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Time Article Discussion - "Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed"
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Nathan Young
Credibility Rating
3/5
Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: EA Forum
Relevant to AI safety funding governance: FTX/SBF was a major funder of AI safety research, making this case study important for understanding risks of concentrated philanthropic influence and institutional accountability failures within the broader AI safety ecosystem.
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241
Comments
175
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eaforum
Forum Tags
CommunityBuilding effective altruismSam Bankman-FriedCriticism of effective altruist organizationsCriticism of the effective altruism communityFTX collapseWilliam MacAskillCriticism of work in effective altruism
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Importance: 62/100blog postcommentary
Summary
Discussion of a TIME magazine investigation revealing that prominent EA leaders (MacAskill, Beckstead, Karnofsky) received multiple warnings in 2018-2019 about Sam Bankman-Fried's ethical misconduct and poor business practices, yet continued supporting him and his organizations. This raises significant questions about EA's governance, accountability structures, and how warning signals about major donors are handled within the movement.
Key Points
- •EA leaders were warned multiple times between 2018-2019 about SBF's dishonesty, inappropriate workplace relationships, and refusal to follow standard business practices.
- •Despite these warnings, EA organizations continued engaging with and directing substantial funding through SBF's Alameda and FTX entities.
- •FTX's collapse in 2022 caused massive financial and reputational damage to the EA movement, raising questions about prior due diligence failures.
- •The case highlights potential conflicts of interest when EA leaders evaluate major donors who also fund EA causes.
- •Forum discussion reflects community debate over accountability, transparency, and whether EA's governance structures are adequate to handle such risks.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| EA Institutions' Response to the FTX Collapse | -- | 53.0 |
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Time Article Discussion - "Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed" — EA Forum
This website requires javascript to properly function. Consider activating javascript to get access to all site functionality. Hide table of contents Time Article Discussion - "Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed"
by Nathan Young Mar 15 2023 5 min read 175 241
Community Building effective altruism Sam Bankman-Fried Criticism of effective altruist organizations Criticism of the effective altruism community FTX collapse William MacAskill Criticism of work in effective altruism Frontpage Time Article Discussion - "Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed" “We didn’t know how much money we actually had. We didn’t have a clear accounting record of all the trades we’d done,” Bouscal says. “Sam continued pushing us more and more in this direction of doing a huge number of trades, a huge number of transfers, and we couldn’t account for that.” At the same ... 178 comments This is a linkpost for https://time.com/6262810/sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism-alameda-ftx/ There is a new Time article
Seems certain 98% we'll discuss it
I would like us to try and have a better discussion about this than we sometimes do.
Consider if you want to engage
I updated a bit on important stuff as a result of this article. You may disagree. I am going to put my "personal updates" in a comment
Excepts from the article that I think are relevant. Bold is mine. I have made choices here and feel free to recommend I change them.
Yet MacAskill had long been aware of concerns around Bankman-Fried. He was personally cautioned about Bankman-Fried by at least three different people in a series of conversations in 2018 and 2019, according to interviews with four people familiar with those discussions and emails reviewed by TIME.
He wasn’t alone. Multiple EA leaders knew about the red flags surrounding Bankman-Fried by 2019 , according to a TIME investigation based on contemporaneous documents and interviews with seven people familiar with the matter. Among the EA brain trust personally notified about Bankman-Fried’s questionable behavior and business ethics were Nick Beckstead, a moral philosopher who went on to lead Bankman-Fried’s philanthropic arm, the FTX Future Fund, and Holden Karnofsky, co-CEO of OpenPhilanthropy, a nonprofit organization that makes grants supporting EA causes. Some of the warnings were serious: sources say that MacAskill and Beckstead were repeatedly told that Bankman-Fried was untrustworthy, had inappropriate sexual relationships with subordinates, refused to implement standard business practices, and had been caught lying during his first months running Alameda, a crypto firm that was seeded by EA investors, staffed by EAs, and dedicating to making money that could be donat
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