And to be clear, the lawyers could easily recommend silence for 5-7 years, possibly longer. My gut says this case won’t actively drag on as long as the decade-plus the Madoff case has, but maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part.
I agree that it would not be warranted to draw inferences from lawyer-advised silence—in either direction. It seems that leaves EA in a pickle, then. Is everyone who needs to maintain silence left under a vague cloud of suspicion for the next 5-7+ years because the evidence to either confirm or disconfirm concerns that have been raised has to be kept under wraps? Trusting without verifying is what got everyone into the whole FTX mess in the first place.
Moreover, it is difficult to establish the probability that any given person who is remaining silent on SBF/FTX legal advice has undisclosed legal interests that conflict with the interests of EA as a whole. At least from where I sit, the events of the past few weeks have demonstrated a need for reforms in some areas. But leaders could feel like (or be advised that) -- for instance—staking out a future pro-donor vetting position could be used to undermine their (or their organization’s) legal position. It’s just really hard to say what topics there is/isn’t a conflict on without knowing the nature of the legal risk (which, of course, they can’t publicly disclosure). While conflicts of interest can be waivable in some circumstances, I don’t see how these could be—disclosure is the first step toward considering waiver, and the nature of any conflicts can’t be disclosed to the community.
This whole situation sucks from a governance perspective.
I agree with the last sentence of this comment very much.
But I suspect there are ways to work around this in most instances and to do informed, forward-looking work to improve the ability of the community to avoid something like this happening in the future. I want to think about this a lot more, and I hope others will be doing the same, but one way to do this would be to work with the consensus factual record that is developed, both in the court record and the media (with the latter often getting the former wrong, which is a whole other source of confusion and complication). It won’t necessarily cover every nuance, but it will help smart folks do good work without asking anyone potentially involved to make statements outside of the consensus factual record. It’s not perfect, but it’s not nothing.
To be clear, this is VERY off-the-cuff musing, not intended to be a comprehensive response to a very serious problem. This is a topic that I think is super critical to do some hard work on in the near term.
I am confident that the community can still do good work to mitigate risks of future situations. I’m just skeptical about the extent to which people/organizations who have significant legal exposure to the FTX situation should be involved in making those decisions. I suppose whatever decisions were made could be revised 5-7 years down the road when everyone could speak freely.
That raises the question of how to get buy-in from the affected people/organizations. Although I’m generally skeptical of funders using their power too heavily, this may be the sort of thing that should be coming in part from major funders. Most grants come with strings, including strings relating to risk management and governance issues.
I’m not opposed to funders dictating appropriate risk management and governance conditions on their grants, although they should consult with non-conflicted members of the community before establishing such a practice. Although I’m a small-potatoes donor, it is really important to me that my donations go to the intended purposes rather than paying for consequences of bad governance. (Not saying that will happen in this case, but it is a risk.) I think it’s reasonable for other donors to have that expectation as well.
And to be clear, the lawyers could easily recommend silence for 5-7 years, possibly longer. My gut says this case won’t actively drag on as long as the decade-plus the Madoff case has, but maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part.
I agree that it would not be warranted to draw inferences from lawyer-advised silence—in either direction. It seems that leaves EA in a pickle, then. Is everyone who needs to maintain silence left under a vague cloud of suspicion for the next 5-7+ years because the evidence to either confirm or disconfirm concerns that have been raised has to be kept under wraps? Trusting without verifying is what got everyone into the whole FTX mess in the first place.
Moreover, it is difficult to establish the probability that any given person who is remaining silent on SBF/FTX legal advice has undisclosed legal interests that conflict with the interests of EA as a whole. At least from where I sit, the events of the past few weeks have demonstrated a need for reforms in some areas. But leaders could feel like (or be advised that) -- for instance—staking out a future pro-donor vetting position could be used to undermine their (or their organization’s) legal position. It’s just really hard to say what topics there is/isn’t a conflict on without knowing the nature of the legal risk (which, of course, they can’t publicly disclosure). While conflicts of interest can be waivable in some circumstances, I don’t see how these could be—disclosure is the first step toward considering waiver, and the nature of any conflicts can’t be disclosed to the community.
This whole situation sucks from a governance perspective.
If taking your lawyer’s advice, in this case, means being silent for 5-7 years, it seems like some people should speak openly and bear the costs.
It is really difficult to assess from the outside, because we don’t know the facts that the involved individuals (and their lawyers) do.
Agreed. My view here is pretty uninformed.
I agree with the last sentence of this comment very much.
But I suspect there are ways to work around this in most instances and to do informed, forward-looking work to improve the ability of the community to avoid something like this happening in the future. I want to think about this a lot more, and I hope others will be doing the same, but one way to do this would be to work with the consensus factual record that is developed, both in the court record and the media (with the latter often getting the former wrong, which is a whole other source of confusion and complication). It won’t necessarily cover every nuance, but it will help smart folks do good work without asking anyone potentially involved to make statements outside of the consensus factual record. It’s not perfect, but it’s not nothing.
To be clear, this is VERY off-the-cuff musing, not intended to be a comprehensive response to a very serious problem. This is a topic that I think is super critical to do some hard work on in the near term.
I am confident that the community can still do good work to mitigate risks of future situations. I’m just skeptical about the extent to which people/organizations who have significant legal exposure to the FTX situation should be involved in making those decisions. I suppose whatever decisions were made could be revised 5-7 years down the road when everyone could speak freely.
That raises the question of how to get buy-in from the affected people/organizations. Although I’m generally skeptical of funders using their power too heavily, this may be the sort of thing that should be coming in part from major funders. Most grants come with strings, including strings relating to risk management and governance issues.
I’m not opposed to funders dictating appropriate risk management and governance conditions on their grants, although they should consult with non-conflicted members of the community before establishing such a practice. Although I’m a small-potatoes donor, it is really important to me that my donations go to the intended purposes rather than paying for consequences of bad governance. (Not saying that will happen in this case, but it is a risk.) I think it’s reasonable for other donors to have that expectation as well.