l question in this space is if EAs have allocated their attention wisely. The answer seems to be “mostly yes.” In case of FTX, heavyweights like Temasek, Sequoia Capital, and SoftBank with billions on the line did their due diligence but still missed what was happening. Expecting EAs to be better evaluators of FTX’s health than established hedge funds is somewhat odd.
Two things:
Sequoia et al. isn’t a good benchmark –
(i) those funds were doing diligence in a very hot investing environment where there was a substantial tradeoff between depth of diligence and likelihood of closing the deal. Because EAs largely engaged FTX on the philanthropic side, they didn’t face this pressure.
(ii) SBF was inspired and mentored by prominent EAs, and FTX was incubated by EA over the course of many years. So EAs had built relationships with FTX staff much deeper than what funds would have been able to establish over the course of a months-long diligence process.
The entire EA project is premised on the idea that it can do better at figuring things out than legacy institutions.
a. Sequoia led FTX round B in Jul 2021 and had notably more time to notice any irregularities than grant recipients.
b. I would expect the funds to have much better expertise in something like “evaluating the financial health of a company”.
Also it seem you are somewhat shifting the goalposts: Zoe’s paragraph with “On Halloween this past year, I was hanging out with a few EAs.” It is reasonable to assume the reader will interpret it as hanging out with basically random/typical EAs, and the argument should hold for these people. Your argument would work better if she was hanging out with “EAs working at FTX” or “EAs advising SBF” who could have probably done better than funds on evaluating stuff like how the specific people work.
The EA project is clearly not promised on the idea that it should, for example, “figure out stuff like stock price better than legacy institutions”. Quite the contrary—the claim is while humanity actually invests decent amount of competent effort in stock, in comparison, it neglects problems like poverty or xrisk.
It seems like we’re talking past each other here, in part because as you note we’re referring to different EA subpopulations:
Elite EAs who mentored SBF & incubated FTX
Random/typical EAs who Cremer would hang out with at parties
EA grant recipients
I don’t really know who knew what when; most of my critical feeling is directed at folks in category (1). Out of everyone we’ve mentioned here (EA or not), they had the most exposure to and knowledge about (or at least opportunity to learn about) SBF & FTX’s operations.
I think we should expect elite EAs to have done better than Sequoia et al. at noticing red flags (e.g. the reports of SBF being shitty at Alameda in 2017; e.g. no ring-fence around money earmarked for the Future Fund) and acting on what they noticed.
Which quality? I really liked the first part of of your comment and even weakly upvoted it on both votes for that reason, but I feel like the second point has no substance. (Longtermist EA is about doing things that existing institutions are neglecting; not doing the work of existing institutions better.)
Two things:
Sequoia et al. isn’t a good benchmark –
(i) those funds were doing diligence in a very hot investing environment where there was a substantial tradeoff between depth of diligence and likelihood of closing the deal. Because EAs largely engaged FTX on the philanthropic side, they didn’t face this pressure.
(ii) SBF was inspired and mentored by prominent EAs, and FTX was incubated by EA over the course of many years. So EAs had built relationships with FTX staff much deeper than what funds would have been able to establish over the course of a months-long diligence process.
The entire EA project is premised on the idea that it can do better at figuring things out than legacy institutions.
a.
Sequoia led FTX round B in Jul 2021 and had notably more time to notice any irregularities than grant recipients.
b.
I would expect the funds to have much better expertise in something like “evaluating the financial health of a company”.
Also it seem you are somewhat shifting the goalposts: Zoe’s paragraph with “On Halloween this past year, I was hanging out with a few EAs.” It is reasonable to assume the reader will interpret it as hanging out with basically random/typical EAs, and the argument should hold for these people. Your argument would work better if she was hanging out with “EAs working at FTX” or “EAs advising SBF” who could have probably done better than funds on evaluating stuff like how the specific people work.
The EA project is clearly not promised on the idea that it should, for example, “figure out stuff like stock price better than legacy institutions”. Quite the contrary—the claim is while humanity actually invests decent amount of competent effort in stock, in comparison, it neglects problems like poverty or xrisk.
It seems like we’re talking past each other here, in part because as you note we’re referring to different EA subpopulations:
Elite EAs who mentored SBF & incubated FTX
Random/typical EAs who Cremer would hang out with at parties
EA grant recipients
I don’t really know who knew what when; most of my critical feeling is directed at folks in category (1). Out of everyone we’ve mentioned here (EA or not), they had the most exposure to and knowledge about (or at least opportunity to learn about) SBF & FTX’s operations.
I think we should expect elite EAs to have done better than Sequoia et al. at noticing red flags (e.g. the reports of SBF being shitty at Alameda in 2017; e.g. no ring-fence around money earmarked for the Future Fund) and acting on what they noticed.
I think your comment would’ve been a lot stronger if you had left it at 1. Your second point seems a bit snarky.
I don’t think snark cuts against quality, and we come from a long lineage of it.
Which quality? I really liked the first part of of your comment and even weakly upvoted it on both votes for that reason, but I feel like the second point has no substance. (Longtermist EA is about doing things that existing institutions are neglecting; not doing the work of existing institutions better.)