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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   24011 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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Annals of Great Friday-at-6:00PM Announcements: "Caroline Ellison Has Joined Manifund."

For those needing a refresher, Caroline Ellison was Sam Bankman-Fried's lieutenant in charge at Alameda Research, the hedge fund he used to embezzle FTX customer funds. She pleaded guilty to felony wire fraud and conspiracy charges. Manifund is an effective altruism grantmaking and infrastructure provider spun-off from Manifold Markets.

I think this is definitive evidence that no, the Effective Altruism community did not properly internalize the lessons from the FTX crisis. This is going to get a lot of bad press, and it will be easy to criticize the decision as bad optics, but this is not simply "bad optics". Aella's Twitter feed is bad optics. This is bad practice. It is bad practice to hire people with bad decisionmaking records for decisionmaking roles. It is bad practice to establish a norm of soft-landings for people culpable in major scandals.

I had sort of expected Caroline to remain a semi-public figure associated with EA/AI/rationalism after her release from prison, but I didn't expect her to get hired for a financial infrastructure job. She should be blogging for pennies on Substack or working in the bednet mines.

The thing with people who have a toxic past is like, can't you just not hire them? I'm sure there are other people out there who are just as qualified who aren't nationally famous criminals.

I feel like there must be some kind of other angle. Some kind of favors or backroom dealings that is securing her this position, and probably the fact it may also be a sinecure.

His answers to queries about it were all primarily "I like her, my kid likes her, I owe favours to FTX from back in the day" and not "as a business decision this is good sense because X, Y and Z" (he then gave a second set of 'this is why it's a good idea' reasons). Not very inspiring of confidence.

This is just my own personal view and I'm probably as wrong as a clock striking ninety, but I get some kind of aura of "she is now very grateful to me for this second chance which nobody else would give her and that obligation of gratitude is going to be very useful to me going forward" from the whole thing. I do think Ellison is vulnerable in that she's radioactive right now, she probably could only get hired on as low-level admin in a one-man-band operation in Podunk, and if she gets on the wrong side of Chen she could get booted from Manifund and that's her only new chance gone up in smoke. So she has every incentive not to get on his wrong side, and unfortunately that includes going "yes sir no sir three bags full sir" if he ever expresses a view on "Don't you think that maybe we should do A not B? Just think about it, Caroline, but I'm not saying you have to decide that, just that I personally feel it's the right choice" when it comes to her research on grant-making and the rest of it.

I'm not saying this is what is going on, just that the perception is that she now owes him a big favour (and seems to be well aware of it*) and that the view formed of her from previous actions is not reassuring that she would have the confidence to say "No" when or if that favour gets called in.

*From Chen's Substack announcement:

But I’m very grateful to Austin for giving me a second chance, and judging me on my current work performance rather than my past. I feel very lucky not only to have a job, but to be working somewhere that I think is doing great work and has a mission I believe in.

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