I own a company that's closely related to EA. We've been vocal about that relationship and actively acquanting and educating our customers about EA. Almost all of our customers and employees are non-EA's, we operate B2C and we are for-profit.
I no longer think it's in the best interest of my company, and its impact and future survival odds, to have a visual relationship with EA. I do continue to believe its very good to acquaint and educate people about EA principles, but I just think it's too risky associating with it publicly now. I have already been worried about the optics of longtermism (although I'm a longtermist), flying students to conferences and having them stay in fancy hotels (although I believe that to be high EV) and everything immoral Elon Musk does in the name of longtermism, but I could deal with and defend that. However, FTX seemingly plagueing fraud to move more money to effective causes is something I know I won't be able to defend (even when that's high EV), and seems like a net-negative thing to be associated with.
I realize that asking this question might be bad because it could persuade other people and companies to be silent EA's. I also think for some that might be the highest EV course of action.
I'm not new to this forum, but I've chosen to post this anonymously. I look forward to reading your arguments around this question.
Yeah, I think this question is pretty interesting and worthwhile pondering about at least a little bit.
I think that one could take the perspective that the whole FTX situation is presenting EA in a bad light BECAUSE FTX has had a very visible connection to EA with most people (including me) being very enthusiastic about this. I think it’s safe to say that few were considering potential downsides of such associations. It seems like this whole situation can become a watershed moment for the whole community to look at the sources of where “our” money is coming from more critically. Maybe we need new vetting mechanisms or at least be more careful about “praising” large donors.
It’s gonna be interesting to see how this develops!