Re the secondary debt holders, to me there are two different questions here. One of them is obeying whatever outcome of legal proceedings happens, where I think we both agree that people should fully obey the law. But the second is whether you should go above and beyond and be unsolicitedly cooperative with the legal proceedings, try to proactively allow money to be clawed back, etc. I agree that living in a society with strong, functional property rights is important, but don’t think that people going above and beyond in a complex situation like this is a core part of what makes property rights work (and, indeed, any system relying on that would have less reliable property rights!)
The people who are holding the property shouldn’t try to do anything but get out of the way.
I vibe with this, but to me this implies the first but not the second.
Re Anthropic, I used to work there, but left well before the FTX crisis, and have no particular position on those questions. I just think they’re a sufficiently different category to be worth clearly distinguishing from Future Fund donations to non-profits.
Anthropic is in a different category for a number of reasons. I believe FTX got something of value (equity in Anthropic) in exchange for the $500MM. If $500MM was in fact a reasonable market value for that equity at the time of the transaction, I don’t think Anthropic has any moral obligations here. It gave something of equal value to FTX for what it got. No one would argue that Pepsi has a moral obligation to repay FTX or its creditors if FTX had invested in Pepsi stock at fair market value and then that stock lost value. Of course, if the Anthropic share is worth more than $500MM, the estate can sell it and make some money.
On the other hand, if $500MM wasn’t a reasonable value for the equity share at the time of transfer, then I would view the portion of the $500MM that exceeded FMV as a de facto gift that needs to be returned.
Re the secondary debt holders, to me there are two different questions here. One of them is obeying whatever outcome of legal proceedings happens, where I think we both agree that people should fully obey the law. But the second is whether you should go above and beyond and be unsolicitedly cooperative with the legal proceedings, try to proactively allow money to be clawed back, etc. I agree that living in a society with strong, functional property rights is important, but don’t think that people going above and beyond in a complex situation like this is a core part of what makes property rights work (and, indeed, any system relying on that would have less reliable property rights!)
I vibe with this, but to me this implies the first but not the second.
Re Anthropic, I used to work there, but left well before the FTX crisis, and have no particular position on those questions. I just think they’re a sufficiently different category to be worth clearly distinguishing from Future Fund donations to non-profits.
Anthropic is in a different category for a number of reasons. I believe FTX got something of value (equity in Anthropic) in exchange for the $500MM. If $500MM was in fact a reasonable market value for that equity at the time of the transaction, I don’t think Anthropic has any moral obligations here. It gave something of equal value to FTX for what it got. No one would argue that Pepsi has a moral obligation to repay FTX or its creditors if FTX had invested in Pepsi stock at fair market value and then that stock lost value. Of course, if the Anthropic share is worth more than $500MM, the estate can sell it and make some money.
On the other hand, if $500MM wasn’t a reasonable value for the equity share at the time of transfer, then I would view the portion of the $500MM that exceeded FMV as a de facto gift that needs to be returned.