This book was fascinating. It was a well-written account of how a single person trading at high volumes from his home affected the markets. I also think it did a great job of explaining the technical concepts needed to understand what was happening. This was a story that was begging to be told, and I'm glad it was told so well.

I first found out about this book while searching Dev Patel's name on Twitter. I've done this before, read non-fiction thrillers because of an upcoming adaptation, and I wasn't disappointed either time. Flash Crash is dynamic and interesting and actually got me to care about economics. Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC.

Liam Vaughan's Flash Crash is an immersive look at how a sloppy stew of bureaucratic fuckery, financial greed, unchecked wealth and privilege, and unbridled technocratic optimism all coalesced at the same time to create the perfect conditions for day trader Navinder Singh Sarao to perpetuate the flash crash of 2010.

Vaughn does a impactful job showing the many sides of the debate surrounding Sarao's case. Is he a hero, a criminal, a conspiracy theorist, an arrogant libertarian, or all of the above? And are ~the markets~ even a good thing? At the center, however, is the important question of why Sarao, who was an outlier in the industry in more ways than one, became the person who paid the price, as opposed to folks who had far bigger roles in creating the problems with banking, trading, and financial regulation.

Flash Crash has got some sections that get pretty technical, but Vaughan does a solid job working through terminology and showing how so many moving parts fit together. It may be of particular interest to fans of Michael Lewis' books (especially Flash Boys and The Big Short) as well as more atmospheric non-fiction reads like John Carreyrou's Bad Blood and Nick Bilton's American Kingpin.

I love stories that have to do with odd crimes, or of odd happenings in the US.

I was excited to see this was up for grabs as an ARC.

I know little to nothing of stocks or how stocks actually work, but I want to thank Liam Vaughan for explaining it and in such a way that makes sense that helped me follow along with what Nav was doing and what everyone around him was getting into.

The story itself is simple: college kid decides to find a job, job ends up being trading/selling stocks for a company, kid ends up being really smart with numbers and algorithms that he goes off on his own. There, he treats the entire thing like an unbeatable video game - he has to keep raking up money to the point where he has no limits just to see how high he could go. Crazy enough he never spent any of it, he just keeps putting it into savings.

I really don't have a reason why I rated it down a star. Maybe because I expected more drama? Or more entanglements? Though Mr. X is salty and I give him credit for going in there and figuring out what Nav was up to.