(EDIT: Added a follow-up comment after reading the original article)
A lot of this discourse feels like it’s missing the point to me. FTX was not an EA org. (Alameda was founded mostly with EAs, but then most of them left, in part because of bad governance and lack of ethics!). FTX was not beholden to EAs, and EA and EA orgs didn’t have any say in how FTX was governed. EA may have been well placed to blow the whistle on this, and maybe to say things to Sam about this, but it seems very off to say that the governance of EA orgs led to the bad governance of FTX.
(Also, Alameda was founded in ~2018, where the EA scene was very, very different and much less mature (and probably much worse governed). I expect many bad governance decisions are baked in when an org is founded)
I think the correct reference class for the governance of FTX is more like startups, esp crypto startups. I don’t see that much of a causal link between, eg, how well OpenPhil or MIRI is governed, and how FTX was governed.
To be clear, I am not arguing that EA orgs are not badly governed, I just think these should be two separate conversations. And, even, that the fact that FTX was badly governed and this led to a disaster, is at best weak evidence that EA orgs governed in a similar way will also lead to a disaster, given how different the work is (it’s harder to fuck up when you aren’t managing >$10bn of customer funds!) (Though, to be clear, I think that if I discovered an EA org being governed in the same way as FTX it would be a concerning red flag. Just that it should have been a red flag regardless of the FTX blow up!)
He is saying something about SBF’s charitable ventures, of which at least FTXFF is reasonably seen as an EA organization based on the staff list:
There’s a fundamental difference between Bankman-Fried’s charitable efforts and august ones like the Rockefeller and Ford foundations: these philanthropies are, fundamentally, professional. They’re well-staffed, normally run institutions. They have HR departments and comms teams and accountants and all the other stuff you have when you’re a grown-up running a grown-up organization.
. . . .
The good news for EAs is that Open Philanthropy, the remaining major EA-aligned funding group, is a much more normal organization. Its form of professionalization is something for the rest of the movement to emulate. [Elsewhere, the author has kind words for GiveWell as an organization.]
I am less than convinced, though, that this particular criticism is fairly directed at EA as a whole as opposed to SBF in particular. And it may be cultural/generational: how many 30-year old billionaires are going to be interested in passively giving away their wealth and letting Rockefeller/Ford-style bureaucrats decide where it goes? I’m a decade older, and that sort of passivity/disengagement feels awfully unappealing to me.
My take on the author’s criticism is to repeat the Cynic’s Golden Rule: “He who has the gold makes the rules.” If SBF really wanted to do it his way, what was EA-as-a-community supposed to do, refuse to take his money? That’s a major downside to hits-based donor development. If the EA movement continues to rely so heavily on a few megadonors, the Cynic’s Golden Rule will remain in full force whenever the megadonors wish. It is a testament to Moskovitz and Tuna’s humility that Open Phil operates as it does, not an expectation EA can demand of would-be megadonors with its non-existent leverage.
Agreed, I made the above comment responding to the forum post, and hadn’t read the article—I’ve added a follow-up comment responding to the article’s claims about philanthropic governance.
TLDR: As far as I can tell, the governance of FTXFF was fine and SBF didn’t have undue power. Even if he did have undue power, this seems totally unrelated to the multi-billion dollar blow-up, harm to countless people, harm to the EA ecosystem and to EA’s reputation.
As I understand it, CEA pseudo-incubated what became Alameda and/or FTX, working closely with SBF to help him get set up. Obviously that doesn’t make them responsible for what happened ~5 years later, but nor does it seem reasonable to treat them as unrelated.
That’s not my understanding? I’m curious where you heard that from.
Either way, I stand by this—I believe CEA in particular was a big mess back then:
(Also, Alameda was founded in ~2018, where the EA scene was very, very different and much less mature (and probably much worse governed). I expect many bad governance decisions are baked in when an org is founded)
(EDIT: Added a follow-up comment after reading the original article)
A lot of this discourse feels like it’s missing the point to me. FTX was not an EA org. (Alameda was founded mostly with EAs, but then most of them left, in part because of bad governance and lack of ethics!). FTX was not beholden to EAs, and EA and EA orgs didn’t have any say in how FTX was governed. EA may have been well placed to blow the whistle on this, and maybe to say things to Sam about this, but it seems very off to say that the governance of EA orgs led to the bad governance of FTX.
(Also, Alameda was founded in ~2018, where the EA scene was very, very different and much less mature (and probably much worse governed). I expect many bad governance decisions are baked in when an org is founded)
I think the correct reference class for the governance of FTX is more like startups, esp crypto startups. I don’t see that much of a causal link between, eg, how well OpenPhil or MIRI is governed, and how FTX was governed.
To be clear, I am not arguing that EA orgs are not badly governed, I just think these should be two separate conversations. And, even, that the fact that FTX was badly governed and this led to a disaster, is at best weak evidence that EA orgs governed in a similar way will also lead to a disaster, given how different the work is (it’s harder to fuck up when you aren’t managing >$10bn of customer funds!) (Though, to be clear, I think that if I discovered an EA org being governed in the same way as FTX it would be a concerning red flag. Just that it should have been a red flag regardless of the FTX blow up!)
He is saying something about SBF’s charitable ventures, of which at least FTXFF is reasonably seen as an EA organization based on the staff list:
There’s a fundamental difference between Bankman-Fried’s charitable efforts and august ones like the Rockefeller and Ford foundations: these philanthropies are, fundamentally, professional. They’re well-staffed, normally run institutions. They have HR departments and comms teams and accountants and all the other stuff you have when you’re a grown-up running a grown-up organization.
. . . .
The good news for EAs is that Open Philanthropy, the remaining major EA-aligned funding group, is a much more normal organization. Its form of professionalization is something for the rest of the movement to emulate. [Elsewhere, the author has kind words for GiveWell as an organization.]
I am less than convinced, though, that this particular criticism is fairly directed at EA as a whole as opposed to SBF in particular. And it may be cultural/generational: how many 30-year old billionaires are going to be interested in passively giving away their wealth and letting Rockefeller/Ford-style bureaucrats decide where it goes? I’m a decade older, and that sort of passivity/disengagement feels awfully unappealing to me.
My take on the author’s criticism is to repeat the Cynic’s Golden Rule: “He who has the gold makes the rules.” If SBF really wanted to do it his way, what was EA-as-a-community supposed to do, refuse to take his money? That’s a major downside to hits-based donor development. If the EA movement continues to rely so heavily on a few megadonors, the Cynic’s Golden Rule will remain in full force whenever the megadonors wish. It is a testament to Moskovitz and Tuna’s humility that Open Phil operates as it does, not an expectation EA can demand of would-be megadonors with its non-existent leverage.
Agreed, I made the above comment responding to the forum post, and hadn’t read the article—I’ve added a follow-up comment responding to the article’s claims about philanthropic governance.
TLDR: As far as I can tell, the governance of FTXFF was fine and SBF didn’t have undue power. Even if he did have undue power, this seems totally unrelated to the multi-billion dollar blow-up, harm to countless people, harm to the EA ecosystem and to EA’s reputation.
As I understand it, CEA pseudo-incubated what became Alameda and/or FTX, working closely with SBF to help him get set up. Obviously that doesn’t make them responsible for what happened ~5 years later, but nor does it seem reasonable to treat them as unrelated.
That’s not my understanding? I’m curious where you heard that from.
Either way, I stand by this—I believe CEA in particular was a big mess back then: