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"FTX's 'Effective Altruism' Future Fund Team Resigns" (Nov 10, 2022)
webThis article documents the fallout of the FTX collapse on AI safety and EA philanthropy, relevant to understanding funding landscape disruptions and governance risks in the AI safety ecosystem circa 2022.
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Summary
The leadership team of FTX's Future Fund, a major EA-aligned philanthropic initiative funded by Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned en masse following the collapse of FTX in November 2022. The team expressed shock and distress over the alleged misuse of customer funds, noting their grants and pledges may not be honored. This event marked a significant crisis for EA-aligned AI safety funding.
Key Points
- •Future Fund team resigned citing inability to continue work amid FTX's collapse and alleged misuse of customer funds
- •The Future Fund had committed hundreds of millions of dollars to EA and AI safety causes, much of which may not be fulfilled
- •Team members expressed they were unaware of and deeply troubled by the alleged financial misconduct at FTX
- •The collapse severely damaged EA's reputation and disrupted AI safety funding pipelines dependent on FTX-linked capital
- •Event raised concerns about concentration risk in AI safety funding and the dangers of relying on a single major donor
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| Page | Type | Quality |
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| FTX Collapse: Lessons for EA Funding Resilience | Concept | 78.0 |
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FTX's 'Effective Altruism' Future Fund Team Resigns Finance Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email FTX's 'Effective Altruism' Future Fund Team Resigns
In an open letter, the team said it was unable to perform their work or process grants and have "fundamental questions" about the legitimacy and integrity of business operations.
By Sam Reynolds Updated May 9, 2023, 4:02 a.m. Published Nov 11, 2022, 3:45 a.m. Make preferred on (Nas Daily/YouTube) The team behind the FTX Future Fund, one of the exchange giant's philanthropic arms, resigned on Thursday in an open letter, posted to Twitter by journalist Teddy Schleifer.
The group wrote that it was "devastated that it looks like there are many committed grants that the Future Fund will be unable to honor."
"We are so sorry that it has come to this," the letter said, adding: "To the extent that the leadership of FTX may have engaged in deception or dishonesty, we condemn that behavior in the strongest possible terms. We believe that being a good actor in the world means striving to act with honesty and integrity."
The decision adds to the fallout from FTX's dramatic liquidity problems. FTX fell under scrutiny last week after CoinDesk reported that the balance sheet of its sister company, Alameda Research was overly weighted with FTX's FTT token.
FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has tried to brand himself as the world's " most generous billionaire " and pledged to donate a significant amount of his wealth and make significant corporate donations. FTX ran two philanthropic arms.
The FTX Foundation, a traditional charity, has donated to health, pollution and climate initiatives. The FTX Future Fund has supported moonshot projects in fields like biosecurity and AI safety focused on "long-term improvements for humankind." In March, FTX said it was going to deploy $1 billion through the Future Fund at a rate of $100 million a year.
During the bull market, some thought that Web3 wealth would power a new generation of philanthropy , similar to how Web2 spurred the creation of organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bankman-Fried has seen his personal wealth plummet by nearly 94% amid the rapid devaluation of FTX and FTT, and vanished from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index earlier this week. He might be worth even less now, given how one prominent VC that invested in FTX marked down its investment value to zero.
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