I’m not exactly sure who made what decisions, and I’m not sure what Nick and Will expressed behind the scenes or what they tried to do, but as far as we can see publicly, Nick and Will definitely went along with and followed through on a strategy that definitely did enable Sam to run the “FTX Future Fund” (note: FTX prominently in the name) in a very prominent way that was very connected to EA, as well as orient a lot of his public branding and public persona to EA in a highly visible way. I think Nick and Will, and their strong reputation within the EA community, were critical in making this happen.
Contrast this to how Dustin relates to Open Philanthropy (note: not named Asana Philanthropy Fund) and you’ll see it was very clear Sam was using EA to burnish his own personal popularity. Unfortunately, no one except me (as far as I know) seemed particularly (publicly) concerned about that.
Sorry, but that really doesn’t seem like “promoting Sam so heavily as the poster child of EA”, and more like “went with the general flow of letting Sam’s projects go ahead”.
I agree the Elon Musk thing was sketchy and arguably a bad decision, but that also wasn’t public and not related to SBF’s EA activities.
To be clear, I also got the vibe that Sam was a poster child, but I don’t think I can point to Nick and Will pushing that, and since those are the people we’re talking about sacking, I think that’s pretty relevant.
I agree the Elon Musk thing was sketchy and arguably a bad decision, but that also wasn’t public and not related to SBF’s EA activities.
Whether it was “sketchy and arguably a bad decision” isn’t the primary issue. Peter Wildeford pointed out that Will vouched for SBF. Vouching = staking your reputation to guarantee that someone has integrity/can be trusted.
(Many of the things you say in your comment seem reasonable to me as well, but I feel like we can’t just skip over the vouching part even if it was non-public. If he vouched towards Musk he probably did the same in lots of other contexts, or conveyed trust in Sam in less explicit ways, at least.)
Again it’s very unclear what kind of role they had in this sort of thing, but I see EA as at least partially about what kind of outcomes you achieve with your actions and the outcome they achieved is that Sam very much was elevated as EA’s poster child and I think Nick and Will’s actions and reputation was a very much necessary part of that.
Okay, but you started with “promoted Sam so heavily as the poster child of EA”, and now we’re at “took actions that may have generally contributed to Sam being promoted although I can’t point to any in particular”.
I’m being fussy about this because I find it upsetting that people are making specific claims of bad behaviour for people that are not in fact true or justified. There’s enough heat at the moment without that.
I see EA as at least partially about what kind of outcomes you achieve with your actions
I think EA is independent of whether we choose to assess people for their ex ante behaviour or ex post outcomes. I think there are arguments for both, but I don’t think it’s at all obvious that ex post is all or primarily what matters.
I think the core problem for me is it is very unclear what Will and Nick specifically did or didn’t do. There’s a general cloud / “fog of war” here.
So all I can do is gesture to the “Will + Nick --> [BLACK BOX] --> SBF as poster child of EA” chain and make some inferences about BLACK BOX and argue that had Will + Nick not been involved this overall chain likely would not have worked as well as it did.
I think it’s totally fair for you to question BLACK BOX and suggest Will and Nick didn’t do anything. Unfortunately we will just never know.
I think it’s totally fair for you to question BLACK BOX and suggest Will and Nick didn’t do anything. Unfortunately we will just never know.
There are probably ways to gather some evidence, like asking Will and Nick directly, looking for and asking possible witnesses, basically investigating. Personally, I’d like to hear more from them, but I’d guess they have some good reasons to avoid commenting further publicly (e.g. see Will’s shortform).
I’m not exactly sure who made what decisions, and I’m not sure what Nick and Will expressed behind the scenes or what they tried to do, but as far as we can see publicly, Nick and Will definitely went along with and followed through on a strategy that definitely did enable Sam to run the “FTX Future Fund” (note: FTX prominently in the name) in a very prominent way that was very connected to EA, as well as orient a lot of his public branding and public persona to EA in a highly visible way. I think Nick and Will, and their strong reputation within the EA community, were critical in making this happen.
Contrast this to how Dustin relates to Open Philanthropy (note: not named Asana Philanthropy Fund) and you’ll see it was very clear Sam was using EA to burnish his own personal popularity. Unfortunately, no one except me (as far as I know) seemed particularly (publicly) concerned about that.
Will also vouched for SBF to Elon Musk in a bid to invest in Twitter.
Wow “Asana Philanthropy Fund” makes the comparison so sharp.
Sorry, but that really doesn’t seem like “promoting Sam so heavily as the poster child of EA”, and more like “went with the general flow of letting Sam’s projects go ahead”.
I agree the Elon Musk thing was sketchy and arguably a bad decision, but that also wasn’t public and not related to SBF’s EA activities.
To be clear, I also got the vibe that Sam was a poster child, but I don’t think I can point to Nick and Will pushing that, and since those are the people we’re talking about sacking, I think that’s pretty relevant.
Whether it was “sketchy and arguably a bad decision” isn’t the primary issue. Peter Wildeford pointed out that Will vouched for SBF. Vouching = staking your reputation to guarantee that someone has integrity/can be trusted.
(Many of the things you say in your comment seem reasonable to me as well, but I feel like we can’t just skip over the vouching part even if it was non-public. If he vouched towards Musk he probably did the same in lots of other contexts, or conveyed trust in Sam in less explicit ways, at least.)
Again it’s very unclear what kind of role they had in this sort of thing, but I see EA as at least partially about what kind of outcomes you achieve with your actions and the outcome they achieved is that Sam very much was elevated as EA’s poster child and I think Nick and Will’s actions and reputation was a very much necessary part of that.
Okay, but you started with “promoted Sam so heavily as the poster child of EA”, and now we’re at “took actions that may have generally contributed to Sam being promoted although I can’t point to any in particular”.
I’m being fussy about this because I find it upsetting that people are making specific claims of bad behaviour for people that are not in fact true or justified. There’s enough heat at the moment without that.
I think EA is independent of whether we choose to assess people for their ex ante behaviour or ex post outcomes. I think there are arguments for both, but I don’t think it’s at all obvious that ex post is all or primarily what matters.
I think the core problem for me is it is very unclear what Will and Nick specifically did or didn’t do. There’s a general cloud / “fog of war” here.
So all I can do is gesture to the “Will + Nick --> [BLACK BOX] --> SBF as poster child of EA” chain and make some inferences about BLACK BOX and argue that had Will + Nick not been involved this overall chain likely would not have worked as well as it did.
I think it’s totally fair for you to question BLACK BOX and suggest Will and Nick didn’t do anything. Unfortunately we will just never know.
There are probably ways to gather some evidence, like asking Will and Nick directly, looking for and asking possible witnesses, basically investigating. Personally, I’d like to hear more from them, but I’d guess they have some good reasons to avoid commenting further publicly (e.g. see Will’s shortform).