Thanks so much for all your hard work since before EA existed, Nick. The qualities you brought and inspired in others as a foundational and highly capable figure in EA are evident in the love that so many people this comment section have for you.
Can you help me understand why you stepped down from the EV boards in August 2023 because of too many recusals starting in November 2022? Did the amount you could participate in the boards meaningfully change recently? You said this was a good time for you to step down, but from the post, it doesn’t sound like there have been significant changes in your ability to contribute to the board since November 2022.
It’s very difficult for me to understand why, in the aftermath of a crisis, someone with wide-ranging recusals stemming from the crisis that were preventing them from contributing enough would take 9+ months to step down.
You did this for both the EV boards, which further compounds the issue.
Additionally, the point of EA is to do the most good. This has been the most critical time period in EA’s history. The EA community meaningfully contributed to an $8,000,000,000 fraud. In the 10 months since then, we have endured painful scandal after scandal, some exposing important governance and leadership failures. Importantly, governance and leadership failures were a factor in the catastrophic FTX fraud, such as the CEA/EV trustees—Will MacAskill, Toby Ord, and likely Nick Beckstead for the time period in question (based on the Wayback Machine)[1] - and other EA leaders effectively ignoring concerns about the business ethics and risk management of SBF while promoting and helping him.
With all this and more context than I could possibly get into here, it’s even more difficult for me to understand why you stayed on either, let alone both, of the EV boards for 9+ months after FTX exploded.
I’m sure one consideration was the challenge of finding new and trustworthy board members for small boards. But if this was the bottleneck, why wasn’t it prioritized and dealt with much earlier? It really shouldn’t take close to a year to replace members with wide-ranging recusals in crisis time. This should have been one of the first problems to solve.
This is all the more true considering the central role of EV in the EA ecosystem. EA has had serious leadership vacuums in this critical period that have significantly impacted our community and, much more importantly, our attempt to make the world a better place.
It was noteworthy to me that an EV US board member, Rebecca Kagan, resigned her position in April of this year due to disagreements with the EV boards’ strategy and approach. I hope we hear from her in the future.
I didn’t want to potentially change the mood on a leaving post that ideally should have been just filled with appreciation for a person with many outstanding qualities, but it’s really very difficult for me to understand how these sorts of consequential and inexplicable actions—much of this also applies to Will MacAskill of course—are accepted without comment in some of the most important organizations of the EA movement.
It makes me worry that not enough lessons have been learned from FTX.
If what I have said is wrong in any way—very possible! - I would love to hear how.
All that said, I wish you best of luck for the future Nick.
There is a small chance I am unable to rule out that Hilary Greaves had replaced Nick Beckstead as a trustee at the time the CEA UK trustees considered allegations against SBF but took no action. Confirmation either way is welcome.
Thanks so much for all your hard work since before EA existed, Nick. The qualities you brought and inspired in others as a foundational and highly capable figure in EA are evident in the love that so many people this comment section have for you.
Can you help me understand why you stepped down from the EV boards in August 2023 because of too many recusals starting in November 2022? Did the amount you could participate in the boards meaningfully change recently? You said this was a good time for you to step down, but from the post, it doesn’t sound like there have been significant changes in your ability to contribute to the board since November 2022.
It’s very difficult for me to understand why, in the aftermath of a crisis, someone with wide-ranging recusals stemming from the crisis that were preventing them from contributing enough would take 9+ months to step down.
You did this for both the EV boards, which further compounds the issue.
Additionally, the point of EA is to do the most good. This has been the most critical time period in EA’s history. The EA community meaningfully contributed to an $8,000,000,000 fraud. In the 10 months since then, we have endured painful scandal after scandal, some exposing important governance and leadership failures. Importantly, governance and leadership failures were a factor in the catastrophic FTX fraud, such as the CEA/EV trustees—Will MacAskill, Toby Ord, and likely Nick Beckstead for the time period in question (based on the Wayback Machine)[1] - and other EA leaders effectively ignoring concerns about the business ethics and risk management of SBF while promoting and helping him.
With all this and more context than I could possibly get into here, it’s even more difficult for me to understand why you stayed on either, let alone both, of the EV boards for 9+ months after FTX exploded.
I’m sure one consideration was the challenge of finding new and trustworthy board members for small boards. But if this was the bottleneck, why wasn’t it prioritized and dealt with much earlier? It really shouldn’t take close to a year to replace members with wide-ranging recusals in crisis time. This should have been one of the first problems to solve.
This is all the more true considering the central role of EV in the EA ecosystem. EA has had serious leadership vacuums in this critical period that have significantly impacted our community and, much more importantly, our attempt to make the world a better place.
It was noteworthy to me that an EV US board member, Rebecca Kagan, resigned her position in April of this year due to disagreements with the EV boards’ strategy and approach. I hope we hear from her in the future.
I didn’t want to potentially change the mood on a leaving post that ideally should have been just filled with appreciation for a person with many outstanding qualities, but it’s really very difficult for me to understand how these sorts of consequential and inexplicable actions—much of this also applies to Will MacAskill of course—are accepted without comment in some of the most important organizations of the EA movement.
It makes me worry that not enough lessons have been learned from FTX.
If what I have said is wrong in any way—very possible! - I would love to hear how.
All that said, I wish you best of luck for the future Nick.
There is a small chance I am unable to rule out that Hilary Greaves had replaced Nick Beckstead as a trustee at the time the CEA UK trustees considered allegations against SBF but took no action. Confirmation either way is welcome.