To add—I strongly do not think MacAskill is the key figure here, which I take to be in step 5 ‘EA support for launching the FTX Foundation’. The key decisions were taken—and the (presumably defective) due dilligence was conducted—in and around October 2021, ahead of the re-launch of the FTX Foundation in early November 2021.
MacAskill didn’t get listed publicly as involved until 3-4 months later, only in an unpaid capacity, had little due diligence/grantmaking experience, and was presumably busy with the writing and publicity for What We Owe The Future.
I think it would be important and useful to hear more from Beckstead about that period and those decisions, but he presumably faces even more legal risk than MacAskill, and has much less experience talking and writing publicly.
Thanks for posting this. If I may I’ll ask some more questions below about due diligence, as that’s not a subject of your four reply-sections.
I’m not expecting that you’d answer every single one of these questions (there’s a lot!), but my hope is that their variety might prompt reflections and recollections. I imagine It could be the case that you can’t answer any of the questions below—perhaps you feel its Beckstead’s story to tell and you don’t want to tell it for him, or Beckstead is currently in law suits and legal jeopardy so this can’t be discussed publicly. If so that’s understandable.
But it would be great to hear more about this meeting in November/December 2021 with Beckstead and Bankman-Fried. (All quotes from Wei Dai’s transcript, all bold text is highlighted by me.)
At that point, what due diligence had Beckstead done, what did he tell you, what questions did you ask, and what were the key considerations/evidence? (You have discussed Bankman-Fried’s character extensively which is great, though unfortunately—as you highlight—its the least legible/transparent factor and has least predictive power!) Two key topics I’d love your recollections on are:
how you weighed up/assessed the crypto industry in general; and
the specifics of the business in terms of corporate governance and culture.
1. You imply several times that there’s something particularly problematic about crypto (see below). Did you think that at the time? What were the key concerns here, and how were they discussed? Were your concerns about the industry in general, its unregulated nature, or the particular business model of the FTX exchange (mass consumer facing meaning that unsophisticated retail investors could lose their money)?
2. You have mentioned the board problem several times (see below). This strongly implies that in late 2021/early 2022 you didn’t know that FTX didn’t have a board and had atrocious governance. Is that the case? What about the other four team members of the FTX Foundation? Did any of you ask about this? Was this a concern that was discussed in late 2021/early 2022?