Luca Righetti 🔸
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In case it's useful, Founders Pledge wrote a report last year [November, 2021] that in large part is focused on the implications of Bezos' climate spending (Navigating the changing landscape of climate philanthropy):
Climate philanthropy by foundations was at roughly $2b last year and is poised to increase significantly, probably almost doubling this year, with large new pledges (such as Bezos’ Earth Fund) coming into effect.
It gives breakdowns by regions and sectors based on Climate Works' 2021 funding trends and adding on top in-house estimates of Bezos' commitments.
Climate Works has also recently published its update on 2022 funding trends [October, 2022]. Key takeaway:
In recent years, foundation funding for climate change mitigation has more than tripled, growing from $900 million in 2015 to more than $3 billion in 2021 (Figure 3). Between 2020 and 2021 alone, it increased by more than 40%, driven in part by the arrival of major new donors such as the Bezos Earth Fund
Another Bloomberg article to add context [original; non-paywalled].
(As an outsider, setting FTX+Alameda=$2 seems crazy low? But asset breakdown here seems useful)
[SBF] looked poised to leverage his fortune — $26 billion at its peak — to shape the world, donating millions to Democrats and promising that one day he’d give it all away to political causes and charity.
Bankman-Fried’s 53% stake in FTX was worth about $6.2 billion before Tuesday’s takeover, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, based on that fundraising round and the subsequent performance of publicly traded crypto companies.
FTX wasn’t Bankman-Fried’s most valuable asset, though. That was his crypto trading house, Alameda Research, which contributed $7.4 billion to his personal fortune.
The Bloomberg wealth index assumes existing FTX investors, including Bankman-Fried, will be completely wiped out by Binance’s bailout, and that the root of the exchange’s problems stemmed from Alameda. As a result, both FTX and Alameda are given a $1 value.
That leaves SBF’s net worth at about $1 billion, down from $15.6 billion heading into Tuesday. The 94% loss is the biggest one-day collapse ever among billionaires tracked by Bloomberg.
Crypto news site CoinDesk reported on Friday that a token issued by FTX, FTT, made up about a quarter of Alameda’s $14.6 billion in assets. Another item, labeled “FTT collateral,” accounted for $2.16 billion.
This was a really interesting read, thank you for putting together such an extensive resource! I've also been thinking about how to apply complexity economics to EA and great to hear others are into this.
Adding to the resources:
- Doyne Farmer is currently writing a book on Complexity Economics and you can read the introduction here. I also imagine it will draw a lot from this talk.
- Granovetter's (1985) "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness" is a great paper, which is what led me to be interested in network theory and complexity stuff
- INET Oxford / Oxford Martin School had a programme trying to apply complexity science to systemic risks and uncertainty, which might have lessons for GCRs. They also are doing a fair bit of work explicitly on climate change
Thanks for such a great write-up!
The link suggests that the estimated study completion date was April 30, 2023. I couldn't find preliminary results anywhere but I found a talk about it here. It noted that they don't expect Phase 2 –when they actually measure patient outcomes– to end until June 2025 and to only begin their statistical analysis then. (I think to ensure the study is still blinded?)
So still seems like some time to go before we hear about the results! Curious if you think that's different.
(The linked talk was part of the 1st International Congress on Far-UVC Science and Technology, who have uploaded all their videos on their website. A lot of them see very interesting for more details!)