Austin Chen (co founder of Manifold) shared some thoughts on the EA community during a recent interview with a former-EA [see transcript here]
Austin Chen: Whether the, like SBF was committing fraud or not, or something like that, or at is how I thought of at the time and still think of it now. And to unpack that a bit more, I thought like from a like decision theory standpoint, how should the EA move into like itself, try and learn from something like this or like plan on moving forward. And my assessment at the time was that like, probably in response to this, people would be a lot more scared, a lot more like the, weak Doge, image, there’s like the Buff Shiba, and like the Shiba, and I think the FTX glory days were like the strong, we’re gonna do everything we’re gonna save the world. And then now I think, at the time, and it also now, like the way EA has drifted this like more towards the, oh, we’re gonna not do a pitch a pr, we’re not going to try and make waves. We’re gonna protect our like reputation. I view that to be at the time and still now like a huge error.
[00:26:01] Austin Chen: and then another thing that was just like interesting decision theory thing is I think if you abandon people who have, what I viewed as like earnestly try to support you and your movement. if you just turn tail on them, be like, oh yeah, no, actually SBF he was not acting according to our principles and we do not endorse this and we like give up on all of the stuff that, he did.
[00:26:25] Austin Chen: Then when some future billionaire is looking at your movement, what will they think? it’s like a, and maybe that’s the most like winning ish, like mindset to be like, oh, you’re trying to engage with this not just on the merits right here, but like how this will affect like future game theoretic decisions on who works with you.
I think it is good to deter unscrupulous ultra high-net-worth individuals from engaging with EA. I think it was good that various ‘EA thought leaders’ came out as they did and said something along the lines of “we do not endorse this. Don’t commit fraud.”
I’m not entirely sure what Chen thinks the alternative could/should have been. Defend SBF’s motives? Say nothing? Either of those approaches seem like the kind of optics-maxing he critiques as being a ‘huge error’ (only instead of aiming to ‘broadly protect reputation’ it’s ‘protect reputation in eyes of billionaires’).
It’s worth pointing out that Chen has a slightly more sympathetic view of Sam than I do:
[00:27:08] Austin Chen: If I feel like in like cases when things go badly, they will just like not stand by me.
[00:27:14] Elizabeth: things didn’t just go badly. He did them badly and hurt a lot of people. which was not known at the time. I think
[00:27:23] Austin Chen: I don’t know, still debatable, . I don’t know how much we should go into the object level here, but everyone made their money back be, yes, some things broke well for that to be able to happen, but like all the, people got 120% of, the value of the crypto holdings at the time, which, is not,
Austin Chen (co founder of Manifold) shared some thoughts on the EA community during a recent interview with a former-EA [see transcript here]
I think it is good to deter unscrupulous ultra high-net-worth individuals from engaging with EA. I think it was good that various ‘EA thought leaders’ came out as they did and said something along the lines of “we do not endorse this. Don’t commit fraud.”
I’m not entirely sure what Chen thinks the alternative could/should have been. Defend SBF’s motives? Say nothing? Either of those approaches seem like the kind of optics-maxing he critiques as being a ‘huge error’ (only instead of aiming to ‘broadly protect reputation’ it’s ‘protect reputation in eyes of billionaires’).
It’s worth pointing out that Chen has a slightly more sympathetic view of Sam than I do:
Seems like he’s… advocating for corruption and “loyalty” (even in cases of major financial crimes) and machismo, above ethics?
Tagging @Austin since his comments are the main focus of this quick take