EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular) “We need an independent investigation into how EA leadership has handled SBF and FTX” by AnonymousEAForumAccount
Summary
Rebecca Kagan believes “EA needs an investigation, done externally and shared publicly, on mistakes made in the EA community's relationship with FTX.” She is far from the only person who has called for an independent investigation, but Kagan's experience and knowledge as a former board member of Effective Ventures makes her perspective particularly relevant.
Explaining her decision to resign from EV's board, Kagan wrote:
“I want to make it clear that I resigned last year due to significant disagreements with the board of EV and EA leadership, particularly concerning their actions leading up to and after the FTX crisis… I believe there were extensive and significant mistakes made which have not been addressed. (In particular, some EA leaders had warning signs about SBF that they ignored, and instead promoted him as a good person, tied the EA community to FTX, and then were uninterested in reforms or investigations [...]
---
Outline:
(00:08) Summary
(06:11) Communications from EA leaders have not been forthcoming about important factual matters.
(06:45) Circa ~2017, SBF was one of 80k and CEA's largest donors.
(08:30) SBF served on CEA's board.
(09:00) SBF worked for CEA.
(09:20) Multiple EA leaders and organizations were aware about allegations stemming from the Alameda dispute.
(10:24) Open questions:
(11:37) There are worrisome discrepancies between comments from EA leaders and credible media reports.
(12:01) Will's professed ignorance about inappropriate romantic relationships SBF had while at Alameda directly conflicts with Time's reporting on the subject.
(12:57) Will's characterization of what complaints he heard about SBF related to the Alameda dispute, and when he heard them, conflicts with Time's reporting
(14:52) Nobody in EA leadership has publicly acknowledged the New Yorker's report that many leaders received warnings that SBF was being investigated for criminal behavior four months before FTX's collapse (other than to deny personally having seen said warnings)
(16:27) EA leadership has not acknowledged an internal CEA investigation and/or board assessment conducted relating to Alameda, which both Time and Semafor have reported
(18:00) Open questions:
(20:49) EA leaders have made public claims about post-FTX reforms that could easily be construed as misleading
(22:49) Open questions
The original text contained 14 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
---
First published:
July 24th, 2024
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.