As FTX was imploding, Will wrote on Twitter “If FTX misused customer funds, then I personally will have much to reflect on.” It now seems very clear that FTX did misuse customer funds (1, 2), but to my knowledge Will hasn’t shared any of his reflections publicly, beyond that initial Twitter thread. It seems odd to me for him to offer thoughts on the best way forward for the movement without acknowledging or having reckoned in a substantive way with his own role in the largest challenge faced by that movement to date.
If Will has published a post-mortem or analysis of what went wrong and I’ve missed it, I do apologise and will retract this comment (and would appreciate a link).
Thanks! Will writes “The independent investigation commissioned by EV is still ongoing, and the firm running it strongly preferred me not to publish posts on backwards-looking topics around FTX while the investigation is still in-progress. I don’t know when it’ll be finished, or what the situation will be like for communicating on these topics even after it’s done.”
To be honest, I don’t find this particularly inspiring: it feels a lot like a cop-out. I also think that in this post he could have included a disclaimer about his own track record of errors of judgement, without going into detail about those errors. The fact that he chose not to is disappointing.
I think this is a little unfair to Will. If an independent investigation asks you not to discuss something then presumably this is because they worry that you speaking would interfere with their investigation (perhaps they think it’s valuable to get independent views of what happened, rather than views informed by dialogue between different parties).
To my mind, if Will refused to heed a request from an independent investigation this would be strong evidence that he hadn’t learned the lessons of FTX (that he hadn’t learned the importance of good governance norms). The fact that he’s heeding the request, despite clearly wanting to speak out, I think is at least weak evidence that Will has learned valuable lessons here. I certainly think it’s unfair to call this a cop out.
Agreed, although it does raise potential questions for me about the firm and/or investigation. A request to avoid making public statements to avoiding tainting investigative leads of a small-to-midsize organization is easier to justify early on than many months in. Hard to assess how reasonable it is without inside knowledge though.
As FTX was imploding, Will wrote on Twitter “If FTX misused customer funds, then I personally will have much to reflect on.” It now seems very clear that FTX did misuse customer funds (1, 2), but to my knowledge Will hasn’t shared any of his reflections publicly, beyond that initial Twitter thread. It seems odd to me for him to offer thoughts on the best way forward for the movement without acknowledging or having reckoned in a substantive way with his own role in the largest challenge faced by that movement to date.
If Will has published a post-mortem or analysis of what went wrong and I’ve missed it, I do apologise and will retract this comment (and would appreciate a link).
See here for more context.
Thanks! Will writes “The independent investigation commissioned by EV is still ongoing, and the firm running it strongly preferred me not to publish posts on backwards-looking topics around FTX while the investigation is still in-progress. I don’t know when it’ll be finished, or what the situation will be like for communicating on these topics even after it’s done.”
To be honest, I don’t find this particularly inspiring: it feels a lot like a cop-out. I also think that in this post he could have included a disclaimer about his own track record of errors of judgement, without going into detail about those errors. The fact that he chose not to is disappointing.
I think this is a little unfair to Will. If an independent investigation asks you not to discuss something then presumably this is because they worry that you speaking would interfere with their investigation (perhaps they think it’s valuable to get independent views of what happened, rather than views informed by dialogue between different parties).
To my mind, if Will refused to heed a request from an independent investigation this would be strong evidence that he hadn’t learned the lessons of FTX (that he hadn’t learned the importance of good governance norms). The fact that he’s heeding the request, despite clearly wanting to speak out, I think is at least weak evidence that Will has learned valuable lessons here. I certainly think it’s unfair to call this a cop out.
Agreed, although it does raise potential questions for me about the firm and/or investigation. A request to avoid making public statements to avoiding tainting investigative leads of a small-to-midsize organization is easier to justify early on than many months in. Hard to assess how reasonable it is without inside knowledge though.
What track record? He says “I wish I’d been far less trusting of Sam and those who’ve pleaded guilty”—what else are you thinking of?
One strong −5 disagree-vote...oh yeah, you’re right, that link didn’t provide any more context haha, silly me.