jakiro
Author: Michael Lewis
Introduction
In the winter of 2022, cryptocurrency giant FTX collapsed, and the 32 billion US dollar empire collapsed within 72 hours. Its founder SBF fell from a “living saint” to a prisoner.Behind this collapse is the hard-earned money of countless ordinary people.Michael Lewis, the author of “The Big Short”, reveals the entire process from being a god to being imprisoned, and also tear opens the truth about the harvest under the myth of making wealth – telling stories with perfect characters, using people’s knowledge, inferiority and blind obedience.This article uses SBF’s story to share three routines of avoiding pitfalls and “creating wealth myths” to help you gain a foothold in the wave.
That winter, a young man named SBF, wearing his signature big shorts and torn sneakers, was taken away by police from the top-floor mansion in the Bahamas like a boy next door who had just finished playing the ball.At that moment, a crypto empire worth 32 billion US dollars collapsed like a castle piled with sand in just 72 hours.
All the world, from the smartest elite in Silicon Valley to countless ordinary people who stared at the mobile phone screen in the middle of the night, their hearts jumped wildly with the K-line chart, have become the background sound of this “big collapse”.
Old Buffett once said something particularly inhumane: If you play at the poker table for half an hour and don’t know who is that fool, then you are that fool.
The story of SBF is a sacrifice written with the hard-earned money of countless people.
Recently, I finished reading the new book “Towards Infinity” by Michael Lewis, the author of “Big Short”.This book is like a documentary filmed with SBF’s face, which completely removes every step from his deity to his imprisonment.After closing the book, I didn’t think about those complicated financial things. The living people around us who were washed away in the waves.
History is quite boring and I always like to play replays.From the tulips hundreds of years ago to the Internet bubble 20 years ago, to the various “coins” today, the script has never been changed.Under each stage of the myth of making wealth, layers of white bones are covered with layers of white bones.
I always wonder why we always involuntarily rush to be that fool?The next time the wind blows, what should we ordinary people do to hold our hard money tightly and not be blown away?
Today, I want to borrow SBF as a “century sample” to have a good talk with you about this.
Myth is customized for leeks
Remember, no large-scale harvest starts with swinging a sickle.It starts with telling a story you particularly love to hear.
SBF is definitely a storyteller.The character he created for himself is perfect, so perfect that you are reluctant to doubt it.
He tells you that he doesn’t love money.He has a net worth of 10 billion, but he lives like an ascetic.Sleeping bean bag chair, opening a toad Toyota, you can’t be interested in all good things.When you see this state, you are convinced.
He tells you that he has great love.He believes in something called “effective altruism”, saying that the only purpose of making money is to donate and save the world.When you heard this, you fell to your knees.
He also tells you that he is very awesome.After graduating from MIT, he was praised as “the next Buffett” by the smartest venture capital in the world.When you see, your IQ is completely flat.
Well, a “living saint” who doesn’t love money, has great love, and is particularly awesome, stands in front of you alive.He is not here to make money, he is here to lead you believers to conduct a great social experiment.
This is so comfortable, it is a custom-made mental massage for ordinary people who yearn for miracles.
Why do we eat this set?Because there are three “little secrets” hidden in our hearts that we dare not admit: we secretly worship geniuses, hoping that someone can take us to fly; we secretly believe that there are shortcuts, hoping to get that “wealth code”; we are also secretly naive, thinking that a person who is full of “save the world” will not come to cheat me of this little money.
SBF, we can see clearly this little bit in our hearts.
So, when he started selling his “dream” (that is, the token called FTT), countless people rushed in.They feel that they are not speculating, but investing in their dreams.
But they forgot that in the world of business, when a story is so beautiful that it is unreasonable that what you hear is not the horn of an angel, but the “hiss” of the sickle sharpened.
What makes you lose is your illusion
When the story is finished and everyone is moved to the point of being so touched, the harvest begins quietly in the place you can’t see.Lewis revealed countless old stories in the book, but I think what really made ordinary people fall into the pit are three fatal hallucinations.
The first hallucination: “I can’t understand it, so it’s very advanced.”
Cryptocurrency, derivatives, economic models… these words make people feel sad.
In today’s era, what we fear the most is “being out of date”.So when a new thing we don’t understand appears, our first reaction is often not “Is this thing reliable”, but “Am I too stupid? What should I do if I miss it.”
SBF and his team took advantage of our “knowledge inferiority complex”.They used a bunch of complex words to build a magnificent black box, making you feel that being able to squeeze in is a symbol of identity.
But my friend, remember a plain sentence:When something is so complicated that you can’t explain it to the people around you in three sentences, it is not an opportunity, but a trap for you.
The second hallucination: “The boss is here, what am I afraid of?”
“Look, Sequoia has cast all the votes!” This is the most self-comfort I have ever heard.
When we saw the smartest institutions and the most awesome big shots all for SBF, we were like copying the homework of the top students during the exam, and we felt so at ease.
But we haven’t thought of a basic question:What the boss loses is the money from the fund, and you can afford it; what you lose is your hard-earned money, your child’s tuition, and your parents’ pension.The endorsement of the elite can never be a reason for you to bet on your entire net worth.When the elephants are swimming naked, you, a little ant, will only be beaten to death by the first wave.
The third hallucination: “He is so good, he won’t lie to me.”
This is the gentlest and deadliest knife of all hallucinations.
SBF’s rhetoric of “for all mankind” is his sharpest weapon.It successfully puts us down our most basic business vigilance.How could a “saint” who is determined to donate all his property be a liar?
We forgot that business is business.When a business starts to talk about feelings, ideals, and morals with you, you should be more careful.Because the most clever liar never lie to you with lies, he impresses you with a distorted “sincerity”.
Write it to you who don’t want to be a fool again
History is over, but we still have to go on with our own life.Next time, what should we do when the new fanaticism, whether it is AI, the metaverse, or something else we can’t imagine now, blows strong winds again?
I don’t have any complicated investment model, just three “local dialects” are exchanged for the real money of countless people.
The first sentence: “Common sense” is your last bulletproof vest.
There is not so much new under the sun.No matter how fancy the packaging paper outside is, some of the oldest business common sense will always work.
For example, “You can’t use the customer’s money to mess around”, this is the first day of opening a bank.FTX died here.For example, “a reward that is so high that it must contain the same outrageous risks.”
When you are excited by the words “subverting” and “revolution”, stop and ask yourself a few questions like a primary school student: How does he make money?Can I understand?What if it gets yellow?
In the battlefield of information asymmetry, “common sense” is your only weapon for free and will never betray you.
The second sentence: Don’t be a “giant baby” waiting to be fed.
You must bear 100% responsibility for every penny you own.
Don’t rush in excitedly because of a big V shouting.Don’t be afraid of missing out because everyone around you bought it.Before you press the “Confirm” key, ask yourself, is this your decision after thinking independently?
This process is very tiring and very anti-human, but this is the only way you can graduate from “leek”.No one can guarantee your life except yourself.In terms of money,The ability to think independently is worth more than any insider information.
The third sentence: Stay away from those who sell “infinity”.
SBF said he was playing an “infinite game.”
I beg you to be vigilant about all the grand narratives that talk to you about “infinity”, “the sea of stars”, and “the future of mankind”.
A truly healthy business, a truly reliable investment, often grows slowly and even a little “boring”.It is solving specific problems.For those projects that want to “change the world” from the beginning, they often sell not products, but hope.
And hope is the most expensive commodity in the world.
As ordinary people, our goal is not to be the fattest pig on the vent, but to keep our boat from capsizing in any storm.Please believe in the value you can understand, touch, and slowly grow, rather than the “infinite games” that sound exciting but may instantly clear you.
At the end of “Towards Infinity”, the author found the 2,000-pound tungsten cube that SBF had once customized for a lot of money.A small square, but it is so heavy that it cannot be moved.It’s like a metaphor:All those virtual, blown into the sky, are hidden at its core a very heavy truth that will eventually crush everything.
The river of wealth will always rush.There are always people who get rich overnight, and there are always people who lose everything.As ordinary people, what we can do may not be surfing on the top of the waves, but just to build a dam called “common sense” and “rationality” for ourselves before the next flood.
Sometimes, not being swallowed up by the wave of the times is a more amazing victory than standing on the top of the wave.
