I start projects that I find exciting and fun. I now run the Prague Fall Season, Fixed Point and Epistea.
Previously, I co-led the Prague 2022 CFAR Workshops series, led the Czech EA Association, and organized EAGxPrague 2022.
I start projects that I find exciting and fun. I now run the Prague Fall Season, Fixed Point and Epistea.
Previously, I co-led the Prague 2022 CFAR Workshops series, led the Czech EA Association, and organized EAGxPrague 2022.
Since I’m running the project in question (not Wytham Abbey), I would like to share my perspective as well. (I reached out to the author of the comment, Bob, in a DM asking him to remove the previously posted addresses and we chatted briefly about some of these points privately but I also want to share my answers publicly.)
ESPR can’t return the property or the money at the moment because there is currently no mechanism that we are aware of that would make it possible to legally send money “back to FTX” such that it would reliably make its way back to customers who lost their money. We will wait and see how the bankruptcy proceedings play out which will likely take years. For now, I have a responsibility to the staff, to the property, and to the project.
This project is not an EA project. It covers a broader scope of world-improving activities and organizations. It is not part of the Czech EA organization. I also personally don’t own the property—I’m the CEO of a separate organization (not ESPR, not CZEA) that owns it.
You ask that this purchase be disclosed publicly—this was always the plan. The transaction is very fresh and has only been finalized this week. We are in the process of making adjustments to the place before announcing its existence and an open call for applications for events.
Much has been discussed on the forum recently about the cost-effectiveness of purchasing property and about optics. I’ve been running various events for over 10 years and I’ve seen firsthand how places, where they happen, influence their outcomes. I’ve also seen how the lack of appropriate and ready-to-use venues was the reason for great events not happening. I wanted to create an inspiring and functional space that can help people to think, discuss and create good things—I’ve been developing the idea over the last couple of years. I’m happy to go into more details about the project and its vision but again, I would like to be able to officially announce it first.
This is an experimental project which has a theory of change that is well thought out but remains uncertain. We will see what happens once we are up and running and able to see the outcomes. Should it be the case that it seems like it doesn’t generate sufficient value and broadly speaking “doesn’t work” it will most certainly be reconsidered. The property can be sold and the money can go toward other projects.
Since this is now a standalone post, I’m reposting my comment from the subthread of Ben’s post:
I think it’s telling, that Kat thinks that the texts speak in their favor. Reading them was quite triggering for me because I see a scared person, who asks for basic things, from the only people she has around her, to help her in a really difficult situation, and is made to feel like she is asking for too much, has to repeatedly advocate for herself (while sick) and still doesn’t get her needs met. On one hand, she is encouraged by Kat to ask for help but practically it’s not happening. Especially Emerson and Drew in that second thread sounded like she is difficult and constantly pushed to ask for less or for something else than what she asked for. Seriously, it took 2.5 hours the first day to get a salad, which she didn’t want in the first place?! And the second day it’s a vegetarian, not vegan, burger.
The way Alice constantly mentioned that she doesn’t want to bother them and says that things are fine when they are clearly not, is very upsetting. I can’t speak to how Alice felt but it’s no wonder she reports this as not being helped/fed when she was sick. To me, this is accurate, whether or not she got a salad and a vegetarian burger the next day.
Honestly, the burger-gate is a bit ridiculous. Ben did report in the original article that you disputed these claims (with quite a lot of detail) so he reported it accurately. To me, that was enough to not update too much based on this. I don’t think it warranted the strongly worded letter to the Lightcone team and the subsequent dramatic claims about evidence that you want to provide to clear your name.
I appreciate the overall style and tone of the piece. I believe Ben is trying to figure out what happened. With the material he had, he could easily write a much more damaging hit piece (as has been the case with some traditional investigative journalist in the past).
I appreciate the style and authenticity in this post. Would love to see more of this both from you and on the forum in general!
To give people some idea about the cost of EAGX’s: for Prague, where we had about 400 attendees, the cost was roughly £270 per person, and out of that, £120 was for food. Our venue didn’t have its own catering so we could arrange what we wanted on whatever scale we wanted. We could easily just do lunch and snacks.
Hi Gregory, I will be running these workshops together with John, so I’d like to respond to your comments.
I think that it is fair for you to post your warning/recommendation but as far as I can tell, today’s CFAR is quite different from the organization that you say demonstrated “gross negligence and utter corporate incompetence” in the past. You say that the evidence is sparse that anything has changed and I’m not sure about that but I’m also not the person to make that case because I’m not CFAR—I’m a CFAR developer running a project with other CFAR developers and a couple of CFAR core staff.
I can only speak for myself as one of the co-leads of this project and what I can say is that we see the skulls. They’re a bit hard to ignore since they’re everywhere! But that is exactly why we think we have enough of an understanding of what happened and how to learn from it. We are very much aware of the previous mistakes and believe that we can do better. And we want to try because we think these workshops are good and important and that we can do them well.
I generally think that people and organizations deserve second chances but ultimately it is for the people to decide. We will be fulfilling our role as event organizers by mitigating risks to our participants, to the extent that we reasonably can (based on CFAR’s past mistakes and also based on our own experience and judgment). And our participants will decide if they trust us enough to come to an immersive workshop with a bunch of other humans who they will interact with for 4.5 days.
I know you explain it later in the post, but I would prefer that the phrase “tell the person what you think their problems are” not be used to describe people offering doom. IMHO it’s very bad if people think about it this way.
The framing that seems more accurate to me is something like “why will this person have failed in their efforts?” Basically, how do you think they are doomed, hence the doom circle. You are trying to see how things are going to play out for them and should they not succeed, what happened?
What do you mean by “not picking up”? As in registering after being accepted? It is certainly the case that some people think the way you do. Also, many people procrastinate on finalizing their registration. Now, how much of which is in your “unclaimed tickets” pool is an open question. For EAGxPrague quite close to the application/registration deadline we had maybe up to 150 people who were accepted but haven’t registered (and I had roughly 500 capacity). Not knowing if they are not coming or may just all register on the last day made it harder to accept other people and plan meals etc.
Once there is a confirmed registration number, that’s a bit easier to work with regarding estimates of who will show up but I find the conversion rate of accepted → registered more unpredictable. Especially since it was possible to apply for more conferences at once.
Thank you for putting all of this together, I think it is a very useful post. I spent many years career coaching and advising people who were applying for jobs and I always stress this:
If you are not landing the job you want it is because of two main reasons:
a) You are not applying for the right jobs for you (you may be underqualified, overqualified, transitioning fields etc.)
b) Or you are in fact very well qualified but you are not good at presenting those qualifications to others, especially in a limited time and space.
Have you received any kind of feedback that would help you understand which was more common for you? If you think your case is a) then you need to find a different set of jobs to apply to—not better or worse, just different. If it is more b) then you may want to work on making sure that the reasons why you know you would be good at the job you are applying to translate into your resume, cover letter, interview etc.
I actually think it is quite common for people in the EA community to find themselves at a) because the jobs that are available to our community are very limited in numbers and scope. I think we need to expand the way we think about EA careers such that more people can find jobs that they enjoy which are also impactful.
You may also find yourself in b) because of cultural differences and bias. For example the job market in the US is very competitive and everyone is used to extremely inflating their resume and presenting themselves very confidently—which is not typical in some parts of Europe or Asia. Many recruiters and hiring managers also have bias against foreign applicants so part of the task is to present your qualities such that they come across accurately even at this disadvantage.
Could I record the audio of my own post?
I’d like to make a brief note on the importance of translating EA content because I’ve often encountered a general idea which is something like “as a movement, we are basically mainly interested in people who already speak English so they’d just read the original and the translation wouldn’t bring any additional benefit”.
An answer to this could be a standalone forum post, but in short:
There are in fact, very talented people who could make great contributions to the movement who for a number of reasons don’t communicate in English that well. If our outreach is in English only, we will likely miss them.
Even if someone seems quite competent in their command of English but it may still impact their willingness to consume English content, and even if they do, they may not enjoy it as much because their comprehension is not 100%.
It seems that reading text in your primary language lands differently, especially when you want the reader to connect with the material emotionally. Reading it in your primary language seems to increase the extent to which you’re able to internalize the message (especially for someone with low comprehension skills in English)
A lot of EA material is already targeted at the English-speaking world and it can feel alienating—like it’s not REALLY meant for me. Sure, EA sounds interesting but it’s something for OTHER people, not me, living in *insert a small foreign city*.
I’m not aware of anything, in particular, happening in Prague that weekend that would explain the hotels in the downtown area being full. Prague is a very popular city that is coming back from two bad winters with COVID so it seems that people are simply eager to visit.
We did put together a guide on public transportation so people are comfortable booking outside of the city center and also had a couchsurfing table for people to advertise and look for spare accommodation.
We decided to do the conference in the city center because we think it is a beautiful area that we wanted to share with our attendees. There seems to be an existing tension in the community on whether to do conferences in large convention centers at an arbitrary location or in unique spaces which are an inherent part of the conference experience.
We were considering doing a group order for accommodation to help out the attendees but we did not have enough capacity on the team to do it. I’ve done this for another conference in the past and it is A LOT of work to assign people, deal with changes, communicate with the hotel etc.
Hi Lewis, since this is AMA, this one is not EA related.
I’ve spend most of my teenage and college years as a competitive international debater. How do you look back at your debate experience? The good and the bad. Would you recommend that EAs (and more people in general) take up debate? Or would you rather see it be replaced with some other form of structured discussion?
Also, the WUDC finals are one of my favorite competitive debates of all time, I would often use it when coaching my teams. I’d love to hear your take on it. What was it like for you to prop a topic which was already quite broadly opposed in society (making abortion illegal)? And what was going through your mind when you heard James present their definition and approach (that a fetus may very well be alive since conception but the mother has a right to kill it regardless)?
That seems fair, but I don’t have any other concrete information, so for now, that’s my position based on the information I have. It may change on whatever else becomes available but I am skeptical of the value of any additional material that Nonlinear present because it seems that they covered all their main concerns already during their call with Ben and because this attempt to “provide evidence” backfired and in my opinion gives more credibility to Alice, not less. If this is an example of a “100% provable false claim” and a reason to call Alice a “bald-faced liar”, then the letter was absolutely disproportionate.
This is consistent with my experience. I agree these norms are good and make organizer’s lives easier, but there is always a drop out rate and it is possible to plan for that. Did Berkeley have an unusually high number of noshows? For EAGxPrague we worked with an estimate of about 10% which ended up being quite accurate. I don’t remember the exact number but I think we had about 450 registered and about 410 showed up (this does not include the people who actually canceled since they no longer show up as registered in the system). I think it would be possible to do a more detailed analysis of the drop out rate in time and the final number of noshows in case it’s useful for future organizers.
My two cents about why people may be concerned about the decision-making process without having concrete details:
For instance, the initially advertised decision timeline of 2 weeks. While I appreciate the fast pace and the benefits that come with it, a complex system of review and decision-making is almost impossible to achieve at that timeline, especially given the interest in the program.
Moreover, that deadline was not met for all projects which is both good because clearly more time was needed and also bad because applicants’ expectations were not met and they needed to potentially change their plans for the projects because of the dealy. Additionally, it signals FTX’s poor understanding of either its capacity or the complexity of the grant-making process. Lack of either doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
I think it’s telling, that Kat thinks that the texts speak in their favor. Reading them was quite triggering for me because I see a scared person, who asks for basic things, from the only people she has around her, to help her in a really difficult situation, and is made to feel like she is asking for too much, has to repeatedly advocate for herself (while sick) and still doesn’t get her needs met. On one hand, she is encouraged by Kat to ask for help but practically it’s not happening. Especially Emerson and Drew in that second thread sounded like she is difficult and constantly pushed to ask for less or for something else than what she asked for. Seriously, it took 2.5 hours the first day to get a salad, which she didn’t want in the first place?! And the second day it’s a vegetarian, not vegan, burger.
The way Alice constantly mentioned that she doesn’t want to bother them and says that things are fine when they are clearly not, is very upsetting. I can’t speak to how Alice felt but it’s no wonder she reports this as not being helped/fed when she was sick. To me, this is accurate, whether or not she got a salad and a vegetarian burger the next day.
Honestly, the burger-gate is a bit ridiculous. Ben did report in the original article that you disputed these claims (with quite a lot of detail) so he reported it accurately. To me, that was enough to not update too much based on this. I don’t think it warranted the strongly worded letter to the Lightcone team and the subsequent dramatic claims about evidence that you want to provide to clear your name.