This is a special post for quick takes by Elizabeth. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Comment Permalink
"Bad optics" usually means an action is violating some rule.
Sometimes the rule is good, and the problem is that you are an idiot violating a good rule.
Sometimes that rule is bad and it's good to break it. There's a lot of nobility in doing what you believe is right and accepting the consequences. And there's a lot of good in a culture that does what they think is right without concern for public opinion, even if this comes with a bunch of offputting stuff that makes their job harder.
Sometimes the rule is good, but if people paid enough attention they would realize it does not apply in your particular case. But people don't owe you infinite attention. Depending on the specifics it can be fair for people to round you to scenario 1 and proceed accordingly. "But I'm right" is not a defense in this case even to people who agree with you that your case is an exception, in part because disregarding the rule weakens it, and that's bad because we've agreed the rule is good. So sometimes you should obey a rule even if you know for sure it doesn't apply, to stay legibly good to others.
For example, I think "don't put financial crime felons in charge of large amounts of money" is a good rule. It's not a perfect rule- some felons learned their moral lesson, or just aren't going to have the same opportunity to steal. But overall we as a society are better off with that rule, and I'm comfortable with the collateral damage of people who commit financial crimes having worse jobs later.
A lot of the criticism of Austin Chen hiring Caroline Ellison has focused on the fact that people will judge EA for it, and Austin's defense has been that she's really good at the job and has learned her lesson, with an implicit claim that people the people judging EA for this hire are wrong. But that's insufficient- this is scenario 3, and you need to prove not only that she is an exception, but that detecting this is sufficiently cheap. He hasn't tried to do that, and I don't think it's possible. So while I'm normally disgusted by EA calls to optimize for optics, in this case I think they're right.
5
5
3
1
1Showing 3 of 67 replies (Click to show all)
1
6
I see. Maybe there's some interesting philosophical disagreement behind our respective attitudes around what to do when you are a beneficiary of an action; to be very very exaggerated, my attitudes seems more towards "duty, loyalty, obligation, consider how to repay your benefactors" and yours are more "neutrality, impartiality, universalizability, consider what rules society should adopt". Obviously I think both attitudes have their time & place.
I'd characterize a chunk of my recent work as stemming from the former motivation. For example, I/Manifund have hosted the last two rounds of ACX Grants at no charge and some months of work from my side, because I know how important ACX Grants round 1 was in the creation of Manifold. Similarly, I feel strongly about promoting regranting as a concept partly because regranting was how Manifold got its seed investment. I run Surplus, not because I've been in YC myself, but partly because PG's essays have been formative for how I operate my projects. And obviously, I've been much more consistently willing to work with people who have "FTX/Future Fund/Foundation" on their resume -- Caroline, but also again Ross Rheingans-Yoo, Joel Becker, Nishad Singh among others. (But in all these cases, I'm also trying to ensure that the work or collaboration can stand on its own merits.)
All this is to say that I think it's reasonable and honorable to express concerns about people/orgs you've benefited from, but, also, maybe about as important to emphasize the degree to which you benefited from their actions, because the beneficiaries are best placed to describe what the impact of those actions were, compared to neutral third parties.
---
Anyways, I'm trying to write more in general about both my viewpoints and my history of actions so that, among other things, you and others will have a good picture of eg whether I am really 90th percentile to lose Manifund funds in an irreplaceable/harmful way. Let me know if there are any cruxes or q
11
People were unwilling to work with Ross Rheingans-Yoo?! People were unwilling to work with Joel Becker?!
Absurd. Obviously neither of them did anything wrong whatsoever. Nor did anyone else at the satellite orgs.
17
Glad I made at least some sense!
[...]
I am saying Austin is in my 90th percentile for people likely to do this. I think this still leaves him unlikely to do this, but yeah, I am tracking it as a risk that seems higher for him than most people.
[...]
I don't know Caroline well. In general the history of financial fraud strongly suggests that people who previously committed financial fraud have a much higher likelihood of doing so again. You might have special information about Caroline that I do not have that give you appropriate confidence that this base-rate doesn't apply to Caroline, but it's at least not clear to me, from where I am standing.
[...]
I appreciate you sharing your take, I do think it's valuable evidence. I do discount it a good amount given your mixed track record, but not completely.