It really must feel awful to report serious misconduct and have it not be taken seriously. I’ve had a similar experience and it crushed me mentally.
I’ve been thinking about this situation a lot. I don’t know many details, but I’m trying to sort through what I think EA leadership should have done differently.
My main thought is, maybe in light of these concerns, they should have kept taking his money, but not tied themselves to him as much. But I don’t know many details about how they tied themselves to him. Its just, handling misconduct cases gets complicated when the misconduct is against one of the 100 richest people in the world. And while it’s clear Sam treated people poorly, broke many important rules and lied frequently, it was not clear he was stealing money from customers. And so it just leaves me confused. But thank God I am not in charge of handling these sorts of things.
I know it’s also not your responsibility to know what to do in situations like this, but I’d be curious to hear what you wished EA leadership/infrastructure had done differently. I think that might help give shape to my thoughts around this situation.
I don’t known if communicating super clearly here. So want to clarify. This is not meant as a critical comment at all! I hope it doesn’t read as downplaying your experience, because I do feel super alarmed about everything and get the sense EA fucked up big here. I feel fully on support of you here, but I’m worried my confusion makes that harder to read.
Retracting because on reflection I’m like, no one knew he was stealing funds, but I think leadership knew enough of the ingredients to not be surprised by this. It’s not just Sam treating employees poorly, but leadership heard that he would lie to people (including investors), mix funds, play fast and loose with the rules. They may not have known the disastrous ways these would combine. Even so, it seems super bad and while I’m still confused as to how the ideal way to handle it would be. It does seem clear to me it was egriously mishandled.
One important thing to note is that when we first warned everyone, he was not yet in the richest 100 people in the world. If they had taken our warnings seriously at the start, he may never have become that rich in the first place.
Agree. And also worth noting it seems like he may have never actually been that rich, but just, you know, lied and did fraud.
The general thing I’m hearing is, with a lot of people who do misconduct, you/CEA will hear about this misconduct relatively early on, and they should take action before things get too large to correct. That, early & decisive action is important. Leadership should be taking a lot more initiative in responding to misconduct.
This tracks with my experience too. I’ve reported professional misconduct, have it not be taken seriously, and have that person continue to gain power. The whole experience was maddening. So, yeah, +1 to early intervention following credible misconduct reports.
Lol not you. I deleted most detail I included in that comment because I feel like it’s distracting from SBF discussion (like, this convo should not be used as a soapbox for me), the case has recently been reopen (which means probably best if I don’t talk about it and also there might be a good outcome). And I also just worry about pissing people off.
It’s also like, what are people supposed to do with an anonymous comment with a very vague allegation.
Well I’d still like to know. My general stance is that information about misdeeds should more often be public. I wish that I’d known what many knew about SBF.
Hm maybe, I’m not sure. I like to have a professional atmosphere, and public sharing of misdeeds can lead to a culture of like gossip. But, I think it is appropriate to speak publicly about it if the situation was mishandled (in my case, unclear as it’s been reopened) or if the person should be blacklisted (I do not think this is the case here).
I think the main problem being faced again and again is that internal reporting lacks teeth.
I think public reporting is an inadequate alternative. It’s a big demand to ask people to become public whistleblowers, especially since most things worth reporting aren’t always black and white. It’s hard to publicly speak out about things if you’re not certain about them (eg because of self-doubt, wondering if it’s even worth bothering, creating a reputation for yourself, etc).
Additionally, the subsequent discourse seems to put additional burden on those speaking out. If I spoke up about something just to see a bunch of people doubt what I’ve said is true (or, like in previous cases, have to engage with the wrongdoer and proofread their account of events) I’d probably regret my choice.
I think that the wiki could solve this. Having public records that someone hard nosed (like me) could write on others behalf.
I know that my messing with prediction markets around this hasn’t always gone well (sorry) but I think there is something good in that space too. I think Sam’s “chance of fraud” would have been higher than anyone else’s.
I don’t think gossip ought to be that public or legible.
Firstly, I don’t think it would work for achieving your goals; I would still hesitate about having my opinions uploaded without feeling very confident in them (rumours are powerful weapons and I wouldn’t want to start one if I was uncertain).
Secondly, I don’t think it’s worth the costs of destroying trust. A whole bunch more people will distance themselves from EA if they know their public reputation is on the line with every interaction. (I also agree with Lawrence on the Slack leaks, FWIW).
I see why you might want public info (akin to scandal markets) when people are more high-profile, but I don’t think Sam Bankman-Fried would have passed that bar in 2018.
It really must feel awful to report serious misconduct and have it not be taken seriously. I’ve had a similar experience and it crushed me mentally.
I’ve been thinking about this situation a lot. I don’t know many details, but I’m trying to sort through what I think EA leadership should have done differently.
My main thought is, maybe in light of these concerns, they should have kept taking his money, but not tied themselves to him as much. But I don’t know many details about how they tied themselves to him. Its just, handling misconduct cases gets complicated when the misconduct is against one of the 100 richest people in the world. And while it’s clear Sam treated people poorly, broke many important rules and lied frequently, it was not clear he was stealing money from customers. And so it just leaves me confused. But thank God I am not in charge of handling these sorts of things.
I know it’s also not your responsibility to know what to do in situations like this, but I’d be curious to hear what you wished EA leadership/infrastructure had done differently. I think that might help give shape to my thoughts around this situation.
I don’t known if communicating super clearly here. So want to clarify. This is not meant as a critical comment at all! I hope it doesn’t read as downplaying your experience, because I do feel super alarmed about everything and get the sense EA fucked up big here. I feel fully on support of you here, but I’m worried my confusion makes that harder to read.
Retracting because on reflection I’m like, no one knew he was stealing funds, but I think leadership knew enough of the ingredients to not be surprised by this. It’s not just Sam treating employees poorly, but leadership heard that he would lie to people (including investors), mix funds, play fast and loose with the rules. They may not have known the disastrous ways these would combine. Even so, it seems super bad and while I’m still confused as to how the ideal way to handle it would be. It does seem clear to me it was egriously mishandled.
One important thing to note is that when we first warned everyone, he was not yet in the richest 100 people in the world. If they had taken our warnings seriously at the start, he may never have become that rich in the first place.
Agree. And also worth noting it seems like he may have never actually been that rich, but just, you know, lied and did fraud.
The general thing I’m hearing is, with a lot of people who do misconduct, you/CEA will hear about this misconduct relatively early on, and they should take action before things get too large to correct. That, early & decisive action is important. Leadership should be taking a lot more initiative in responding to misconduct.
This tracks with my experience too. I’ve reported professional misconduct, have it not be taken seriously, and have that person continue to gain power. The whole experience was maddening. So, yeah, +1 to early intervention following credible misconduct reports.
Feel free to DM me, I’ve complained before, I’ll complain again.
Unless somehow it is me, in which case get someone to make a prediction market and bet it up using a newly created google account.
Lol not you. I deleted most detail I included in that comment because I feel like it’s distracting from SBF discussion (like, this convo should not be used as a soapbox for me), the case has recently been reopen (which means probably best if I don’t talk about it and also there might be a good outcome). And I also just worry about pissing people off.
It’s also like, what are people supposed to do with an anonymous comment with a very vague allegation.
Well I’d still like to know. My general stance is that information about misdeeds should more often be public. I wish that I’d known what many knew about SBF.
Hm maybe, I’m not sure. I like to have a professional atmosphere, and public sharing of misdeeds can lead to a culture of like gossip. But, I think it is appropriate to speak publicly about it if the situation was mishandled (in my case, unclear as it’s been reopened) or if the person should be blacklisted (I do not think this is the case here).
Again, I think I’d like more public sharing on professional misdeeds, on the margin. Many EA orgs have mistakes pages for this reason and that’s good.
I think the main problem being faced again and again is that internal reporting lacks teeth.
I think public reporting is an inadequate alternative. It’s a big demand to ask people to become public whistleblowers, especially since most things worth reporting aren’t always black and white. It’s hard to publicly speak out about things if you’re not certain about them (eg because of self-doubt, wondering if it’s even worth bothering, creating a reputation for yourself, etc).
Additionally, the subsequent discourse seems to put additional burden on those speaking out. If I spoke up about something just to see a bunch of people doubt what I’ve said is true (or, like in previous cases, have to engage with the wrongdoer and proofread their account of events) I’d probably regret my choice.
I think that the wiki could solve this. Having public records that someone hard nosed (like me) could write on others behalf.
I know that my messing with prediction markets around this hasn’t always gone well (sorry) but I think there is something good in that space too. I think Sam’s “chance of fraud” would have been higher than anyone else’s.
I don’t think gossip ought to be that public or legible.
Firstly, I don’t think it would work for achieving your goals; I would still hesitate about having my opinions uploaded without feeling very confident in them (rumours are powerful weapons and I wouldn’t want to start one if I was uncertain).
Secondly, I don’t think it’s worth the costs of destroying trust. A whole bunch more people will distance themselves from EA if they know their public reputation is on the line with every interaction. (I also agree with Lawrence on the Slack leaks, FWIW).
I see why you might want public info (akin to scandal markets) when people are more high-profile, but I don’t think Sam Bankman-Fried would have passed that bar in 2018.
I disagree. I upload 60% opinions all the time. I would about gossip if I thought I could control it.
I think we could build systems to handle this. I think there is something whistleblower marketty
I think he would have as FTX got going. Also he might in 2018.
Fair enough! It could be useful, so I’d be happy to be wrong here.