I think the proposal I’ve been floating around in a few scattered comments meets your criteria:
First, we build a trusted major charity donor evaluation organization analogous to GiveWell. They would be responsible for researching questions like:
What sorts of projects does this donor like to fund?
What size checks do they write?
What level of influence do they wish to have over the projects they fund?
What are our best guesses for the ethics around how this money was earned?
How likely is this funding to disappear?
They would approach these questions with the same rigor that GiveWell brings, considering both the outside view of the industry and the inside view of any access the donor makes available, with any omissions duly noted in their report.
Then, if SBF wants to start the FTX Foundation and hire whoever he wants to, he can do it. The GiveWell-analogue would evaluate it on these criteria based on the best available evidence.
Prospective grantees could then look at the report and be well informed about the risks when they apply for and take the funding. If it looks especially risky, as it’s pretty clear FTX would have, they can generate appropriate backup plans or avoid applying for the funding altogether.
In my opinion, no one should have been stopped from taking FTX money, but the fallout would have been much more mitigated if we had put up appropriate warning flags around it ahead of time.
This is probably my favorite proposal I’ve seen so far, thanks!
I’m a little skeptical that warnings from the organization you propose would have been heeded (especially by people who don’t have other sources of funding and so relying on FTX was their only option), but perhaps if the organization had sufficient clout, this would have put pressure on FTX to engage in less risky business practices.
I don’t have much hope that the charity side of things could have influenced FTX to be less risky—from what I can tell, a high tolerance for risk was core to their business practices. I just think it could have given EA folks who aren’t crypto-savvy a lot more sobriety around FTX’s relationship to EA and make them consider the potential downsides of taking FTX funding. It also would have helped in the media/reputation fallout if the donor evaluator I have in mind would have clearly labeled FTX as risky or having withheld information.
Independent of this particular case to mitigate against, I also think such a donor catalog and evaluation system would be a benefit to the community, as a sort of one-stop shop for potential grantees to learn about their options for seeking funding.
I think the proposal I’ve been floating around in a few scattered comments meets your criteria:
First, we build a trusted major charity donor evaluation organization analogous to GiveWell. They would be responsible for researching questions like: What sorts of projects does this donor like to fund? What size checks do they write? What level of influence do they wish to have over the projects they fund? What are our best guesses for the ethics around how this money was earned? How likely is this funding to disappear?
They would approach these questions with the same rigor that GiveWell brings, considering both the outside view of the industry and the inside view of any access the donor makes available, with any omissions duly noted in their report.
Then, if SBF wants to start the FTX Foundation and hire whoever he wants to, he can do it. The GiveWell-analogue would evaluate it on these criteria based on the best available evidence.
Prospective grantees could then look at the report and be well informed about the risks when they apply for and take the funding. If it looks especially risky, as it’s pretty clear FTX would have, they can generate appropriate backup plans or avoid applying for the funding altogether.
In my opinion, no one should have been stopped from taking FTX money, but the fallout would have been much more mitigated if we had put up appropriate warning flags around it ahead of time.
This is probably my favorite proposal I’ve seen so far, thanks!
I’m a little skeptical that warnings from the organization you propose would have been heeded (especially by people who don’t have other sources of funding and so relying on FTX was their only option), but perhaps if the organization had sufficient clout, this would have put pressure on FTX to engage in less risky business practices.
I don’t have much hope that the charity side of things could have influenced FTX to be less risky—from what I can tell, a high tolerance for risk was core to their business practices. I just think it could have given EA folks who aren’t crypto-savvy a lot more sobriety around FTX’s relationship to EA and make them consider the potential downsides of taking FTX funding. It also would have helped in the media/reputation fallout if the donor evaluator I have in mind would have clearly labeled FTX as risky or having withheld information.
Independent of this particular case to mitigate against, I also think such a donor catalog and evaluation system would be a benefit to the community, as a sort of one-stop shop for potential grantees to learn about their options for seeking funding.