Follow-up to my previous comment: I was responding to the post written here, not the underlying article in the above comment. I’ve now read the article, and broadly agree with it (esp on the significant over-focus on philosophy and controversial ideas within EA, and how this is harmful), but think that the claims about governance are badly argued and don’t hold up, even if the conclusions may be correct
The specific part of the article on the importance of good, professional governance in foundations, is something I feel more confused about, though Matthews’ was not arguing that EA being better governed would have prevented FTX collapsing, more that it would have reduced general harm to EA + limited SBF’s power.
Like, sure, I think SBF’s various foundations being further from him would have been a good idea a priori (and even better in hindsight!). But I don’t actually see how the FTX disaster is evidence for this, beyond being evidence of SBF’s poor judgement and bad intentions. Like, the issue at hand is not that SBF funded a bunch of pandemic prevention etc! I don’t think it’s even that he was involved in the foundation’s decisions (“foundation staff would sometimes cc SBF on a pitching email”). I think it’s that funding was unstable and got pulled out unexpectedly/there’s risks of clawbacks, it harmed the reputation of those that received it, that the funding was gained immorally (though evaluating this is confusing to me, since some of their money was gained legitimately, some was from stealing from customers), that it’s harmed the reputation of the movement + causes he donated to, and that the giving plausibly allowed him to launder his reputation in a way that gained him more credibility and less suspicion to perpetuate the fraud. None of these are that related to how involved he was in the foundations!
And, finally, I’d argue that the Future Fund was actually much more de-centralised and democratic than eg OpenPhil, given their enormous regranter program. It wasn’t quite just giving people money and letting them do whatever they wanted with it, but I’d say that it made giving much more diverse and accounting for many more different perspectives than any other foundation I’m aware of. (I think this comes with many downsides, to be clear, though I’m net a fan of the regranter program. Just that criticising it as SBF being too involved seems silly)
Follow-up to my previous comment: I was responding to the post written here, not the underlying article in the above comment. I’ve now read the article, and broadly agree with it (esp on the significant over-focus on philosophy and controversial ideas within EA, and how this is harmful), but think that the claims about governance are badly argued and don’t hold up, even if the conclusions may be correct
The specific part of the article on the importance of good, professional governance in foundations, is something I feel more confused about, though Matthews’ was not arguing that EA being better governed would have prevented FTX collapsing, more that it would have reduced general harm to EA + limited SBF’s power.
Like, sure, I think SBF’s various foundations being further from him would have been a good idea a priori (and even better in hindsight!). But I don’t actually see how the FTX disaster is evidence for this, beyond being evidence of SBF’s poor judgement and bad intentions. Like, the issue at hand is not that SBF funded a bunch of pandemic prevention etc! I don’t think it’s even that he was involved in the foundation’s decisions (“foundation staff would sometimes cc SBF on a pitching email”). I think it’s that funding was unstable and got pulled out unexpectedly/there’s risks of clawbacks, it harmed the reputation of those that received it, that the funding was gained immorally (though evaluating this is confusing to me, since some of their money was gained legitimately, some was from stealing from customers), that it’s harmed the reputation of the movement + causes he donated to, and that the giving plausibly allowed him to launder his reputation in a way that gained him more credibility and less suspicion to perpetuate the fraud. None of these are that related to how involved he was in the foundations!
And, finally, I’d argue that the Future Fund was actually much more de-centralised and democratic than eg OpenPhil, given their enormous regranter program. It wasn’t quite just giving people money and letting them do whatever they wanted with it, but I’d say that it made giving much more diverse and accounting for many more different perspectives than any other foundation I’m aware of. (I think this comes with many downsides, to be clear, though I’m net a fan of the regranter program. Just that criticising it as SBF being too involved seems silly)