
The Money Trap
Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble
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Narrated by:
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Raza Jaffrey
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By:
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Alok Sama
About this listen
This program is read by Raza Jaffrey, best known for his role in Homeland.
A gripping and entertaining memoir that shines a rare light on an industry that is disrupting our lives.
Veteran Morgan Stanley banker Alok Sama thought he'd seen it all. Then he found himself chief dealmaker at the most influential technology investor in the world—SoftBank, the backer of Arm Holdings, Yahoo, Nvidia, TikTok, Uber, T-Mobile, Alibaba and WeWork.
The Money Trap is Sama’s thrilling, stranger-than-fiction personal odyssey featuring his experiences alongside SoftBank’s iconic founder, Masayoshi Son, a visionary maverick who wants to be remembered as “the crazy guy who bet on the future” and whose mission is “happiness for everyone.” Sama takes the listener on a wild journey as he consorts with A-list CEOs and heads of state, and negotiates mega-deals on a Gulfstream jet, Son’s sanctuary with its exquisite Japanese garden, and a waterside restaurant in the Turkish Riviera—all while contending with a mysterious dark-arts smear campaign that takes a toll on his private life.
This fascinating and humorous saga provides a unique insider perspective on the insanity of high finance and venture investing. Written with self-deprecating wit, unflinching honesty and searing introspection, The Money Trap is ultimately a morality tale: in life, as in technology investing, more money isn’t always the answer.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
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Critic reviews
“A riveting page-turner about the world of technology and dealmaking told by an insider…An immigrant's story with something significant to say about class, character, identity, family, and perhaps more than anything, the search for happiness.”—Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything Is Illuminated
“An existential and exquisitely satisfying business thriller…A wonderful story that begins with big business and big deals and ends with the biggest question: what does it mean to be a person? Sama brings a pure writerly eye into rooms and situations never before captured in print. This is a thrilling and important book: the incredible thing is that it’s all true.”—David Lipsky, New York Times bestselling author of Absolutely American and Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself
“Sama writes with authority and panache, humor and outrage, and above all knowledge. (Imagine Michael Lewis had been President of SoftBank.) This man knows a lot, and he’s willing to share—and to make sure you have a great time as he does. If this book doesn't become a bestseller, the world truly makes no sense.”—Darin Strauss, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Half a Life
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Story
In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration - and long-overdue reassessment - of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture.
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Narration makes it difficult to enjoy
- By Katrine on 06-28-21
By: Sarah Schulman
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Lying for Money
- How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of the World
- By: Dan Davies
- Narrated by: Tim Paige
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The way most white-collar crime works is by manipulating institutional psychology. That means creating something that looks as much as possible like a normal set of transactions. The drama comes later, when it all unwinds. Financial crime seems horribly complicated, but there are only so many ways you can con someone out of what’s theirs.
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Very interesting book!
- By Ebong Eka on 02-21-22
By: Dan Davies
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The Genesis Book
- The Story of the People and Projects That Inspired Bitcoin
- By: Aaron van Wirdum
- Narrated by: Christian Neale
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Bitcoin did not appear out of nowhere. For decades prior to Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention, a diverse group of computer scientists, privacy activists, and heterodox economists tried to create a digital form of money that could operate independently of government control. The Genesis Book tells the story of the people and projects that inspired the invention of the world’s first successful peer-to-peer electronic cash system.
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Excellent historical synopsis
- By Brad Abbott on 06-11-25
By: Aaron van Wirdum
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The Real Hoosiers
- Crispus Attucks High School, Oscar Robertson, and the Hidden History of Hoops
- By: Jack McCallum
- Narrated by: Cary Hite
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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For far too long the mythology of Indiana basketball has been dominated by Hoosiers. Framed as the ultimate underdog, feel-good story, there has also long been a cultural debate surrounding the film. The Real Hoosiers sets out to illuminate the narrative that the film omits, the story of the unheralded Crispus Attucks Tigers, playing the game at the highest level in the 1950s in a racially divided Indiana.
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Thorough, Incisive, transcendent book
- By TeeSpell on 04-16-24
By: Jack McCallum
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House of Huawei
- The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company
- By: Eva Dou
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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On the coast of southern China, an eccentric entrepreneur spent three decades steadily building an obscure telecom company into one of the world’s most powerful technological empires with hardly anyone noticing. This all changed in December 2018, when the detention of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies’ female scion, sparked an international hostage standoff, poured fuel on the US-China trade war, and suddenly thrust the mysterious company into the global spotlight.
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Excellent work
- By Suzi on 05-26-25
By: Eva Dou
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All That Glitters
- A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art
- By: Orlando Whitfield
- Narrated by: Orlando Whitfield
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Orlando Whitfield and Inigo Philbrick met in 2006 at London’s Goldsmiths University where they became best friends. By 2007 they had started I&O Fine Art. Orlando would eventually set up his own gallery and watch as Inigo quickly immersed himself in a world of private jets and multimillion-dollar deals for major clients. Inigo seemed brilliant, but underneath the extravagant façade, his complicated financial schemes were unraveling. With debt, lawsuits, and court summonses piling up, Inigo went into a tailspin of lies and subterfuge.
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Gripping
- By Anonymous User on 09-01-24
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Becoming a Data Head
- How to Think, Speak, and Understand Data Science, Statistics, and Machine Learning
- By: Alex J. Gutman, Jordan Goldmeier
- Narrated by: Brian Arens
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Becoming a Data Head is a complete guide for data science in the workplace: covering everything from the personalities you’ll work with to the math behind the algorithms. The authors have spent years in data trenches and sought to create a fun, approachable, and eminently bingeable book. Anyone can become a Data Head—an active participant in data science, statistics, and machine learning. Whether you're a business professional, engineer, executive, or aspiring data scientist, this book is for you.
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The best data science manual ever written
- By Jordan on 08-29-24
By: Alex J. Gutman, and others
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Strange Glory
- A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- By: Charles Marsh
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 19 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In the decades since his execution by the Nazis in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor, theologian, and anti-Hitler conspirator, has become one of the most widely read and inspiring Christian thinkers of our time. Now, drawing on extensive new research, Strange Glory offers a definitive account, by turns majestic and intimate, of this modern icon.
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Excellent life of Bonhoeffer
- By Doug on 08-23-14
By: Charles Marsh
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At Any Cost
- A Father's Betrayal, a Wife's Murder, and a Ten-Year War for Justice
- By: Rebecca Rosenberg, Selim Algar
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Wealthy, beautiful, and brilliant, Shele Danishefsky had fulfillment at her fingertips. Having conquered Wall Street, she was eager to build a family with her much younger husband, promising Ivy League graduate Rod Covlin. But when his hidden vices surfaced, marital harmony gave way to a merciless divorce. Rod had long depended on Shele's income to fund his tastes for high stakes backgammon and infidelity - and she finally vowed to sever him from her will. In late December 2009, Shele made an appointment with her lawyer. She would never make it to that meeting.
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Tightly-written true crime; excellent narration.
- By Janean Laidlaw on 06-27-21
By: Rebecca Rosenberg, and others
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The Treeline
- The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth
- By: Ben Rawlence
- Narrated by: Jamie Parker
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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For the last 50 years, the trees of the boreal forest have been moving north. The Treeline takes us along this critical frontier of our warming planet from Norway to Siberia, Alaska to Greenland, to meet the scientists, residents, and trees confronting huge geological changes.
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A surprising find
- By BearheartRaven on 02-23-22
By: Ben Rawlence
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What I Learned About Investing from Darwin
- By: Pulak Prasad
- Narrated by: Shawn K. Jain
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The investment profession is in a state of crisis. The vast majority of equity fund managers are unable to beat the market over the long term, which has led to massive outflows from active funds to passive funds. Where should investors turn in search of a new approach? Pulak Prasad offers a philosophy of patient long-term investing based on an unexpected source: evolutionary biology. He draws key lessons from core Darwinian concepts, mixing vivid examples from the natural world with compelling stories of good and bad investing decisions—including his own.
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Investing in market leaders and hold forever
- By Anonymous User on 12-21-23
By: Pulak Prasad
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Money Men
- A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth
- By: Dan McCrum
- Narrated by: Dan McCrum
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When investigative journalist Dan McCrum first came across Wirecard, the hot new tech company that looked poised to challenge Silicon Valley, it all looked a little too good to be true: offices were sprouting up all over the world, and they were reporting runaway growth. In the space of a few short years, the company had come from nowhere to overtake industry giants like Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank on the stock market. As McCrum began to dig deeper, he encountered a story stranger and more compelling than he could have imagined.
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Interesting book but…
- By Rock Climber on 06-11-23
By: Dan McCrum
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Default
- The Landmark Court Battle over Argentina's $100 Billion Debt Restructuring
- By: Gregory Makoff, Lee C. Buchheit - foreword
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Default is the riveting story of Argentina's sovereign debt drama, which reveals the obscure inner workings of sovereign debt restructuring. This detailed case study describes the intense fight over the role of the IMF in Argentina's 2005 debt restructuring and the ensuing bitter decade of litigation with holdout creditors, demonstrating that outcomes for sovereign debt are determined by a complex interplay between financial markets, governments, the IMF, the press, and the courts.
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Delivers on promise
- By Lukk on 06-28-24
By: Gregory Makoff, and others
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I See Myself
- Musings and Memories of a Blessed Life
- By: Joseph S. Bonsall
- Narrated by: Rob Farella
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In I See Myself, Joe Bonsall reflects on the contrasts and the crossroads of his life. From growing up in the inner city of Philadelphia to sitting on the front porch of his log home in rural Tennessee. From hanging with a street gang in his teens to surrendering to Christ at a youth camp. From working as a short order cook to headlining sold-out arenas. And now—from running across the stage each night to being sidelined by a neuromuscular disorder that has stolen his mobility.
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Beautiful Book
- By Julie Turner on 11-21-24
Expected and unexpected at every turn
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It is a business book written as a drama/investigative narrative
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Finally a book I can recommend
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A story about life
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Insider’s view of what was happening at SoftBank Vision Fund
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Engaging, Honest and Personal
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Entertaining and incredibly well written
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All form, no substance
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Kept waiting for it to get exciting... but it never did.
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