Some things I don’t think I’ve seen around FTX, which are probably due to the investigation, but still seems worth noting. Please correct me if these things have been said.
I haven’t seen anyone at the FTXFF acknowledge fault for negligence in not noticing that a defunct phone company (north dimension) was paying out their grants.
This isn’t hugely judgemental from me, I think I’d have made this mistake too, but I would like it acknowledged at some point
The FTX Foundation grants were funded via transfers from a variety of bank accounts, including North Dimension-8738 and Alameda-4456 (Primary Deposit Accounts), as well as Alameda-4464 and FTX Trading-9018
I haven’t seen anyone at CEA acknowledge that they ran an investigation in 2019-2020 on someone who would turn out to be one of the largest fraudsters in the world and failed to turn up anything despite seemingly a number of flags.
I remain confused
As I’ve written elsewhere I haven’t seen engagement on this point, which I find relatively credible, from one of the Time articles:
“Bouscal recalled speaking to Mac Aulay immediately after one of Mac Aulay’s conversations with MacAskill in late 2018. “Will basically took Sam’s side,” said Bouscal, who recalls waiting with Mac Aulay in the Stockholm airport while she was on the phone. (Bouscal and Mac Aulay had once dated; though no longer romantically involved, they remain close friends.) “Will basically threatened Tara,” Bouscal recalls. “I remember my impression being that Will was taking a pretty hostile stance here and that he was just believing Sam’s side of the story, which made no sense to me.””
My comment on the above “While other things may have been bigger errors, this once seems most sort of “out of character” or “bad normsy”. And I know Naia well enough that this moves me a lot, even though it seems so out of character for [will] (maybe 30% that this is a broadly accurate account). This causes me consternation, I don’t understand and I think if this happened it was really bad and behaviour like it should not happen from any powerful EAs (or any EAs frankly).”
I haven’t read too much into this and am probably missing something.
Why do you think FTXFF was receiving grants via north dimension? The brief googling I did only mentioned north dimension in the context of FTX customers sending funds to FTX (specifically this SEC complaint). I could easily have missed something.
Grants were being made to grantees out of North Dimension’s account—at least one grant recipient confirmed receiving one on the Forum (would have to search for that). The trustee’s second interim report shows that FTXFF grants were being paid out of similar accounts that received customer funds.
It’s unclear to me whether FTX Philanthrophy (the actual 501c3) ever had any meaningful assets to its name, or whether (m)any of the grants even flowed through accounts that it had ownership of.
Certainly very concerning. Two possible mitigations though:
Any finding of negligence would only apply to those with duties or oversight responsibilities relating to operations. It’s not every employee or volunteer’s responsibility to be a compliance detective for the entire organization.
It’s plausible that people made some due dilligence efforts that were unsuccessful because they were fed false information and/or relied on corrupt experts (like “Attorney-1” in the second interim trustee report). E.g., if they were told by Legal that this had been signed off on and that it was necessary for tax reasons, it’s hard to criticize a non-lawyer too much for accepting that. Or more simply, they could have been told that all grants were made out of various internal accounts containing only corporate monies (again, with some tax-related justification that donating non-US profits through a US charity would be disadvantageous).
Some things I don’t think I’ve seen around FTX, which are probably due to the investigation, but still seems worth noting. Please correct me if these things have been said.
I haven’t seen anyone at the FTXFF acknowledge fault for negligence in not noticing that a defunct phone company (north dimension) was paying out their grants.
This isn’t hugely judgemental from me, I think I’d have made this mistake too, but I would like it acknowledged at some point
Since writing this it’s been pointed out that there were grants paid from FTX and Alameda accounts also. Ooof.
I haven’t seen anyone at CEA acknowledge that they ran an investigation in 2019-2020 on someone who would turn out to be one of the largest fraudsters in the world and failed to turn up anything despite seemingly a number of flags.
I remain confused
As I’ve written elsewhere I haven’t seen engagement on this point, which I find relatively credible, from one of the Time articles:
My comment on the above “While other things may have been bigger errors, this once seems most sort of “out of character” or “bad normsy”. And I know Naia well enough that this moves me a lot, even though it seems so out of character for [will] (maybe 30% that this is a broadly accurate account). This causes me consternation, I don’t understand and I think if this happened it was really bad and behaviour like it should not happen from any powerful EAs (or any EAs frankly).”
Extremely likely that the lawyers have urged relevant people to remain quiet on the first two points and probably the third as well.
Yeah seems right, but uh still seems worth saying.
Did you mean for the second paragraph of the quoted section to be in the quote section?
I can’t remember but you’re right that it’s unclear.
I haven’t read too much into this and am probably missing something.
Why do you think FTXFF was receiving grants via north dimension? The brief googling I did only mentioned north dimension in the context of FTX customers sending funds to FTX (specifically this SEC complaint). I could easily have missed something.
Grants were being made to grantees out of North Dimension’s account—at least one grant recipient confirmed receiving one on the Forum (would have to search for that). The trustee’s second interim report shows that FTXFF grants were being paid out of similar accounts that received customer funds.
It’s unclear to me whether FTX Philanthrophy (the actual 501c3) ever had any meaningful assets to its name, or whether (m)any of the grants even flowed through accounts that it had ownership of.
Seems pretty bad, no?
Certainly very concerning. Two possible mitigations though:
Any finding of negligence would only apply to those with duties or oversight responsibilities relating to operations. It’s not every employee or volunteer’s responsibility to be a compliance detective for the entire organization.
It’s plausible that people made some due dilligence efforts that were unsuccessful because they were fed false information and/or relied on corrupt experts (like “Attorney-1” in the second interim trustee report). E.g., if they were told by Legal that this had been signed off on and that it was necessary for tax reasons, it’s hard to criticize a non-lawyer too much for accepting that. Or more simply, they could have been told that all grants were made out of various internal accounts containing only corporate monies (again, with some tax-related justification that donating non-US profits through a US charity would be disadvantageous).
Ah, thank you!
I searched for that comment. I think this is probably the one you’re referencing.
I know of at least 1 other case.