I don’t think it’s witchhunty at all. The fact is we really have very little knowledge about how Will and Nick are involved with FTX. I really don’t think they did any fraud or condoned any fraud, and I do genuinely feel bad for them, and I want to hope for the best when it comes to their character. I’m pretty substantially unsure if Will/Nick/others made any ex ante mistakes, but they definitely made severe ex post mistakes and lost a lot of trust in the community as a result.
I think this means three things:
1.) I think Nathan is right about the prior. If we’re unsure bout whether they made severe ex ante mistakes, we should remove them. I’d only keep them if I was sure they did not make severe ex ante mistakes. I think this applies more forcefully the more severe the mistake was and the situation with FTX makes me suspect that any mistakes could’ve been about as severe as you would get.
2.) I think in order to be on EVF’s board it’s a mandatory job requirement you to maintain the trust of the community and removing people over this makes sense.
3.) I think a traditional/”normie” board would’ve 100% removed Will and Nick back in November. Though I don’t think that we should always do what a traditional board would do, it strikes me that EA in general is lacking in good governance best practice and would benefit from going in the traditional direction at least on some axes when it comes to better governance (though which axes and how much I’m still unsure).
Obviously speaking very much only for myself here purely personally, definitely not speaking on behalf of Rethink Priorities in any means.
A “normie” board would have at least put Will and Nick on a leave of absence. Putting people on a leave of absence when something happens that significantly affects the community’s trust and it is not possible to presently address that concern due to legal/other reasons is standard operating procedure for most larger organizations. It does not imply misconduct or maladministration by those who are placed on leave.
Or maybe not. Part of the problem is that the board was too small already, and I assume it was poorly positioned to sideline 2 of the 5 members while dealing with the reputational and other upheavels caused by FTX crisis, the (now-realized) possibility of Charity Commission involvement, and the management of massive clawback litigation.
It appears Will and Nick have recused themselves from FTX decision-making, so they’re probably de facto on a leave of absence anyway. If true, I furthermore think that not making this leave of absence official I think is just getting all the costs of declaring a leave of absence without any of the benefits.
Saying they have been recused since November implies that they weren’t recused from decision-making regarding FTX prior to November. If this is true (and I’m hesitant because I don’t know all the facts), they were likely not following proper process prior to November.
I cannot comment to how FTX issues were handled prior to November. It’s entirely possible that Will and Nick recused themselves too. I’m also not sure what kind of FTX concerns were discussed.
Recusing themselves from FTX decision-making is significantly weaker than being on leave of absence. The latter implies that they are still part of decision-making for non-FTX related issues which I assume exist. (And technically recusing from decision-making also doesn’t mean recusing from discussion, so they could have still been involved in discussions regarding FTX, though I’d assume that they also recused themselves from that). I think it’s a significant difference.
Isn’t the whole point of recusing people so that you have something you can do when you don’t want to remove them? I think I’m just very differently calibrated from everyone else, but my reaction to hearing that they were recused was “seems okay, but perhaps driven by public image more than anything else”, so actually getting rid of them seems even more unnecessary to me.
I think Nathan is right about the prior. If we’re unsure bout whether they made severe ex ante mistakes, we should remove them.
Same question as to Nathan: why? Mostly because of optics?
I think in order to be on EVF’s board it’s a mandatory job requirement you to maintain the trust of the community and removing people over this makes sense.
I think you can flip this around. “Hey, we don’t have any concrete evidence that you did anything wrong, but there’s just a general sentiment going around that you’re tainted now, so we’re getting rid of you.” That sits badly with me.
Though I don’t think that we should always do what a traditional board would do, it strikes me that EA in general is lacking in good governance best practice and would benefit from going in the traditional direction at least on some axes
I think I agree with this, where there is a good argument for doing it the traditional way. I think just saying “well, traditional folks do it so maybe it’s good” is not an argument I want to endorse in generality. And I don’t see the actual argument here.
To be clear, I do think that them recusing themselves was sensible, I’m unconvinced that doing more is justified except for optics.
Optics is one reason and it is a good reason. Optics matters and I don’t think we should be so dismissive towards optics concerns.
Another related reason I mentioned is the trust element—regardless of whether it sits badly, it still is a fact of the matter that community trust is needed to do this job, and while Will + Nick are presumably good people they are lacking in the trust department at the moment, which suggests they should find a different job. I imagine there’s a lot of very useful things for them to do in the EA movement and I’m not suggesting by any means casting them out of EA entirely. Just really doubtful they are the right people for the EVF board at this moment. This kind of reasoning happens all the time in all sorts of boards.
However, the element I worry much more about is that of bad decision making and basic risk management. Essentially if there’s someone and you think there’s a 20% chance they just make catastrophically bad decisions, I don’t know why you’d want them involved in the sorts of things they make catastrophically bad decisions about, even if there’s an 80% chance that they’re fine.
Although it’s difficult to know, especially without inside knowledge, I also suspect that Nick and Will leaving the board (plus bringing in some people with more nonprofit administration experience in their stead) would reduce the risk of more intrusive and distracting involvement by the Charity Commission over the medium run. Appeasement of one’s regulator is a valid reason for asking a board member to resign and is not “optics.”
Essentially if there’s someone and you think there’s a 20% chance they just make catastrophically bad decisions, I don’t know why you’d want them involved in the sorts of things they make catastrophically bad decisions about, even if there’s an 80% chance that they’re fine.
I’m struggling to articulate what I disagree with here. This is one of those things where in a sense, yes, it’s totally reasonable to use this kind of statistical reasoning to make inferences about people (“many people who are in a situation like that did make some bad judgements, so I’m going to increase my expectation that you made bad judgements despite not having direct evidence”), but I feel like we often have norms against doing this partly because it can be very unfair. We can have the situation where something bad happens to or around you, and then people add insult to injury by treating you as if it might have been your fault.
I don’t quite know where I’m going here, but I think there’s something there.
I think the crux is that I just don’t think the question of who should be on the EVF board is a matter of fairness. I think it’s a matter of what maximizes the likelihood that EVF achieves its objectives in the light of various risk.
To be clear I still think Will and Nick are great people and I want them to be a part of the EA community, potentially even still in roles of great power and influence. Casting them out of EA entirely on statistical reasoning would be unfair and I think that’s a matter of where the fairness matters. I just don’t think EVF Board is the right place for them right now.
The “traditional way” of corporate governance is in significant part based on lessons learned from past mistakes, so I think at least a weak presumption in favor of following that approach is warranted. Otherwise, the only way to learn those lessons will be to make the same painful mistakes. If we only follow the traditional approach when we would independently reach that outcome via reasoning, we’re not assigning any weight to that body of experience.
2022 definitely seemed to be a big year for EA making some painful mistakes in order to learn why some parts of the traditional scheme are the way they are. In more ways than just SBF/FTX unfortunately. I think 2023 is the year we pay the price for that, but hopefully we will learn and be stronger.
I don’t think it’s witchhunty at all. The fact is we really have very little knowledge about how Will and Nick are involved with FTX. I really don’t think they did any fraud or condoned any fraud, and I do genuinely feel bad for them, and I want to hope for the best when it comes to their character. I’m pretty substantially unsure if Will/Nick/others made any ex ante mistakes, but they definitely made severe ex post mistakes and lost a lot of trust in the community as a result.
I think this means three things:
1.) I think Nathan is right about the prior. If we’re unsure bout whether they made severe ex ante mistakes, we should remove them. I’d only keep them if I was sure they did not make severe ex ante mistakes. I think this applies more forcefully the more severe the mistake was and the situation with FTX makes me suspect that any mistakes could’ve been about as severe as you would get.
2.) I think in order to be on EVF’s board it’s a mandatory job requirement you to maintain the trust of the community and removing people over this makes sense.
3.) I think a traditional/”normie” board would’ve 100% removed Will and Nick back in November. Though I don’t think that we should always do what a traditional board would do, it strikes me that EA in general is lacking in good governance best practice and would benefit from going in the traditional direction at least on some axes when it comes to better governance (though which axes and how much I’m still unsure).
Obviously speaking very much only for myself here purely personally, definitely not speaking on behalf of Rethink Priorities in any means.
A “normie” board would have at least put Will and Nick on a leave of absence. Putting people on a leave of absence when something happens that significantly affects the community’s trust and it is not possible to presently address that concern due to legal/other reasons is standard operating procedure for most larger organizations. It does not imply misconduct or maladministration by those who are placed on leave.
Or maybe not. Part of the problem is that the board was too small already, and I assume it was poorly positioned to sideline 2 of the 5 members while dealing with the reputational and other upheavels caused by FTX crisis, the (now-realized) possibility of Charity Commission involvement, and the management of massive clawback litigation.
It appears Will and Nick have recused themselves from FTX decision-making, so they’re probably de facto on a leave of absence anyway. If true, I furthermore think that not making this leave of absence official I think is just getting all the costs of declaring a leave of absence without any of the benefits.
Saying they have been recused since November implies that they weren’t recused from decision-making regarding FTX prior to November. If this is true (and I’m hesitant because I don’t know all the facts), they were likely not following proper process prior to November.
I cannot comment to how FTX issues were handled prior to November. It’s entirely possible that Will and Nick recused themselves too. I’m also not sure what kind of FTX concerns were discussed.
Recusing themselves from FTX decision-making is significantly weaker than being on leave of absence. The latter implies that they are still part of decision-making for non-FTX related issues which I assume exist. (And technically recusing from decision-making also doesn’t mean recusing from discussion, so they could have still been involved in discussions regarding FTX, though I’d assume that they also recused themselves from that). I think it’s a significant difference.
Isn’t the whole point of recusing people so that you have something you can do when you don’t want to remove them? I think I’m just very differently calibrated from everyone else, but my reaction to hearing that they were recused was “seems okay, but perhaps driven by public image more than anything else”, so actually getting rid of them seems even more unnecessary to me.
They obviously have incredibly clear and blatant conflicts of interest? Not sure how you could possibly think it is purely a public image concern.
Another option besides recusal and removing someone is a leave of absence.
Same question as to Nathan: why? Mostly because of optics?
I think you can flip this around. “Hey, we don’t have any concrete evidence that you did anything wrong, but there’s just a general sentiment going around that you’re tainted now, so we’re getting rid of you.” That sits badly with me.
I think I agree with this, where there is a good argument for doing it the traditional way. I think just saying “well, traditional folks do it so maybe it’s good” is not an argument I want to endorse in generality. And I don’t see the actual argument here.
To be clear, I do think that them recusing themselves was sensible, I’m unconvinced that doing more is justified except for optics.
Optics is one reason and it is a good reason. Optics matters and I don’t think we should be so dismissive towards optics concerns.
Another related reason I mentioned is the trust element—regardless of whether it sits badly, it still is a fact of the matter that community trust is needed to do this job, and while Will + Nick are presumably good people they are lacking in the trust department at the moment, which suggests they should find a different job. I imagine there’s a lot of very useful things for them to do in the EA movement and I’m not suggesting by any means casting them out of EA entirely. Just really doubtful they are the right people for the EVF board at this moment. This kind of reasoning happens all the time in all sorts of boards.
However, the element I worry much more about is that of bad decision making and basic risk management. Essentially if there’s someone and you think there’s a 20% chance they just make catastrophically bad decisions, I don’t know why you’d want them involved in the sorts of things they make catastrophically bad decisions about, even if there’s an 80% chance that they’re fine.
Although it’s difficult to know, especially without inside knowledge, I also suspect that Nick and Will leaving the board (plus bringing in some people with more nonprofit administration experience in their stead) would reduce the risk of more intrusive and distracting involvement by the Charity Commission over the medium run. Appeasement of one’s regulator is a valid reason for asking a board member to resign and is not “optics.”
I’m struggling to articulate what I disagree with here. This is one of those things where in a sense, yes, it’s totally reasonable to use this kind of statistical reasoning to make inferences about people (“many people who are in a situation like that did make some bad judgements, so I’m going to increase my expectation that you made bad judgements despite not having direct evidence”), but I feel like we often have norms against doing this partly because it can be very unfair. We can have the situation where something bad happens to or around you, and then people add insult to injury by treating you as if it might have been your fault.
I don’t quite know where I’m going here, but I think there’s something there.
I think the crux is that I just don’t think the question of who should be on the EVF board is a matter of fairness. I think it’s a matter of what maximizes the likelihood that EVF achieves its objectives in the light of various risk.
To be clear I still think Will and Nick are great people and I want them to be a part of the EA community, potentially even still in roles of great power and influence. Casting them out of EA entirely on statistical reasoning would be unfair and I think that’s a matter of where the fairness matters. I just don’t think EVF Board is the right place for them right now.
The “traditional way” of corporate governance is in significant part based on lessons learned from past mistakes, so I think at least a weak presumption in favor of following that approach is warranted. Otherwise, the only way to learn those lessons will be to make the same painful mistakes. If we only follow the traditional approach when we would independently reach that outcome via reasoning, we’re not assigning any weight to that body of experience.
2022 definitely seemed to be a big year for EA making some painful mistakes in order to learn why some parts of the traditional scheme are the way they are. In more ways than just SBF/FTX unfortunately. I think 2023 is the year we pay the price for that, but hopefully we will learn and be stronger.