one moment that I want to highlight. Nishade testified that at a certain point in September twenty twenty two, Sam suggested shutting Alameda down. At this point, Caroline said it was impossible because Alameda owed Ftex customers too much money. Nishad said that he was really startled to hear this, and he called for a meeting with Sam, Gary, Caroline, and Nishad.
Sam made some excuse and didn't come to that meeting. At that meeting, Gary and Caroline explained to him how deep in the whole Alameda was. Nishad said he was horrified to hear this, and he immediately wanted to talk to Sam about it. He said that he hardly ever spoke to Sam one on one, but this seemed like a time where it seemed important too, and he wanted to speak to him in a place where they wouldn't be interrupted, So he asked to speak to him on
the balcony of the penthouse where they lived. At this point, the prosecutors showed a picture of the balcony, which is pretty amazing. There's a pool, there's these baskets, there's these chaise lounges, and he described how Sam lay down in one of these chairs, and Nishad was kind of urgently pacing. Nashad was freaking out about all the money that Alameda owed FTX, and Sam said that he too had been
worried about it. In fact, he said, quote, this has been taxing me for five or ten percent of my productivity for the past year, which is a different vibe from Nishad, who when he heard about this money, said Jesus fucking Christ. He asked Sam what the plan was, and Sam said that they were going to try and raise money to cover the hole. And afterwards, Nishad says
he was deeply disturbed and he felt betrayed. He said that he felt like five years of blood, sweat and tears of working towards something that he thought was good had turned out to be evil. He said that ever since that moment, he wanted to quit, but Sam made him feel like FTX needed him and he was afraid that if he left everything would come tumbling down. There was a lot more that happened. Nashad talked about ftx's endorsement deals, how Sam told him to backdate certain financial documents,
and he discussed his political ordinations. We'll get to all of that and more in greater depth later this week, So keep listening, and if you haven't, leave a rating and a review. It helps others find the show.
This episode of Judging Sam was hosted by Lydia gen Kott, Lydia Jancott is our court reporter, Catherine Girardeau, and Nisha Venken produced this show. Sophie Crane is our editor. Our music was composed by Matthias Bossi and John Evans of stell Wagon's Symphonet Judging Sam is a preduction of Pushkin Industries. Got a question or comment for me, There's a website for that atr podcast dot com. That's atr podcast dot com. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app,
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