Judging Sam: The Case Against SBF

Judging Sam: The Case Against SBF

Author: Pushkin Industries October 3, 2023 Duration: 30:28

Sam Bankman-Fried's trial starts today in the formidable Southern District of New York, with Judge Lewis A. Kaplan presiding. If convicted, the former multi-billionaire and CEO of crypto exchange FTX could spend the rest of his life behind bars. In this episode, Michael talks with court reporter and producer Lidia Jean Kott and former Southern District of New York prosecutor Rebecca Mermelstein, now a defense attorney with O'Melveny and Myers, about the charges against Sam and what we might expect as the trial gets underway.

Questions for Michael? Submit them by clicking the link in our show notes or visiting atrpodcast.com

This conversation was recorded on September 26th.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.


Fifteen years have passed since Michael Lewis published his defining work, Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion. In that time, the story of the 2008 financial crisis, first told in his best-selling book and later in an Oscar-winning film, has only grown more relevant. This audio companion, produced by Pushkin Industries, is not a simple retrospective. Instead, Lewis, joined by co-host Lidia Jean Kott, uses the anniversary as a starting point for a deeper investigation. They examine the enduring legacy of that seismic event-how its lessons were absorbed, ignored, or misunderstood in the worlds of business, culture, and even sports. Listeners are brought directly into conversations that feel both urgent and reflective, including Lewis catching up with the film's director, Adam McKay, and revisiting the real-life individuals whose stories fueled the original narrative. The result is a podcast that functions as a vital, living appendix to a modern classic, asking what we truly learned and how the rules of the game have-or haven't-changed since the house of cards came tumbling down. It’s an essential listen for anyone who wonders how the past continues to shape our present.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion
Podcast Episodes
The Big Short is Big Back [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:55
Back in 2008, Michael Lewis started paying attention to Wall Street again, as banks and investment funds started to announce massive losses. Fifteen years ago, he published The Big Short, about a group of traders and inv…
Sen. Richard Blumenthal on the SAFE Bet Act [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:58
Is anyone trying to regulate sports gambling on the federal level in the US? In the fall of 2024, Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill with New York Congressman Paul Tonko. The SAFE Bet wou…
Dr. Laurie Santos on Group Psychology, the Teen Brain, and Happiness [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:54
Michael Lewis invites over Yale psychology professor Dr. Laurie Santos, host of The Happiness Lab at Pushkin, for a chat about what scientific research has to tell us about sports fandom, teenagers, and gambling. You can…
Natasha Schüll on the Antisocial Lure of Gambling [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:40
As an anthropologist, Natasha Schüll spent more than a decade doing field work in Vegas casinos, especially among the slot machine addicts. She tells Michael Lewis why many of those who play slots actually hate to win. A…
Episode 10: “Anybody Can Win, but Everybody’s Gonna Lose” [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:26
Perhaps you have someone in your life who’s prone to sports gambling. Michael Lewis has someone. So he comes up with a scheme to “inoculate” his 17-year-old son against the lure of placing bets online. All the while, Lew…
Episode 9: Framing the Gambler [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:51
Michael Lewis gets a glimpse of sports gambling's future by talking with writers in Great Britain and Australia, where the industry is even more entrenched. But the US has its own peculiar history of failing to regulate…
Episode 8: The Integrity Landscape [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:06
Has betting based on inside intel on games gone down since sports gambling was legalized in the US? Not really, as Michael Lewis finds out. But what's gone up is misery for athletes. We hear from Atlanta Hawks forward La…
Michael Lewis on the Prof G Pod [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:47
Just recently, Michael Lewis was a guest on the "Prof G" podcast with Scott Galloway. He talks about the rise of sports betting and why the consequences might be a "disaster" for US society. And the two discuss the subje…
Vegas Sports Bookies on Old-School Betting [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:12
On a visit to Las Vegas, Michael Lewis meets three old-school sports bookies. Chris Andrews, Jimmy Vaccaro, and Vinny Magliulo book bets and set odds at the South Point Hotel Casino. They talk about how they got started…
Gambler Billy Walters on the Sharp's Life [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:10
Michael Lewis sits down with Billy Walters, one of the most famous sports bettors of all time. They talk about Walters' impoverished childhood in Kentucky, and his transformation from an auto dealer to a professional pok…