As Walter Isaacson and Michael Lewis wrote, their books' heroes became villains
Imagine setting out to write a definitive book on someone you think is a visionary. Then your story's hero transforms into a villain in much of the public's opinion before you have finished your tome.
That just happened to two of the most prominent chroniclers of American life: Michael Lewis, who also wrote bestsellers Moneyball and The Big Short, and Walter Isaacson, biographer of Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci.
Lewis spent two years with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, once considered a golden boy of cryptocurrency, for Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon. It was released this month, on the first day of Bankman-Fried's fraud trial.
Isaacson spent an equal amount of time — two years — with another tycoon, Elon Musk, as the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was turning his sights to Twitter. Musk has since bought the social media platform, fired most of its employees, used it to amplify conspiracy theories and renamed it X. Isaacson's book came out in September.
These highlights were adapted from the full interview.
On their characters' seeming indifference
Walter Isaacson: It was a bit of a surprise because I talked to [Musk] by phone and we talked about an hour and a half and I said, "I don't want to do a book based on five or 10 or 15 interviews. I don't want to do a conventional book like that. I want to be by your side for two years. And every meeting I want to be in — nothing excluded." And he went, "Oh, OK." And then I said, "But here's the other part of the deal: I don't want you to have any control over it, and I'm not going to let you read it before it's published." And he went, "Oh, OK." And I was kind of stunned.
Michael Lewis: It didn't take anything [to gain access to Bankman-Fried]. I was introduced to him by a third party who wanted me to get to know him so I could evaluate him for a business deal. So I didn't even know who he was when I met him, and I spent a couple of hours with him. At the end of it, the sort of stuff that was coming out of his mouth was so interesting to me that I just said, "Look, I don't know what I'm going to do or where you're going to go or how this is going to end. But can I just watch?" ... He was so indifferent to it. He never asked me what I was up to. He certainly didn't want to see the book or ask to see the book. He kind of left me alone. And it's odd that people do this — that Elon Musk and Sam Bankman-Fried do this. But I think in some ways their characters rhyme a bit.
On maintaining a sense of critical distance from their subjects
Isaacson: I had to keep my head around very contradictory things, which is the awesome ability to, say, connect solar roofs to power walls and the engineering that makes it so, while also holding in the fact that [Musk's] lack of emotional receptors and his dark streak that comes from "demon mode," as [former partner] Grimes calls it, from childhood allow him to promote conspiracy theories when he takes over Twitter. If you were able to cleave off both his use of Twitter and his buying of Twitter — and that's actually where I was when I first started this book — you'd have a book about a pretty darn interesting engineer. Now you've got a book in which you've got to keep two or more than two different types of people in mind.
Lewis: I've never had so little trouble keeping a feeling of distance from a character [Bankman-Fried] because the character kept a feeling of distance from me. I've never had anybody feel so little for me, so I didn't have any trouble feeling so little for him. ... I regarded him right from the beginning as walking social satire and loved his company. I still love his company. I wish I could be in his jail cell with him for a night. ... What's going on around him and his view of the world is interesting.
On Bankman-Fried's fraud trial going on now
Lewis: It might create another book, the trial. I framed this as the rise and fall of this person's peculiar ambitions to make as much money as possible to address an existential risk to humanity. And that dream ended, and that was the end of that story.
But there is this other story that if it gets much richer, it's very tempting to write. And it's a story of Sam Bankman-Fried colliding with yet another system and stress-testing it: the criminal justice system. There's a part of me that really wishes I wasn't here but was in the courtroom. And I may get there and do something long with it. I mean, the shocking outcome right now would be if he's acquitted.
On writing about an antihero in this particular moment
Isaacson: I don't know that it's harder to write about an antihero. I think it is harder in this day and age to write about somebody who's complex. ... In this day and age, we have snap judgments. People are heroes or villains. And when you have a character, as Shakespeare teaches us, that is "molded out of faults," it's harder to write about them because people want you to be outraged, one side or the other.
On criticism that Isaacson didn't come down hard enough on Musk's failures
Lewis: I'm sorry. I'm going to defend Walter because he shouldn't have to defend himself. ... I've read the book. And the critics themselves are often relying on what Walter has supplied to attack the book and attack the character. Like, they wouldn't know what they know without Walter's book. All they're supplying is moral outrage. Who wants that? That's not the writer's purpose here. And it's not a tool for enlightening anybody.
Isaacson: Well, I do think that I try to tell a story, and I love the people who say, "OK, you should have come down harder and made judgment." But the judgments are there in the stories. And I guess my goal is to tell the story as straight as I could and as honestly as I could and let the reader have some control over the reader's own moral judgments.
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Transcript
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
All right, so imagine setting out to write a definitive book on a singular figure. And before you're done writing, the hero of the story becomes a villain to many. That's what has happened to two of the most prominent chroniclers of American life, Michael Lewis and Walter Isaacson. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik talked with them about what happened.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Walter Isaacson, your book is on Elon Musk, the force behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and now X - what we all used to call Twitter. How did you convince Musk to give you so much access for this book?
WALTER ISAACSON: It was a bit of a surprise because I talked to him by phone. And I said, I don't want to do a book based on five or 10 or 15 interviews. I don't want to do a conventional book like that. I want to be by your side for two years, in every meeting that I want to be in - nothing excluded. And he went, oh, OK. And then I said, but here's the other part of the deal. I don't want you to have any control over it, and I'm not going to let you read it before it's published. And he went, oh, OK. And I was kind of stunned. And then a few minutes later, somebody said, wow, you're doing Musk? I said, how do you know? He said, well, he just tweeted out, Walter's writing my biography. And so that's how I got on the roller coaster somewhat unexpectedly.
FOLKENFLIK: Michael Lewis, same to you - you met FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried when he seemed like the golden boy of cryptocurrency. Now, of course, he's on trial, facing charges of massive fraud. At the opening of this project, how did you convince him to let you into his life to such a vast degree?
MICHAEL LEWIS: It didn't take anything. I mean, I was introduced to him by a third party who wanted me to get to know him so I could evaluate him for a business deal, and I spent a couple hours with him. At the end of it, the sort of stuff that was coming out of his mouth was so interesting to me that I just said, I don't know what I'm going to do or where you're going to go or how this is going to end, but can I just watch? He didn't - he never asked me what I was up to. He kind of left me alone. And it's odd - you know, it's odd that people do this - that Elon Musk and Sam Bankman-Fried do this - but I think, in some ways, their characters rhyme a bit.
FOLKENFLIK: You know, it's funny. Listening to the two of you, it strikes me that you each, in this case, have focused on people who are shorn of emotional receptors - right? - of what we used to call emotional IQ. And yet you guys are overloaded with it, right?
LEWIS: (Laughter).
FOLKENFLIK: You guys, in some ways, are both there to absorb...
LEWIS: Do you think that's true? Walter, do you think that's true?
ISAACSON: I absolutely do think it's true. Both you and I came out of the tradition here in New Orleans where there were preachers, and there were storytellers. And we took the fork in the road, saying, we're going to be a storyteller. And it's partly 'cause we like observing roguish and wild and interesting individuals.
FOLKENFLIK: So you have this sense of ability to empathize through these - the emotional intelligence. You also have the desire to tell a story and - you know, drawn to the roguish and fascinating figure, right? So the interest is clear and palpable. And even so, here's a guy who's destroyed much of the utility and the financial value of Twitter, and he's also revealed himself on that platform to hold or at least promote and embrace some truly hateful stuff. So to what degree in this storyteller's mode did you feel you also had to try to hold onto a sense of any critical distance?
ISAACSON: Totally. I mean, I - especially when it came to Twitter, which, you know, at times, my head would snap. I'd be appalled at the things he'd be reposting. And so I had to keep my head around very contradictory things, which is the awesome ability to, say, connect solar roofs to power walls and the engineering while also holding onto the fact that his lack of emotional receptors and his sort of dark streak from childhood allows him to promote conspiracy theories when he takes over Twitter.
FOLKENFLIK: Are we living in a moment where it's harder to write a book about an antihero without providing the condemnation from the outset?
ISAACSON: I don't know that it's harder to write about an antihero. I think it is harder, this day and age, to write about somebody who's complex...
LEWIS: Yep.
ISAACSON: ...Who is bringing us into the era of sustainable energy and electric vehicles and also somebody who has this quality that comes out badly on Twitter. So in this day and age, we have snap judgments. People want you to be outraged, one side or the other.
FOLKENFLIK: With hindsight, do either of you ever feel like you were kind of swept into this vortex of these larger-than-life figures? Were there are ever moments where you kind of set aside what you would think if it were somebody you hadn't hung around with so much?
LEWIS: Can I quickly answer that? 'Cause I was going to - that came up earlier, and I had this thought that...
FOLKENFLIK: Yeah.
LEWIS: ...I've never had so little trouble keeping a feeling of distance from a character because the character kept a feeling of distance from me - that I've never had anybody feel so little for me, so I didn't have any trouble feeling so little for him.
FOLKENFLIK: It's funny, when reading the book, I felt that you were really fond of him and amused by him in the same way.
LEWIS: I regarded him, right from the beginning, as walking social satire and loved his company - still love his company. I wish I could be in his jail cell with him for a night.
FOLKENFLIK: Because he entertained you.
LEWIS: He's just - what's going on around him and his view of the world is interesting.
FOLKENFLIK: Kara Swisher, who, of course, is one of the most prominent journalists covering Silicon Valley, has sort of led a pack of critics of your book, Walter, in saying - you know, basically saying, it seems to me, you aren't explicit enough about calling out what Musk has done as wrong at key points.
LEWIS: It's such...
FOLKENFLIK: Is there...
LEWIS: ...BS. I'm sorry.
FOLKENFLIK: Go ahead.
LEWIS: I'm going to defend Walter 'cause he shouldn't have to defend himself.
ISAACSON: I'm happy to.
LEWIS: No. I'm sorry.
ISAACSON: I like Kara, and I love that podcast.
LEWIS: Let me just go 'cause I've read the book. I've read the book. And the critics themselves are often relying on what Walter has supplied to attack the book and attack the character. Like, they wouldn't know what they know without Walter's book. All they're supplying is moral outrage. Who wants that? That's not the writer's purpose here, and it's not a tool for enlightening anybody.
FOLKENFLIK: Walter, do you want to add anything to that?
ISAACSON: Well, I do think that I try to tell a story, and I love the people who say, OK, you should have come down harder and made judgments. But the judgments are there in the stories, and I guess my goal is to tell the story as straight as I could and as honestly as I could and let the reader have some control over the reader's own moral judgments.
FOLKENFLIK: Walter Isaacson and Michael Lewis. Thanks so much.
ISAACSON: Hey, thank you David.
LEWIS: Totally fun. Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's David Folkenflik speaking with Walter Isaacson and Michael Lewis. Isaacson is the author of a new biography of Elon Musk, and Lewis has written "Going Infinite" about FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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