Hi Pagw — in case you haven’t seen it here’s my November 2022 reply to Oli H re Sam Bankman-Fried’s lifestyle:
“I was very saddened to hear that you thought the most likely explanation for the discussion of frugality in my interview with Sam was that I was deliberately seeking to mislead the audience.
I had no intention to mislead people into thinking Sam was more frugal than he was. I simply believed the reporting I had read about him and he didn’t contradict me.
It’s only in recent weeks that I learned that some folks such as you thought the impression about his lifestyle was misleading, notwithstanding Sam’s reference to ‘nice apartments’ in the interview:
“I don’t know, I kind of like nice apartments. … I’m not really that much of a consumer exactly. It’s never been what’s important to me. And so I think overall a nice place is just about as far as it gets.”
Unfortunately as far as I can remember nobody else reached out to me after the podcast to correct the record either.
In recent years, in pursuit of better work-life balance, I’ve been spending less time socialising with people involved in the EA community, and when I do, I discuss work with them much less than in the past. I also last visited the SF Bay Area way back in 2019 and am certainly not part of the ‘crypto’ social scene. That may help to explain why this issue never came up in casual conversation.
Inasmuch as the interview gave listeners a false impression about Sam I am sorry about that, because we of course aim for the podcast to be as informative and accurate as possible.”
Thanks Robert. No I hadn’t seen that, thanks for sharing it (the total amount of stuff on FTX exceeded my bandwidth and there is much I missed!).
Given that, the thought behind my earlier comment that remains is that it would seem more appropriately complete to acknowledge in Ben’s reflections that 80k made a mistake in information it put out, not just in “affiliating” with SBF. And also that if a body as prominent as 80k had not heard concerns about SBF that were circulating, it seems to suggest there are important things to improve about communication of information within EA and I’d have thought they’d warrant a mention in there. Though I appreciate that individuals may not want to be super tuned in to everything.
I agree with Peter’s comments here. Some of 80k’s own staff were part of the early Alameda cohort who left and thought SBF was a bad actor. In an honest accounting of mistakes made, it seems strange not to acknowledge that 80k (and others) missed an important red flag in 2018, and didn’t put any emphasis on it when talking to/promoting SBF
I’ve also assumed that 80k leadership was aware of red flags around SBF since 2018, due to A) 80k staff being part of the early Alameda staff that left, B) assuming 80k leadership was part of the EA Leader Slack channel where concerns were raised, C) Will (co-founder and board member) and Nick (board member) being aware of concerns (per Time’s reporting). It would be great if someone from 80k could confirm which of these channels (if any) 80k leadership heard concerns through. Assuming they were indeed aware of concerns, I agree with John and Pagw that it seems odd not to mention hearing those red flags in the OP.
To be explicit, even if 80k leadership was aware of red flags around SBF since 2018, I don’t think they should have anticipated the scale of his fraud. And they might have made correct decisions along the way given what they knew at the time. But those red flags (if 80k was indeed aware of them) seem like they should play a part in any retrospective accounting of lessons learned from the whole affair.
Hi Pagw — in case you haven’t seen it here’s my November 2022 reply to Oli H re Sam Bankman-Fried’s lifestyle:
Thanks Robert. No I hadn’t seen that, thanks for sharing it (the total amount of stuff on FTX exceeded my bandwidth and there is much I missed!).
Given that, the thought behind my earlier comment that remains is that it would seem more appropriately complete to acknowledge in Ben’s reflections that 80k made a mistake in information it put out, not just in “affiliating” with SBF. And also that if a body as prominent as 80k had not heard concerns about SBF that were circulating, it seems to suggest there are important things to improve about communication of information within EA and I’d have thought they’d warrant a mention in there. Though I appreciate that individuals may not want to be super tuned in to everything.
I agree with Peter’s comments here. Some of 80k’s own staff were part of the early Alameda cohort who left and thought SBF was a bad actor. In an honest accounting of mistakes made, it seems strange not to acknowledge that 80k (and others) missed an important red flag in 2018, and didn’t put any emphasis on it when talking to/promoting SBF
I’ve also assumed that 80k leadership was aware of red flags around SBF since 2018, due to A) 80k staff being part of the early Alameda staff that left, B) assuming 80k leadership was part of the EA Leader Slack channel where concerns were raised, C) Will (co-founder and board member) and Nick (board member) being aware of concerns (per Time’s reporting). It would be great if someone from 80k could confirm which of these channels (if any) 80k leadership heard concerns through. Assuming they were indeed aware of concerns, I agree with John and Pagw that it seems odd not to mention hearing those red flags in the OP.
To be explicit, even if 80k leadership was aware of red flags around SBF since 2018, I don’t think they should have anticipated the scale of his fraud. And they might have made correct decisions along the way given what they knew at the time. But those red flags (if 80k was indeed aware of them) seem like they should play a part in any retrospective accounting of lessons learned from the whole affair.
The 80k team are still discussing it internally and hope to say more at a later date.
Speaking personally, Holden’s comments (e.g. in Vox) resonated with me. I wish I’d done more to investigate what happened at Alameda.