Private equity investor (E2G)
Co-Treasurer @ EA UK
Trustee @ EA for Christians
Trustee @ ICM UK
Director @ EA Good Governance Project
MBA @ INSEAD
Grayden šø
Karma: 1,558
UpĀdate from the EA Good GoverĀnance Project
Saying they have been recused since November implies that they werenāt recused from decision-making regarding FTX prior to November. If this is true (and Iām hesitant because I donāt know all the facts), they were likely not following proper process prior to November.
Correct, but if he intends to give away 100% of the proceeds (and presumably considers EVF effective), it has the same effect.
My comment was not to say āhe should do xā but instead say āif he intends to do x and remain a trustee, this is a good way to structure itā.
In the UK, non-profits can be either member-based or not. I believe EVF is not member-based. That means the board is accountable to itself. Only the board can appoint and remove Trustees.
This is one of the reasons why term limits are considered good practice. Based on the tenure of some EVF Trustees, it looks like term limits have not been implemented.
My read of the article is that it is alleging incompetence and/āor lack of regard for laws rather than alleging wrongdoing. Iām a trustee of a number of UK charities myself and the Charity Commission sends all trustees basic information on manging conflicts of interest and data protection. They are by no means āobscure and arbitraryā and I think we as a community need to be extra careful to comply with the letter and spirit of every law given the recent FTX events.
On the book deal, a good way to structure this (i.e. achieving the same objective, but in a legally compliant way) would be for perhaps with CEA /ā EVF owning the copyright. In that way, they can receive all the proceeds or structure the deal such that all proceeds get diverted elsewhere. This might well have been what they did.
If it was indeed structured with Will receiving money and then donating it onwards, then at a minimum he should have recused himself from the decision-making on that issue (which he might well have done) but probably should have stood down as a trustee because of its materiality. I donāt think itās right to focus just on the books actually purchased by EVF. If a charity spends money promoting a trusteeās book, that trustee is receiving a direct benefit from that charity and should stand down if it is material.
I think itās important to distinguish between morality and legal compliance. I donāt think anybody involved here was immoral, but it sounds like there are questions to answer about whether CEA /ā EVF acted illegally (whether through deliberate decision or lack of competence). Hopefully they will be answered quickly and conclusively, so we can all move on.
This is clearly absolutely awful. The reality is there is little that most people can do about it because EA is a set of principles not an organisation. There is no membership and no elections, which I think is for the best. It is up to a handful of organizations where Bostrum is involved to make decisions about what to do in response to this. I hope they make the decision with the reputation of the broader EA movement in mind and free from personal biases.
If someone is just graduating and interested in entrepreneurship, what do you think is the probability that they will be accepted into YC? The original article mentions a 2.5% acceptance rate at YC of those who apply. Do you need prior success in order to apply?
Iām not qualified to comment on the calculations but did you hire a real estate consultant and venue manager to advise?
I appreciate the conciseness of this post. Itās an under-appreciated skill on the EA Forum.
Being able to communicate across fields is one of the most important skills one can possess. Some professional roles are essentially just this, E.g. product manager in software. I donāt believe the best academics in a field are necessarily the best people to write a report that is designed to be accessible. The best maths teacher I had at school was not even a mathematician.
Itās fair to criticise the weasel words. What I meant by external pragmatism was more around operations than cause prioritisation, e.g. we should learn the lessons of decades of governance, managerial practices and evidence of how to actually get things done
To use your plane analogy, there have been 3 planes (billionaire donors) and 2 have crashed. I donāt know exactly what to do to solve the problem, but I do think that EA needs to be more open to external pragmatism.
Thanks, Neel. This is a very helpful comment. I now donāt think our views are too far apart.
(Background: I work in PE and have previously worked in public equities aka asset management) There are quite a few good articles here: https://āāforum.effectivealtruism.org/āātopics/āāsocially-responsible-investing. In general, I would say that ESG is hardāhard to do right, hard to measure the impact, hard to communicate. If you owned 100% of a slaughterhouse, itās not obvious what you should do. As Lewis has implicitly acknowledged, you canāt simply shut it down (because another one would simply open up down the road and youāve just blown a load of money). The smartest idea is probably to run it with basic ethical improvements. However, if you deviate too much from standard practice, you will quickly become uneconomical. If youāre uneconomical, you will either go out of business or will need ongoing subsidy in the form of donations. The second-order effects are difficult to quantify. If EA started buying up slaughterhouses, then theoretically this would lead to more demand for slaughterhouses, a lower cost of capital, a lower cost for meat and ultimately more meat consumption! Iām not intending to get into a debate about this specific example here. Iām sure some very smart people will point out the errors of my comments above. However, I do hope it shows how even a simple example can end up being quite complex.
Iām arguing that deciding whether or not it is a good thing should include the PR impact (i.e. a weak consequentialist approach). I donāt care if things look bad, unless that perception leads bad outcomes. In this case, I think the perception could lead to bad outcomes that dominate the good outcomes in the expected value calculation
In general, I agree with you (as I say in my first sentence), but
EVās objectives are the promotion of EA, i.e. PR is itās raisin dāetre.
in this case, the benefit seems like a rounding error (maybe you could argue it would save ~Ā£100k p.a.) compared to the PR potential. Even if itās hard to assess the PR impact (and I acknowledge it could go either way), itās negligent not to consider it.
In general I would agree that itās better to do what is good rather than what looks good. However, when you are the face of a global movement, optics have a meaningful financial implication. Imagine if this bad press made 1 billionaire 0.1% less likely to get involved with EA. That calculation would dominate any potential efficiency savings from insourcing a service provider.
Thanks for the nudge. Iāve just posted an update here: https://āāforum.effectivealtruism.org/āāposts/āānEnDvu2Ha9HLguvK8/āāupdate-from-the-ea-good-governance-project