In addition to having a lot more on the line, other reasons to expect better of ourselves:
EA had (at least potential) access to a lot of information that investors may not have, in particular about Alameda’s early exodus in 2018.
EA had much more time to investigate and vet SBF—there’s typically a very large premium for investors to move fast during fundraising, to minimize distraction for the CEO/team.
Because of the second point, many professional investors do surprisingly little vetting. For example, SoftBank is pretty widely reputed to be “dumb money;” IIRC they shook hands on huge investments in Uber and WeWork on the basis of a single meeting, and their flagship Vision Fund lost 8% (~$8b) this past quarter alone. I don’t know about OTPP but I imagine they could be similarly diligence-light given their relatively short history as a venture investor. Sequoia is less famously dumb than those two, but still may not have done much vetting if FTX was perceived to be a “hot” deal with lots of time pressure.
Very much agree. Some EAs knew SBF for almost a decade and plausibly interacted with him for hundreds of hours (including in non-professional settings which are usually more revealing of someone’s character and personality).
The obvious default conclusion here is that there is nothing inherent in his personality that made him more likely to do this, compared to other EAs.
Other EAs haven’t gambled billions of customer funds simply because they didn’t have billions of customer funds. If they had been in SBF’s situation they may have fallen to the temptation too.
Needless to say, I think what SBF did was unquestionably wrong and condemn it. I’m simply also pessimistic enough to think that I myself, and other regularly-adjusted-humans around me, would also fall to such temptations. Somehow, I really doubt that 100% of the people condemning SBF would have resisted the temptation if they were put into the same situation.
Strongly agree with these points and think the first is what makes the overwhelming difference on why EA should have done better. Multiple people allege (both publicly on the forum and people who have told me in confidence) to have told EA leadership that SBF was doing thinks that strongly break with EA values since the Alameda situation of 2018.
This doesn’t imply we should know about any particular illegal activity SBF might have been undertaking, but I would expect SBF to not have been so promoted throughout the past couple of years. This is especially surprising given my perception of EA’s high risk-aversion to doing marketing of the movement over the years.
Even if we put everything else to the side, I was shocked to find out that SBF had a $40m property in the Bahamas and felt very naive to have believed the much more popular stories that he merely drove and old car and slept on a beanbag in front of his desk. Surely many other EAs who had visited the Bahamas had been to his penthouse suite or had caught wind of it and could have corrected the mistaken image somehow or posed it as a risk to the movement.
In addition to having a lot more on the line, other reasons to expect better of ourselves:
EA had (at least potential) access to a lot of information that investors may not have, in particular about Alameda’s early exodus in 2018.
EA had much more time to investigate and vet SBF—there’s typically a very large premium for investors to move fast during fundraising, to minimize distraction for the CEO/team.
Because of the second point, many professional investors do surprisingly little vetting. For example, SoftBank is pretty widely reputed to be “dumb money;” IIRC they shook hands on huge investments in Uber and WeWork on the basis of a single meeting, and their flagship Vision Fund lost 8% (~$8b) this past quarter alone. I don’t know about OTPP but I imagine they could be similarly diligence-light given their relatively short history as a venture investor. Sequoia is less famously dumb than those two, but still may not have done much vetting if FTX was perceived to be a “hot” deal with lots of time pressure.
Very much agree. Some EAs knew SBF for almost a decade and plausibly interacted with him for hundreds of hours (including in non-professional settings which are usually more revealing of someone’s character and personality).
The obvious default conclusion here is that there is nothing inherent in his personality that made him more likely to do this, compared to other EAs.
Other EAs haven’t gambled billions of customer funds simply because they didn’t have billions of customer funds. If they had been in SBF’s situation they may have fallen to the temptation too.
Needless to say, I think what SBF did was unquestionably wrong and condemn it. I’m simply also pessimistic enough to think that I myself, and other regularly-adjusted-humans around me, would also fall to such temptations. Somehow, I really doubt that 100% of the people condemning SBF would have resisted the temptation if they were put into the same situation.
Strongly agree with these points and think the first is what makes the overwhelming difference on why EA should have done better. Multiple people allege (both publicly on the forum and people who have told me in confidence) to have told EA leadership that SBF was doing thinks that strongly break with EA values since the Alameda situation of 2018.
This doesn’t imply we should know about any particular illegal activity SBF might have been undertaking, but I would expect SBF to not have been so promoted throughout the past couple of years. This is especially surprising given my perception of EA’s high risk-aversion to doing marketing of the movement over the years.
Even if we put everything else to the side, I was shocked to find out that SBF had a $40m property in the Bahamas and felt very naive to have believed the much more popular stories that he merely drove and old car and slept on a beanbag in front of his desk. Surely many other EAs who had visited the Bahamas had been to his penthouse suite or had caught wind of it and could have corrected the mistaken image somehow or posed it as a risk to the movement.