If it was just that (which is the situation Open Philanthropy and other funders are in) I’d agree this was expected with a downturn. Some things that would have made sense to fund no longer do, some projects get wound down.
But that’s not what happened with the FTX Future Fund’s grants. Committed grants aren’t going to be paid out, and and people are generally trying to avoid spending any additional money from grants that were already paid out. Organizations that thought they had a year of funding confirmed now have no money, and are scrambling to find other funding.
It was a bigger run-up boom than usual, and a bigger drop when it happened. A lot of EA charities were hit extra-hard because SBF concentrated the boom into a single point of failure, which failed spectacularly. SBF made it a much sharper bust by failing to stop the grants much earlier, when it started to look like the risk was coming (he instead used customer funds to make more, riskier bets, and perhaps to prop up his other interests). But there was no path where that funding actually occurred.
If you think this is different from other businesses and personal finance, I’d have you take it up with the tens of thousands laid off in the last few weeks, and the millions who are worried about it and are seeing much worse prospects in the coming years.
If it was just that (which is the situation Open Philanthropy and other funders are in) I’d agree this was expected with a downturn. Some things that would have made sense to fund no longer do, some projects get wound down.
But that’s not what happened with the FTX Future Fund’s grants. Committed grants aren’t going to be paid out, and and people are generally trying to avoid spending any additional money from grants that were already paid out. Organizations that thought they had a year of funding confirmed now have no money, and are scrambling to find other funding.
It was a bigger run-up boom than usual, and a bigger drop when it happened. A lot of EA charities were hit extra-hard because SBF concentrated the boom into a single point of failure, which failed spectacularly. SBF made it a much sharper bust by failing to stop the grants much earlier, when it started to look like the risk was coming (he instead used customer funds to make more, riskier bets, and perhaps to prop up his other interests). But there was no path where that funding actually occurred.
If you think this is different from other businesses and personal finance, I’d have you take it up with the tens of thousands laid off in the last few weeks, and the millions who are worried about it and are seeing much worse prospects in the coming years.