Surely one obvious person with this responsibility was Nick Beckstead, who became President of the FTX Foundation in November 2021. That was the key period where EA partnered with FTX. Beckstead had long experience in grantmaking, credibility, and presumably incentive/ability to do due diligence. Seems clear to me from these podcasts that MacAskill (and to a lesser extent the more junior employees who joined later) deferred to Beckstead.

I understand that that impression/reaction. As I mentioned, the intention behind offering a bunch of specific and varied questions is that they might prompt reflection from different angles, different thoughts and memories, angles on it that provide new insight or that MacAskill finds more comfortable sharing - not that each would be responded to in forensic detail. 

"I'm not expecting that you'd answer every single one of these questions (there's a lot!), but my hope is that their variety might prompt reflections and recollections. I imagine It could be the case that you can't answer any of the questions below - perhaps you feel its Beckstead's story to tell and you don't want to tell it for him, or Beckstead is currently in law suits and legal jeopardy so this can't be discussed publicly. If so that's understandable."

Thanks for posting this. If I may I'll ask some more questions below about due diligence, as that's not a subject of your four reply-sections.

I'm not expecting that you'd answer every single one of these questions (there's a lot!), but my hope is that their variety might prompt reflections and recollections. I imagine It could be the case that you can't answer any of the questions below - perhaps you feel its Beckstead's story to tell and you don't want to tell it for him, or Beckstead is currently in law suits and legal jeopardy so this can't be discussed publicly. If so that's understandable.

But it would be great to hear more about this meeting in November/December 2021 with Beckstead and Bankman-Fried. (All quotes from Wei Dai's transcript, all bold text is highlighted by me.)

00:16:27 Will MacAskill

"But then by the end of 2021, so, you know things are opening up after the pandemic. And I go to North America to, you know, reconnect with a bunch of people. Sam at that point, by that point has put Nick Beckstead in charge of the his foundation. 

And so I meet up with Nick and with Sam in order to kind of discuss the strategy for the foundation and at that point it looks like, ohh, he's actually going to start scaling up his giving in a larger way earlier on and suggests that, you know, he's planning to give something like 100 million over the course of the next year and then aiming to scale up to giving many billions over the years to come.

At that point I, you know, start talking with Nick about strategy for the foundation, the sheer amount of money that he's planning to give just seems like, you know, getting that right seems enormously important from the perspective of the big problems in the world.

I'd worked with Nick for many years and felt like I was adding quite a lot of value in the conversations we were having. And so we discussed the idea of me, you know, becoming an advisor, like unpaid and part time to the foundation. We tried that out in about January of 2022 and then, you know, I had that role of advising the foundation or the Future Fund in particular over the course of 2022."

At that point, what due diligence had Beckstead done, what did he tell you, what questions did you ask, and what were the key considerations/evidence? (You have discussed Bankman-Fried's character extensively which is great, though unfortunately - as you highlight - its the least legible/transparent factor and has least predictive power!) Two key topics I'd love your recollections on are: 

1. how you weighed up/assessed the crypto industry in general; and
2. the specifics of the business in terms of corporate governance and culture.

1.  You imply several times that there's something particularly problematic about crypto (see below). Did you think that at the time? What were the key concerns here, and how were they discussed? Were your concerns about the industry in general, its unregulated nature, or the particular business model of the FTX exchange (mass consumer facing meaning that unsophisticated retail investors could lose their money)?

"Sam was very keen for everything just to get called FTX Foundation. You know, I thought it was a bad move to be tying the foundation to both, just to a company, but especially to a crypto company. In the same way that I think that if Open Philanthropy were called the Facebook Foundation or Osana Foundation, that would be a bad move."

"I also did some things to try and separate out the brands of effective altruism and FTX. This wasn't because of worries about Sam as a person. You know, that's not how I was thinking about things at the time, but more just for any company, let alone a crypto company. I wouldn't want effective altruism as an idea to be too closely."

"Yeah. I mean, I think initially I was apprehensive again, not because of any attitude to Sam, but just him being a crypto billionaire. You know, crypto has a very mixed reputation. Billionaires do not have a great reputation."

2. You have mentioned the board problem several times (see below). This strongly implies that in late 2021/early 2022 you didn't know that FTX didn't have a board and had atrocious governance. Is that the case? What about the other four team members of the FTX Foundation? Did any of you ask about this? Was this a concern that was discussed in late 2021/early 2022?

"But what would have helped a lot more, in my view, was knowing how poorly-governed the company was — there wasn’t a functional board, or a risk department, or a CFO."

"I'm definitely not claiming that like character plays no role, but I mean from what we've learned since the collapse just seemed like FTX had truly atrocious governance. I mean, I think I heard they didn't even have a board."

"There are some cases I think where it's just like wow, this is a bad this you know a bad person. But I think at least in in many cases, whereas I think there's some things like: Does this company have a board that are just they're very legible and very predictable"

On your second point, FHI had at least ~£10m sitting in the bank in 2020 (see below, from the report). So the fundraising freeze, while unusual, wasn't terminal. A rephrasing of your question is "What adminstrative and organisational problems at FHI could possibly have prompted the Faculty to take the unusual step of a hiring and fundraising freeze in 2020, and why could it not be resolved over the next two to three years?"

"Open Philanthropy became FHI’s most important funder, making two major grants: £1.6m in 2017, and £13.3m in 2018. Indeed, the donation behind this second grant was at the time the largest in the Faculty of Philosophy’s history (although, owing to limited faculty administrative capacity for hiring and the subsequent hiring freezes it imposed, a large part of this grant would remain unspent)"

The Macrostrategy Research Initiative was registered as a company in August 2023. Its Director is Toby Newberry ("Occupation: Chief of Staff"), who's been at FHI/GPI for a few years.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15054502

Fair point.

On the Clearer Thinking podcast MacAskill (in a tone of regret) discusses three things: 

1. Mentioning Bankman-Fried in podcasts and interviews as a role model; 
2. Bankman-Fried appearing on the 80,000 Hours podcast; and 
3. Feeling apprehensive for a bit about Bankman-Fried talking a lot about EA. See eg:

00:58:10 Spencer Greenberg

When you saw him being interviewed by really major media companies about EA. And seeing that a huge number of people were hearing about effective altruism for the first time through Sam's voice, how did that make you feel? Was that exciting to see you being pushed out there? Or were you kind of apprehensive because you wouldn't necessarily chosen him as the person to promote EA? Yeah. What was your feeling about it at the time?

00:58:28 Will MacAskill

Yeah. I mean, I think initially I was apprehensive again, not because of any attitude to Sam, but just him being a crypto billionaire. You know, crypto has a very mixed reputation. Billionaires do not have a great reputation. And then the thing that surprised me was just the coverage seemed so positive. The media were really like fawning over him. The pieces were just kind of uniformly uniformly, very positive. And that certainly kind of took away my apprehension. So it certainly wasn't the case that I was thinking. Oh, this is - like - terrible that Sam is becoming so famous and and and pushing against him.

So just avoiding those three things with any future billionaires would be good. 

1. Prominent spokespeople for the community (like MacAskill) shouldn't repeatedly highlight them as role models, 
2. They perhaps shouldn't be interviewed on popular EA podcasts like 80,000 Hours (as far as I can tell Moskovitz or Tuna have never been on); and 
3. The whole community, especially those at CEA or those that work professionaly in communications, should be wary if some billionaire starts talking a lot about EA in media interviews/puff-pieces, and shilling for their consumer-facing company in the same breath as promoting EA etc.

This is definitely do-able. As I noted, Moskovitz & Tuna and Buterin are large donors with a public platform, but are not the “face” of EA.

Thanks very much to both of you for having this difficult conversation, and handling it with such professionalism.

Cards on the table, I agree with MacAskill about character vs structure/governance. So to me the 30 minutes of trying to get inside Bankman-Fried's head seemed a little fruitless. Though I guess there's something fascinating about trying to get into bad people's heads.

I would have liked more questions about due diligence. MacAskill says that he and Bankman-Fried chatted in early 2021 and then again with Beckstead after the FTX Foundation. That's really useful information and context. But he didn't say more about, for example, what due diligence had been done by Beckstead, whether MacAskill did any further due diligence, what sort of questions he asked, or what the key considerations/evidence were.

For example, at some point MacAskill says "I heard they didn't even have a board" implying that he only found out after the FTX collapse. However, this seems like it should have been an obvious question to ask in late 2021 / early 2022. Indeed later he says the lack of a board in retrospect was a "very legible and predictable" signal. Similarly, MacAskill also says "if there'd been this discussion about Sam's character in 2021", which implies there wasn't much of a discussion. In general, I came away continuing to want to know a lot more about the questions and discussions that went into supporting the FTX Foundation in October-December 2021.

It seems very likely to me that Bankman-Fried, Nishad Singh and other FTX leaders would have lied to Beckstead and the rest of the FTX Foundation team, like MacAskill was lied to, and the employees/investors/media/regulators/etc were lied to. They would have portrayed FTX as having strong incentives to be the ' good guys as they intended to give away their money and wanted to be regulated'. But some due diligence signals are harder to fake.

I've made a first attempt at this here: To what extent & how did EA indirectly contribute to financial crime - and what can be done now? One attempt at a review

I'd highlight that I found taking quite a structured approach helpful: breaking things down chronologically, and trying to answer specific questions like what's the mechanism, how much did this contribute, and what's a concrete recommendation?

"I’ll suggest a framework for how that broader review might be conducted: for each topic the review could:

• Establish the details of EA involvement, 
• Indicate a mechanism for how this could have indirectly contributed to the eventual financial crime, 
• Provide some assessment of to what extent that mechanism may have indirectly contributed, and 
• Provide a concrete recommendation for what the EA community could do differently to prevent any recurrence.

I’ll also provide some preliminary thoughts below, as an indication of what could be done in the full review. One way to approach a review is chronological, covering eight touchstone or 'gate' moments:

1. Bankman-Fried starts earning to give
2. Alameda founding 
3. FTX founding
4. Early political donations through Bankman-Fried’s family
5. FTX Foundation and Future Fund founding
6. Bankman-Fried becomes a public face of EA
7. Whistleblowing

This may be too exhaustive or “self-flagellating” for some, but I think it can identify areas to improve and fix. As will become clear, I think that step 5, the founding of the FTX Foundation and Future Fund, is where the biggest questions are raised and where I make the most recommendations."

I've made a first attempt at this here: To what extent & how did EA indirectly contribute to financial crime - and what can be done now? One attempt at a review

I'd highlight that I found taking quite a structured approach helpful: breaking things down chronologically, and trying to answer specific questions like what's the mechanism, how much did this contribute, and what's a concrete recommendation?

"I’ll suggest a framework for how that broader review might be conducted: for each topic the review could:

• Establish the details of EA involvement, 
• Indicate a mechanism for how this could have indirectly contributed to the eventual financial crime, 
• Provide some assessment of to what extent that mechanism may have indirectly contributed, and 
• Provide a concrete recommendation for what the EA community could do differently to prevent any recurrence.

I’ll also provide some preliminary thoughts below, as an indication of what could be done in the full review. One way to approach a review is chronological, covering eight touchstone or 'gate' moments:

1. Bankman-Fried starts earning to give
2. Alameda founding 
3. FTX founding
4. Early political donations through Bankman-Fried’s family
5. FTX Foundation and Future Fund founding
6. Bankman-Fried becomes a public face of EA
7. Whistleblowing

This may be too exhaustive or “self-flagellating” for some, but I think it can identify areas to improve and fix. As will become clear, I think that step 5, the founding of the FTX Foundation and Future Fund, is where the biggest questions are raised and where I make the most recommendations."

To add - I strongly do not think MacAskill is the key figure here, which I take to be in step 5 'EA support for launching the FTX Foundation'. The key decisions were taken - and the (presumably defective) due dilligence was conducted - in and around October 2021, ahead of the re-launch of the FTX Foundation in early November 2021.

MacAskill didn't get listed publicly as involved until 3-4 months later, only in an unpaid capacity, had little due diligence/grantmaking experience, and was presumably busy with the writing and publicity for What We Owe The Future.  

I think it would be important and useful to hear more from Beckstead about that period and those decisions, but he presumably faces even more legal risk than MacAskill, and has much less experience talking and writing publicly.