“Better vet risks from funders/leaders, have lower tolerance for bad behavior, and remove people responsible for the crisis from leadership roles.”
I don’t think any such removals have happened, and my sense is tolerance of bad behavior of the type that seems to me most responsible for FTX has gone up (in-particular heavy optimization for optics and large tolerance for divergences between public narratives and what is actually going on behind the scenes).
I’d like to single out this part of your comment for extra discussion. On the Sam Harris podcast, Will MacAskill named leadership turnover as his main example of post-FTX systemic change; I’d love to know why you and Will seem to be saying opposite things here.
I’d also love to hear from more people whether they agree or disagree with Oliver on these two points:
Was “heavy optimization for optics and large tolerance for divergences between public narratives and what is actually going on behind the scenes” one of the EA behaviors that was most responsible for FTX?
So, I think it’s clear that a lot of leadership turnover has happened. However, my sense is that the kind of leadership turnover that has occurred is anti-correlated with what I would consider good. Most importantly, it seems to me that the people in EA leadership that I felt were often the most thoughtful about these issues took a step back from EA, often because EA didn’t live up to their ethical standards, or because they burned out trying to affect change and this recent period has been very stressful (or burned out for other reasons, unrelated to trying to affect change).
Below I’ll make a concrete list of leadership transitions I know have occurred and judge specific individuals, which I want to be clear on, are my personal judgements and I expect lots of people will disagree with me here:
Max Dalton left CEA. My sense is despite my many disagreements with him, he still seemed to me the best CEO that CEA has had historically, and he seemed to have a genuine strong interest in acting in high-integrity ways. My understanding is that the FTX stuff burned him out (as well as some of the Owen stuff, though the FTX stuff seemed more important).
He was replaced by Zack, who seems to think that this WaPo piece is a good way to start tackling FTX-related issues (more of my thoughts on that here). Also, in contrast to leadership claims that funding and ideological diversity is important, he is an ex-Open Philanthropy employee with pretty strong ties to the organization.
My sense is that most people in EA leadership would agree with me that Max stepping down and being replaced by Zack is a bad sign for post-FTX EA Reform (but also, my sense is many would think that Zack will do better on other dimensions that others consider more important).
Becca Kagan left the EV board. Given that she did so explicitly because of concerns that people were not taking FTX seriously enough, this seems like obviously a movement in a bad direction.
Will MacAskill and Nick Beckstead left the EV board. I do think these are reasonable moves given their historical affiliation with FTX, though my sense is this was mostly overdetermined by the legal constraints, basic COI principles making it very difficult for them to act as board members, and the bad optics of keeping them on the board. But this one does seem real.
Claire Zabel left as head of Open Phil’s capacity-building team. Claire seemed to me to also be among the people at Open Phil with the strongest interest in integrity. I have strong disagreements with the actions her team has taken since FTX, but I have trouble seeing this as a positive development.
Holden stepped back as CEO of Open Philanthropy, replaced by Alexander Berger. This also seems to me like a mostly negative development on the dimension of post-FTX reform. I have disagreements with Holden here, but my sense is he has thought much more about honesty and integrity than Alexander has, and Alexander’s takes on Wytham don’t fill me with that much hope.
Owen was relieved of a lot of his duties and banned from a lot of EA stuff. I think the process followed here was kind of reasonable, but my sense is Owen is among EA leadership one of the people most thoughtful about integrity and honesty, so on this specific dimension it seems like a step backwards (though there having been any kind of investigation that was followed up on is a mild positive sign)
Shakeel left CEA as Head of Comms. I don’t think this has much to do with FTX, though I do think Shakeel did really mess up post-FTX communications at CEA and I view this as a mildly good sign.
I think these are all the major leadership changes I can think of right now. There are very likely more I am forgetting. At least the ones I have here seem to me unlikely to help much with making EA into less of the kind of thing that would cause future things like FTX, though my guess is some people disagree with me on this.
Edit: Also seems like Nicole Ross is stepping down from the EV board. This also seems quite sad to me, she seemed like the person left on the EV board with the strongest moral compass on the relevant dimension. I don’t know the two people who are joining (Patrick Gruban and Johnstuart Winchell), so can’t speak to them, but on the surface having someone from EA Germany seems good.
Given that it appears EVF will soon be sent off to the scrapping yards for disassembly, it seems that changes in EVF board composition—for better or worse—may be less salient than they would have been been in 2022 or even much of 2023.
So “a lot of leadership turnover has happened” may not be quite as high-magnitude as had those changes had occurred in years past. Furthermore, some of these changes seem less connected to FTX than others, so it’s not clear to me how much turnover has happened as a fairly direct result of FTX. The most related change was Will & Nick leaving the EVF board, but I strongly suspect there was little practical choice there and so is weak evidence of some sort of internal change in direction.
All that is to say that I am not sure how much the nominal extent of leadership turnover suggests EA is turning over a new leadership leaf or something.
Most importantly, it seems to me that the people in EA leadership that I felt were often the most thoughtful about these issues took a step back from EA, often because EA didn’t live up to their ethical standards, or because they burned out trying to affect change and this recent period has been very stressful
Who on your list matches this description? Maybe Becca if you think she’s thoughtful on these issues? But isn’t that one at most?
Becca, Nicole and Max all stand out as people who I think burned out trying to make things go better around FTX stuff.
Also Claire leaving her position worsened my expectations of how much Open Phil will do things that seem bad. Alexander also seems substantially worse than Holden on this dimension. I think Holden was on the way out anyways, but my sense was Claire found the FTX-adjacent work very stressful and that played a role in her leaving (I don’t thinks she agrees with me on many of these issues, but I nevertheless trusted her decision-making more than others in the space).
I’d like to single out this part of your comment for extra discussion. On the Sam Harris podcast, Will MacAskill named leadership turnover as his main example of post-FTX systemic change; I’d love to know why you and Will seem to be saying opposite things here.
I’d also love to hear from more people whether they agree or disagree with Oliver on these two points:
Was “heavy optimization for optics and large tolerance for divergences between public narratives and what is actually going on behind the scenes” one of the EA behaviors that was most responsible for FTX?
Has this behavior increased in EA post-FTX?
So, I think it’s clear that a lot of leadership turnover has happened. However, my sense is that the kind of leadership turnover that has occurred is anti-correlated with what I would consider good. Most importantly, it seems to me that the people in EA leadership that I felt were often the most thoughtful about these issues took a step back from EA, often because EA didn’t live up to their ethical standards, or because they burned out trying to affect change and this recent period has been very stressful (or burned out for other reasons, unrelated to trying to affect change).
Below I’ll make a concrete list of leadership transitions I know have occurred and judge specific individuals, which I want to be clear on, are my personal judgements and I expect lots of people will disagree with me here:
Max Dalton left CEA. My sense is despite my many disagreements with him, he still seemed to me the best CEO that CEA has had historically, and he seemed to have a genuine strong interest in acting in high-integrity ways. My understanding is that the FTX stuff burned him out (as well as some of the Owen stuff, though the FTX stuff seemed more important).
He was replaced by Zack, who seems to think that this WaPo piece is a good way to start tackling FTX-related issues (more of my thoughts on that here). Also, in contrast to leadership claims that funding and ideological diversity is important, he is an ex-Open Philanthropy employee with pretty strong ties to the organization.
My sense is that most people in EA leadership would agree with me that Max stepping down and being replaced by Zack is a bad sign for post-FTX EA Reform (but also, my sense is many would think that Zack will do better on other dimensions that others consider more important).
Becca Kagan left the EV board. Given that she did so explicitly because of concerns that people were not taking FTX seriously enough, this seems like obviously a movement in a bad direction.
Will MacAskill and Nick Beckstead left the EV board. I do think these are reasonable moves given their historical affiliation with FTX, though my sense is this was mostly overdetermined by the legal constraints, basic COI principles making it very difficult for them to act as board members, and the bad optics of keeping them on the board. But this one does seem real.
Claire Zabel left as head of Open Phil’s capacity-building team. Claire seemed to me to also be among the people at Open Phil with the strongest interest in integrity. I have strong disagreements with the actions her team has taken since FTX, but I have trouble seeing this as a positive development.
Holden stepped back as CEO of Open Philanthropy, replaced by Alexander Berger. This also seems to me like a mostly negative development on the dimension of post-FTX reform. I have disagreements with Holden here, but my sense is he has thought much more about honesty and integrity than Alexander has, and Alexander’s takes on Wytham don’t fill me with that much hope.
Owen was relieved of a lot of his duties and banned from a lot of EA stuff. I think the process followed here was kind of reasonable, but my sense is Owen is among EA leadership one of the people most thoughtful about integrity and honesty, so on this specific dimension it seems like a step backwards (though there having been any kind of investigation that was followed up on is a mild positive sign)
Shakeel left CEA as Head of Comms. I don’t think this has much to do with FTX, though I do think Shakeel did really mess up post-FTX communications at CEA and I view this as a mildly good sign.
I think these are all the major leadership changes I can think of right now. There are very likely more I am forgetting. At least the ones I have here seem to me unlikely to help much with making EA into less of the kind of thing that would cause future things like FTX, though my guess is some people disagree with me on this.
Edit: Also seems like Nicole Ross is stepping down from the EV board. This also seems quite sad to me, she seemed like the person left on the EV board with the strongest moral compass on the relevant dimension. I don’t know the two people who are joining (Patrick Gruban and Johnstuart Winchell), so can’t speak to them, but on the surface having someone from EA Germany seems good.
Given that it appears EVF will soon be sent off to the scrapping yards for disassembly, it seems that changes in EVF board composition—for better or worse—may be less salient than they would have been been in 2022 or even much of 2023.
So “a lot of leadership turnover has happened” may not be quite as high-magnitude as had those changes had occurred in years past. Furthermore, some of these changes seem less connected to FTX than others, so it’s not clear to me how much turnover has happened as a fairly direct result of FTX. The most related change was Will & Nick leaving the EVF board, but I strongly suspect there was little practical choice there and so is weak evidence of some sort of internal change in direction.
All that is to say that I am not sure how much the nominal extent of leadership turnover suggests EA is turning over a new leadership leaf or something.
Who on your list matches this description? Maybe Becca if you think she’s thoughtful on these issues? But isn’t that one at most?
Becca, Nicole and Max all stand out as people who I think burned out trying to make things go better around FTX stuff.
Also Claire leaving her position worsened my expectations of how much Open Phil will do things that seem bad. Alexander also seems substantially worse than Holden on this dimension. I think Holden was on the way out anyways, but my sense was Claire found the FTX-adjacent work very stressful and that played a role in her leaving (I don’t thinks she agrees with me on many of these issues, but I nevertheless trusted her decision-making more than others in the space).