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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"
By Nathan Young
Published: 2023-03-15
* 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 donated to EA causes.
> MacAskill declined to answer a list of detailed questions from TIME for this story. “**An independent investigation has been commissioned to look into these issues; I don’t want to front-run or undermine that process by discussing my own recollections publicly**,” he wrote in an email. “I look forward to the results of the investigation and hope to be able to respond more fully after then.” Citing the same investigation, Beckstead also declined to answer detailed questions. Karnofsky did not respond to a list of questions from TIME. Through a lawyer, Bankman-Fried also declined to respond to a list of detailed written questions. The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) did not reply to multiple requests to explain why Bankman-Fried left the board in 2019. A spokesperson for Effective Ventures, the parent organization of CEA, cited the independent investigation, launched in Dec. 2022, and declined to comment while it was ongoing.
> In a span of less than nine months in 2022, **Bankman-Fried’s FTX Future Fund—helmed by Beck
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