Update Apr. 15: I talked to a CEA employee and got some more context on why CEA hasn’t done an SBF investigation and postmortem. In addition to the ‘this might be really difficult and it might not be very useful’ concern, they mentioned that the Charity Commission investigation into EV UK is still ongoing a year and a half later. (Google suggests that statutory inquiries by the Charity Commission take an average of 1.2 years to complete, so the super long wait here is sadly normal.)
Although the Commission has said “there is no indication of wrongdoing by the trustees at this time”, and the risk of anything crazy happening is lower now than it was a year and a half ago, I gather that it’s still at least possible that the Commission could take some drastic action like “we think EV did bad stuff, so we’re going to take over the legal entity that includes the UK components of CEA, 80K, GWWC, GovAI, etc.”, which may make it harder for CEA to usefully hold the steering wheel on an SBF investigation at this stage.
Example scenario: CEA tries to write up some lessons learned from the SBF thing, with an EA audience in mind; EAs tend to have unusually high standards, and a CEA staffer writes a comment that assumes this context, without running the comment by lawyers because it seemed innocent enough; because of those high standards, the Charity Commission misreads the CEA employee as implying a way worse thing happened than is actually the case.
This particular scenario may not be a big risk, but the sum of the risk of all possible scenarios like that (including scenarios that might not currently be on their radar) seems non-negligible to the CEA person I spoke to, even though they don’t think there’s any info out there that should rationally cause the Charity Commission to do anything wild here. And trying to do serious public reflection or soul-searching while also carefully nitpicking every sentence for possible ways the Charity Commission could misinterpret something, doesn’t seem like an optimal set-up for deep, authentic, and productive soul-searching.
The CEA employee said that they thought this is one reason (but not the only reason) EV is unlikely to run a postmortem of this kind.
My initial thoughts on all this: This is very useful info! I had no idea the Charity Commission investigation was still ongoing, and if there are significant worries about that, that does indeed help make CEA and EV’s actions over the last year feel a lot less weird-and-mysterious to me.
I’m not sure I agree with CEA or EV’s choices here, but I no longer feel like there’s a mystery to be explained here; this seems like a place where reasonable people can easily disagree about what the right strategy is. I don’t expect the Charity Commission to in fact take over those organizations, since as far as I know there’s no reason to do that, but I can see how this would make it harder for CEA to do a soul-searching postmortem.
I do suspect that EV and/or CEA may be underestimating the costs of silence here. I could imagine a frog-boiling problem arising here, where it made sense to delay a postmortem for a few months based on a relatively small risk of disaster (and a hope that the Charity Commission investigation in this case might turn out to be brief), but it may not make sense to continue to delay in this situation for years on end. Both options are risky; I suspect the risks of inaction and silence may be getting systematically under-weighted here. (But it’s hard to be confident when I don’t know the specifics of how these decisions are being made.)
I ran the above by Oliver Habryka, who said:
“I talked to a CEA employee and got some more context on why CEA hasn’t done an SBF investigation and postmortem.”
Seems like it wouldn’t be too hard for them to just advocate for someone else doing it?
Or to just have whoever is leading the investigation leave the organization.
In general it seems to me that an investigation is probably best done in a relatively independent vehicle anyways, for many reasons.
“My thoughts on all this: This is very useful info! I had no idea the Charity Commission investigation was still ongoing, and that does indeed help make CEA and EV’s actions over the last year feel a lot less weird-and-mysterious to me.”
Agree that this is an important component (and a major component for my models).
I have some information suggesting that maybe Oliver and/or the CEA employee’s account is wrong, or missing part of the story?? But I’m confused about the details, so I’ll look into things more and post an update here if I learn more.
The pendency of the CC statutory inquiry would explain hesitancy on the part of EVF UK or its projects to conduct or cooperate with an “EA” inquiry. A third-party inquiry is unlikely to be protected by any sort of privilege, and the CC may have means to require or persuade EVF UK to turn over anything it produced in connection with a third-party “EA” inquiry. However, it doesn’t seem that this should be an impediment to proceeding with other parts of an “EA inquiry,” especially to the extent this would be done outside the UK.
However, in the abstract—if any charity’s rationale for not being at least moderately open and transparent with relevant constituencies and the public is “we are afraid the CC will shut us down,” that is a charity most people would run away from fast, and for good reason. If the choice is between having a less-than “soul-searching postmortem” or none at all, I’ll take the former. Also, I strongly suspect everything EVF has said about the whole FTX situation has been vetted by lawyers, so the idea that someone is going to write an “official” postmortem without legal vetting is doubtful. Finally, I worry the can is going to continue being kicked down the road until EVF is far into the process of being dismantled, at which time the rationale may evolve into “we’re disbanding anyway, what’s the point?”
if any charity’s rationale for not being at least moderately open and transparent with relevant constituencies and the public is “we are afraid the CC will shut us down,” that is a charity most people would run away from fast, and for good reason
I do think a subtext of the reported discussion above is that the CC is not considered to be a necessarily trustworthy or fair arbiter here. “If we do this investigation then the CC may see things and take them the wrong way” means you don’t trust the CC to take them the right way. Now, I have no idea whether that is justified in this case, but it’s pretty consistent with my impression of government bureaucracies in general.
So it perhaps comes down to whether you previously considered the charity or the CC more trustworthy. In this case I think I trust EVF more.
I trust EV more than the charity commission about many things, but whether EV behaved badly over SBF is definitely not one of them. One judgment here is incredibly liable to distortion through self-interest and ego preservation, and it’s not the charity commission’s. (That’s not a prediction that the charity commission will in fact harshly criticize EV. I wouldn’t be surprised either way on that.)
When I looked at past CC actions, I didn’t get the impression that they were in the habit of blowing things out of proportion. But of course I didn’t have the full facts of each investigation.
One reason I don’t put much stock in the CC may not “necessarily [be a] trustworthy or fair arbiter” possibility is that it has to act with reasoning transparency because it is accountable to a public process. Its actions with substance (as opposed to issuing warnings) are reviewable in the UK courts, in proceedings where the charity—a party with the right knowledge and incentives—can call them out on dubious findings. The CC may not fear litigation in the same sense that a private entity might, but an agency’s budget/resources don’t generally go up because it is sued and agencies tend not to seek to create extra work for themselves for the thrill of it.
Moreover, the rationale of non-disclosure due to CC concerns operates at the margin. There are particular things we shouldn’t disclose in public because the CC might badly misinterpret those statements is one thing. There is nothing else useful we can disclose because all of those statements pose an unacceptable risk of the CC badly misinterpreting any further detail is another.
I have already personally decided to begin pursuing myself inquiries and research that would constitute at least some aspects of the sort of investigation in question. Much of what I generally have in mind, and in particular what I’d be most capable of doing myself, would be unrelated to EVF UK. If it’d make it easier, I’m amenable to perhaps avoiding probing in ways that intersect with EVF UK until the CC inquiry has ended. (This probably wouldn’t include EVF USA). That EVF is in the process of disbanding, which would complicate any part of such an investigation, as well as the fact another major EA organization is likely in the process of launching an earning to give incubator/training organization, are two reasons I will be expediting this project.
Update Apr. 15: I talked to a CEA employee and got some more context on why CEA hasn’t done an SBF investigation and postmortem. In addition to the ‘this might be really difficult and it might not be very useful’ concern, they mentioned that the Charity Commission investigation into EV UK is still ongoing a year and a half later. (Google suggests that statutory inquiries by the Charity Commission take an average of 1.2 years to complete, so the super long wait here is sadly normal.)
Although the Commission has said “there is no indication of wrongdoing by the trustees at this time”, and the risk of anything crazy happening is lower now than it was a year and a half ago, I gather that it’s still at least possible that the Commission could take some drastic action like “we think EV did bad stuff, so we’re going to take over the legal entity that includes the UK components of CEA, 80K, GWWC, GovAI, etc.”, which may make it harder for CEA to usefully hold the steering wheel on an SBF investigation at this stage.
Example scenario: CEA tries to write up some lessons learned from the SBF thing, with an EA audience in mind; EAs tend to have unusually high standards, and a CEA staffer writes a comment that assumes this context, without running the comment by lawyers because it seemed innocent enough; because of those high standards, the Charity Commission misreads the CEA employee as implying a way worse thing happened than is actually the case.
This particular scenario may not be a big risk, but the sum of the risk of all possible scenarios like that (including scenarios that might not currently be on their radar) seems non-negligible to the CEA person I spoke to, even though they don’t think there’s any info out there that should rationally cause the Charity Commission to do anything wild here. And trying to do serious public reflection or soul-searching while also carefully nitpicking every sentence for possible ways the Charity Commission could misinterpret something, doesn’t seem like an optimal set-up for deep, authentic, and productive soul-searching.
The CEA employee said that they thought this is one reason (but not the only reason) EV is unlikely to run a postmortem of this kind.
My initial thoughts on all this: This is very useful info! I had no idea the Charity Commission investigation was still ongoing, and if there are significant worries about that, that does indeed help make CEA and EV’s actions over the last year feel a lot less weird-and-mysterious to me.
I’m not sure I agree with CEA or EV’s choices here, but I no longer feel like there’s a mystery to be explained here; this seems like a place where reasonable people can easily disagree about what the right strategy is. I don’t expect the Charity Commission to in fact take over those organizations, since as far as I know there’s no reason to do that, but I can see how this would make it harder for CEA to do a soul-searching postmortem.
I do suspect that EV and/or CEA may be underestimating the costs of silence here. I could imagine a frog-boiling problem arising here, where it made sense to delay a postmortem for a few months based on a relatively small risk of disaster (and a hope that the Charity Commission investigation in this case might turn out to be brief), but it may not make sense to continue to delay in this situation for years on end. Both options are risky; I suspect the risks of inaction and silence may be getting systematically under-weighted here. (But it’s hard to be confident when I don’t know the specifics of how these decisions are being made.)
I ran the above by Oliver Habryka, who said:
I have some information suggesting that maybe Oliver and/or the CEA employee’s account is wrong, or missing part of the story?? But I’m confused about the details, so I’ll look into things more and post an update here if I learn more.
The pendency of the CC statutory inquiry would explain hesitancy on the part of EVF UK or its projects to conduct or cooperate with an “EA” inquiry. A third-party inquiry is unlikely to be protected by any sort of privilege, and the CC may have means to require or persuade EVF UK to turn over anything it produced in connection with a third-party “EA” inquiry. However, it doesn’t seem that this should be an impediment to proceeding with other parts of an “EA inquiry,” especially to the extent this would be done outside the UK.
However, in the abstract—if any charity’s rationale for not being at least moderately open and transparent with relevant constituencies and the public is “we are afraid the CC will shut us down,” that is a charity most people would run away from fast, and for good reason. If the choice is between having a less-than “soul-searching postmortem” or none at all, I’ll take the former. Also, I strongly suspect everything EVF has said about the whole FTX situation has been vetted by lawyers, so the idea that someone is going to write an “official” postmortem without legal vetting is doubtful. Finally, I worry the can is going to continue being kicked down the road until EVF is far into the process of being dismantled, at which time the rationale may evolve into “we’re disbanding anyway, what’s the point?”
I do think a subtext of the reported discussion above is that the CC is not considered to be a necessarily trustworthy or fair arbiter here. “If we do this investigation then the CC may see things and take them the wrong way” means you don’t trust the CC to take them the right way. Now, I have no idea whether that is justified in this case, but it’s pretty consistent with my impression of government bureaucracies in general.
So it perhaps comes down to whether you previously considered the charity or the CC more trustworthy. In this case I think I trust EVF more.
I trust EV more than the charity commission about many things, but whether EV behaved badly over SBF is definitely not one of them. One judgment here is incredibly liable to distortion through self-interest and ego preservation, and it’s not the charity commission’s. (That’s not a prediction that the charity commission will in fact harshly criticize EV. I wouldn’t be surprised either way on that.)
When I looked at past CC actions, I didn’t get the impression that they were in the habit of blowing things out of proportion. But of course I didn’t have the full facts of each investigation.
One reason I don’t put much stock in the CC may not “necessarily [be a] trustworthy or fair arbiter” possibility is that it has to act with reasoning transparency because it is accountable to a public process. Its actions with substance (as opposed to issuing warnings) are reviewable in the UK courts, in proceedings where the charity—a party with the right knowledge and incentives—can call them out on dubious findings. The CC may not fear litigation in the same sense that a private entity might, but an agency’s budget/resources don’t generally go up because it is sued and agencies tend not to seek to create extra work for themselves for the thrill of it.
Moreover, the rationale of non-disclosure due to CC concerns operates at the margin. There are particular things we shouldn’t disclose in public because the CC might badly misinterpret those statements is one thing. There is nothing else useful we can disclose because all of those statements pose an unacceptable risk of the CC badly misinterpreting any further detail is another.
I have already personally decided to begin pursuing myself inquiries and research that would constitute at least some aspects of the sort of investigation in question. Much of what I generally have in mind, and in particular what I’d be most capable of doing myself, would be unrelated to EVF UK. If it’d make it easier, I’m amenable to perhaps avoiding probing in ways that intersect with EVF UK until the CC inquiry has ended. (This probably wouldn’t include EVF USA). That EVF is in the process of disbanding, which would complicate any part of such an investigation, as well as the fact another major EA organization is likely in the process of launching an earning to give incubator/training organization, are two reasons I will be expediting this project.