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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ajeya Cotra.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ajeya Cotra.md
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---
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category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
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tags:
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- Person
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- EffectiveAltruism
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- OpenPhilanthropy
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- AISafety
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- UCBerkeley
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alias:
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- Ajeya Cotra
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summary: "Berkeley-trained effective altruist who joined Open Philanthropy in 2016, led its technical AI-risk grantmaking, sat on the board of its grantee Redwood Research, and later joined METR's technical staff."
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relations:
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
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role: "research analyst from July 2016; later senior program officer, Potential Risks from Advanced AI"
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start: 2016-07
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fn: 1
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- type: founded
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with: "[[Effective Altruists of Berkeley]]"
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role: "student group founder"
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fn: 1
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created: 2026-09-23
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updated: 2026-09-23
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---
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Ajeya Cotra is an AI-risk researcher who joined [[Open Philanthropy]] in July 2016, was still on its staff in November 2023, and later joined the technical staff of the AI evaluation nonprofit [[METR]].[^1][^2] She holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from the [[University of California, Berkeley]], where, according to her Open Philanthropy biography, she "founded the Effective Altruists of Berkeley student group and taught a course on effective altruism."[^1]
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### Open Philanthropy
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Cotra joined Open Philanthropy in July 2016 as a research analyst. Her archived biography of November 2023 gave her title as senior program officer for "Potential Risks from Advanced AI" and stated that she "leads Open Phil's grantmaking on technical research that could help to clarify and reduce catastrophic risks from advanced AI," conducting "analysis on threat models (ways that advanced AI could cause catastrophic harm) and technical agendas." Earlier she had worked "on estimating when transformative AI might be developed, estimating the expected returns to funding across cause areas related to global catastrophic risk, and thinking about how worldview diversification could be implemented in budget allocation."[^1]
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### Redwood Research
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[[Redwood Research]], the [[Berkeley]] alignment nonprofit announced in October 2021 with a board of [[Nate Thomas]], [[Paul Christiano]] and Open Philanthropy's co-chief executive [[Holden Karnofsky]], received 9.42 million dollars from Open Philanthropy in November 2021, 10.7 million in August 2022, 5.3 million in June 2023, 1.1 million in May 2025 and 36 million in November 2025.[^3][^4] Redwood's return for 2023 listed Cotra as a director, alongside Thomas as board chair and [[Buck Shlegeris]] as chief executive, after Christiano had left the board "thru 6/23" and Karnofsky "thru 11/23." Its return for 2024 listed her as a director "thru 8/24."[^3] In an April 2023 critique of Redwood posted on LessWrong under the pseudonym "Omega.", the authors quoted Cotra, identified with Open Philanthropy, among those who had endorsed Redwood at its launch, describing it as "experienced and competent at software engineering and engineering management," and wrote that "a Redwood board member is married to a different OP grantmaker."[^5]
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### METR
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METR, which began as ARC Evals inside Christiano's [[Alignment Research Center]] before spinning off in December 2023, lists Cotra among its technical staff, not among its advisers or board. It states that it does not accept funding from AI companies and does not name Open Philanthropy among its funders.[^2]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Open Philanthropy, "Ajeya Cotra," team biography, archived November 11, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20231111135945/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/ajeya-cotra/
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[^2]: METR, "About," retrieved September 23, 2026, https://metr.org/about ; METR, "ARC Evals is now METR," December 4, 2023. https://metr.org/blog/2023-12-04-metr-announcement/
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[^3]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Redwood Research Group Inc," EIN 87-1702255, Form 990 Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2021 to 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/871702255
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[^4]: Thomas, Nate. "We're Redwood Research, we do applied alignment research, AMA." LessWrong, October 6, 2021, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qHvHvBR8L6oycnMXe/we-re-redwood-research-we-do-applied-alignment-research-ama ; Open Philanthropy, "Redwood Research, General Support," November 2021, archived August 11, 2022, http://web.archive.org/web/20220811081927/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support/ ; "Redwood Research, General Support (2022)," archived November 6, 2022, http://web.archive.org/web/20221106183007/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support-2/ ; "Redwood Research, General Support (2023)," archived September 12, 2023, http://web.archive.org/web/20230912095528/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support-2023/ ; "Redwood Research, AI Safety Research Collaborations," May 2025, archived August 10, 2025, http://web.archive.org/web/20250810094119/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-ai-safety-research-collaborations/ ; Smith, Ben. "Coefficient Giving's CEO on Silicon Valley's $40 billion philanthropy boom." *Semafor,* September 3, 2026. https://www.semafor.com/article/09/03/2026/coefficient-givings-ceo-on-silicon-valley-40-billion-philanthropy-boom
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[^5]: Omega. "Critiques of prominent AI safety labs: Redwood Research." LessWrong, April 17, 2023, linkpost of the EA Forum original. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SuZ6Guuos7CjfwRQb/critiques-of-prominent-ai-safety-labs-redwood-research
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53
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ayub Khan.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ayub Khan.md
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---
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category: "Political Figure"
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tags:
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- Person
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- Pakistan
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- Military
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- BCCI
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- MilitaryRule
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alias:
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- Mohammad Ayub Khan
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- Muhammad Ayub Khan
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- Field Marshal Ayub Khan
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- General Ayub Khan
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summary: "Pakistani field marshal and president whose confidant I. I. Chundrigar chaired Agha Hasan Abedi's United Bank and whose information minister later became publisher of BCCI's magazine South."
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died: 1974-04-20
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location: "Islamabad, Pakistan"
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created: 2026-09-23
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updated: 2026-09-23
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relations:
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- type: member_of
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with: "[[British Indian Army]]"
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role: "commissioned officer"
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start: 1928
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fn: 1
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- type: head_of
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with: "[[Pakistan Army]]"
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role: "first Pakistani commander-in-chief"
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start: 1951-01
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fn: 1
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- type: head_of
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with: "[[Pakistan]]"
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role: "president"
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fn: 1
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---
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Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan was a [[Pakistan|Pakistani]] army officer who became the first Pakistani commander-in-chief of the [[Pakistan Army]] in January 1951 and later ruled the country as president. [[Agha Hasan Abedi]], later founder of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI), cultivated his government from the founding of [[United Bank Limited|United Bank]] in 1959.[^1][^2]
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### Army
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Ayub Khan was commissioned as an officer in the [[British Indian Army]] in 1928. In January 1951 he was appointed the first Pakistani commander-in-chief of the army.[^1]
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### United Bank and BCCI
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When United Bank was formed in 1959, Abedi appointed as chairman of its board [[I. I. Chundrigar]], a former prime minister whom the [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]] called "a close confidante of Pakistani's then current prime minister, Ayub Khan." The report continued: "Abedi maintained close ties to Khan's government, later hiring General Khan's minister of information to become the 'publisher' of a BCCI promotional magazine, 'South.'" The report did not name the minister. After the separation of [[Bangladesh|East Pakistan]], when [[Zulfikar Ali Bhutto]] came to power, the report said Abedi became "just as cozy with Pakistani 'socialist' Ali Bhutto, Khan's ideological opposite."[^2]
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### Death
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Ayub Khan died of a heart attack at his residence in [[Islamabad]] at 12:15 in the afternoon of April 20, 1974, aged 67. He had suffered from heart trouble for over eight years, "since the last days of his rule as President," had gone to the [[United States]] for an operation about two and a half years earlier, and had been admitted to the Combined Military Hospital in [[Rawalpindi]] about a month before his death. His wife, Begum Ayub Khan, and a daughter, Begum Nasim Aurangzeb, were at his bedside; his youngest son, Tahir Ayub, who reached the house ten minutes later, said that "he was speaking quite all right till almost the end and did not complain of any pain." His body was taken to his ancestral village, Rehana, for burial.[^1]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: "From The Past Pages Of Dawn: 1974: Fifty Years Ago: Ayub passes away," *Dawn*, April 21, 2024 (reprinting a 1974 dispatch of the Dawn Islamabad Bureau). https://www.dawn.com/news/1828743
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[^2]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI," section "Abedi As Pakistani Political Paymaster" (citing testimony of Masihur Rahman, S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 1, p. 540). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm
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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Brendan Bordelon.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Brendan Bordelon.md
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---
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category: "Authors & Journalists"
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tags:
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- Person
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- Journalist
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- Politico
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- ArtificialIntelligence
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- OpenPhilanthropy
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summary: "Politico technology reporter, previously at National Journal, Morning Consult, National Review and the Daily Caller, who in 2023 reported on Open Philanthropy's network of funded AI policy fellows."
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location: "Washington, D.C., USA"
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relations:
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Politico]]"
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start: 2022
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fn: 2
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[National Journal]]"
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role: "technology correspondent"
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start: 2017
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end: 2022
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fn: 1
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Morning Consult]]"
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end: 2017
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fn: 1
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[National Review]]"
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role: "political reporter"
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fn: 1
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[The Daily Caller]]"
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fn: 1
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- type: investigated
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with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
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start: 2023
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fn: 5
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created: 2026-09-23
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updated: 2026-09-23
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---
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Brendan Bordelon is an American technology policy reporter at *[[Politico]]*. A native of the [[San Francisco Bay Area]] and a graduate of the [[University of California, Riverside]], he worked at *[[The Daily Caller]]*, for two years as a political reporter at *[[National Review]]*, and at [[Morning Consult]], covering technology and cybersecurity policy, before [[National Journal]] hired him as technology correspondent from March 27, 2017.[^1] He also holds a master's degree from [[George Washington University]].[^2]
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### Politico
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Bordelon joined Politico on January 25, 2022 to write the *Morning Tech* newsletter.[^2] In January 2023 the global technology editor, [[Steve Heuser]], named him "Tech Influence reporter," covering the industry's influence on politics and policy.[^3] In September 2026 he was one of four authors, with [[Calder McHugh]], [[Christine Mui]] and [[Sam Sutton]], of the newsletter of Politico's new technology policy unit, Decoded.[^4]
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### Reporting on Open Philanthropy
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On October 13, 2023 Bordelon reported on the policy fellows funded by [[Open Philanthropy]], writing that the [[Horizon Institute for Public Service]] was "a nonprofit that Open Philanthropy effectively created in 2022," that Horizon fellows worked in the offices of Senators [[Martin Heinrich]], [[Mike Rounds]] and [[Todd Young]], and that the [[Center for Security and Emerging Technology]] was "funded almost entirely by Open Philanthropy." He described [[Jason Matheny]] of the [[RAND Corporation]] as "a luminary in the effective altruist community."[^5] On December 15, 2023 he reported on RAND's part in [[Joe Biden]]'s executive order on AI.[^6] *[[Semafor]]* reported in December 2025 that Open Philanthropy had been "bothered by media coverage of it, in particular a series of critical stories from Politico."[^7]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Roush, Chris. "National Journal hires Bordelon as tech reporter." *Talking Biz News,* March 20, 2017. https://talkingbiznews.com/they-talk-biz-news/national-journal-hires-bordelon-as-tech-reporter/
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[^2]: Ahmed, Mariam. "Bordelon to join Politico to anchor 'Morning Tech' newsletter." *Talking Biz News,* January 7, 2022. https://talkingbiznews.com/they-talk-biz-news/bordelon-to-join-politico-to-anchor-morning-tech-newsletter/
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[^3]: Roush, Chris. "Politico names Ives its deputy tech editor, Bordelon its tech influence reporter." *Talking Biz News,* January 7, 2023. https://talkingbiznews.com/media-news/politico-names-ives-its-deputy-tech-editor-bordelon-its-tech-influence-reporter/
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[^4]: Roush, Chris. "Politico launches Decoded, a tech policy coverage initiative." *Talking Biz News,* September 16, 2026. https://talkingbiznews.com/media-news/politico-launches-decoded-a-tech-policy-coverage-initiative/
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[^5]: Bordelon, Brendan. "How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington." *Politico,* October 13, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20250902172514/https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/13/open-philanthropy-funding-ai-policy-00121362
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[^6]: Bordelon, Brendan. "Think tank tied to tech billionaires played key role in Biden's AI order." *Politico,* December 15, 2023, archived February 11, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260211112614/https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/15/billionaire-backed-think-tank-played-key-role-in-bidens-ai-order-00132128
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[^7]: Tani, Max. "AI critics funded AI coverage at top newsrooms." *Semafor,* December 7, 2025. https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2025/ai-critics-funded-ai-coverage-at-top-newsrooms
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66
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dennis DeConcini.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dennis DeConcini.md
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---
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category: "Political Figure"
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tags:
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- Person
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- Senator
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- Arizona
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- KeatingFive
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- SavingsAndLoan
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- BCCI
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- Intelligence
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alias:
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- Dennis Webster DeConcini
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- Dennis Deconcini
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- Senator DeConcini
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summary: "Democratic senator from Arizona from 1977 to 1995, one of the Keating Five, and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in the 103rd Congress."
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born: 1937-05-08
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location: "Tucson, Arizona"
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created: 2026-09-23
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updated: 2026-09-23
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relations:
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- type: member_of
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with: "[[United States Senate]]"
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role: "Democratic senator from Arizona"
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start: 1977-01-03
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end: 1995-01-03
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fn: 1
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- type: head_of
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with: "[[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]]"
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role: "chairman, 103rd Congress"
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start: 1993-01-03
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end: 1995-01-03
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fn: 1
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- type: investigated
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with: "[[Senate Ethics Committee]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "Keating Five inquiry; conduct found to give the appearance of being improper"
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end: 1991-02
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fn: 3
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---
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Dennis Webster DeConcini was a Democratic [[United States Senate|United States senator]] from [[Arizona]] from 1977 to 1995. He was one of the five senators who met federal bank regulators on behalf of [[Charles Keating]]'s [[Lincoln Savings and Loan]], and he chaired the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] in his last Congress.[^1][^2]
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### Early Career
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DeConcini was born in [[Tucson]], Pima County, on May 8, 1937, and attended public schools in Tucson and [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]]. He graduated from the [[University of Arizona]] in 1959 and from its law school in 1963, and served in the [[United States Army]] from 1959 to 1960 and the Army Reserve from 1960 to 1967. He was admitted to the Arizona bar in 1963 and practised in Tucson, was a member of the Arizona governor's staff from 1965 to 1967, and was Pima County attorney from 1973 to 1976.[^1]
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### Senate
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He was elected to the Senate in 1976, reelected in 1982 and 1988, and served from January 3, 1977, to January 3, 1995. He did not run in 1994. In the 103rd Congress, from 1993 to 1995, he was chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence.[^1]
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### Keating Five
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Keating and his associates contributed 1.3 million dollars to the campaigns and favoured political causes of five senators, [[Alan Cranston]], DeConcini, [[John Glenn]], [[Donald W. Riegle Jr.|Donald Riegle]] and [[John McCain]], most of it while the [[Federal Home Loan Bank Board]] was investigating Lincoln. All but Riegle met the bank board's chairman, [[Edwin Gray]], on Keating's behalf on April 2, 1987, and all five met a week later with four regulators from [[San Francisco]] who were in charge of the Lincoln examination. The government seized the thrift, based in Irvine, California, in April 1989.[^2]
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In February 1991 the [[Senate Ethics Committee]] divided on party lines over four of the five. According to congressional sources, its three Democrats, the chairman [[Howell Heflin]], [[David Pryor]] and [[Terry Sanford]], wanted DeConcini, Riegle, Glenn and McCain treated alike, possibly through letters of criticism, while its three Republicans, [[Warren Rudman]], [[Trent Lott]] and [[Jesse Helms]], wanted McCain and Glenn dismissed; the committee's special counsel, Robert Bennett, had reportedly advised in a confidential report of September 1990 that there was no evidence Glenn and McCain had broken Senate rules.[^2] At the end of the 14-month investigation the committee concluded that Cranston may have committed major ethics violations and that no action was needed against the other four. It found that DeConcini's and Riegle's actions gave the appearance of being improper, and that Glenn and McCain had "exercised poor judgment."[^3]
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### BCCI
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In early 1990, after the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]], several members of Congress criticized the plea agreement as too lenient. According to the [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]], "Documents obtained by the Subcommittee show that Barcella met with Senator Dennis Deconcini, one of the critics of the plea bargain, in an effort to persuade him that BCCI was not the corrupt institution that he and others had claimed." [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|Lawrence Barcella]], a former federal prosecutor, was then coordinating BCCI's defense. The report records no other contact between DeConcini and BCCI or its lawyers.[^4]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: "DeCONCINI, Dennis Webster (1937-)," *Biographical Directory of the United States Congress* (Retro edition), archived October 1, 2021. http://web.archive.org/web/20211001181614/https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=d000185
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[^2]: "Panel Split on Punishing Keating 5," Associated Press, in the *Roanoke Times*, February 8, 1991, p. A-2. https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1991/rt9102/910208/02080761.htm
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[^3]: "No Wrist-Slap for the Keating Five," *Deseret News*, March 1, 1991. https://www.deseret.com/1991/3/1/18908149/no-wrist-slap-for-the-keating-five/
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[^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 17, "BCCI's Lawyers and Lobbyists." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/17law.htm
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61
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Greg Brockman.md
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61
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Greg Brockman.md
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---
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category: "Technologists"
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tags:
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- Person
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- OpenAI
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- SuperPAC
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- MAGAInc
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- LeadingTheFuture
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alias:
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- Greg Brockman
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- Gregory Brockman
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summary: "OpenAI cofounder and first chief technology officer who quit when removed as board chairman in November 2023, returned as president, and with Anna Brockman gave 50 million dollars to two political committees in 2025."
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location: "San Francisco, California"
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relations:
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- type: founded
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with: "[[OpenAI]]"
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role: "cofounder and founding chief technology officer"
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start: 2015-12
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fn: 1
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[OpenAI]]"
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role: "president"
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fn: 5
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- type: funded
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with: "[[MAGA Inc.]]"
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role: "12.5 million dollars"
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start: 2025-09-12
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fn: 10
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created: 2026-09-23
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updated: 2026-09-23
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---
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Greg Brockman is a cofounder and the president of [[OpenAI]], the [[San Francisco]] artificial-intelligence company. When OpenAI was announced as a nonprofit laboratory on December 11, 2015, he was among the backers of its one-billion-dollar funding pledge, with [[Elon Musk]], [[Sam Altman]], [[Reid Hoffman]], [[Jessica Livingston]], [[Peter Thiel]], [[Amazon Web Services]] and [[Infosys]], and he became its chief technology officer, with Musk and Altman as co-chairs and [[Ilya Sutskever]] as chief scientist.[^1][^2]
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### The 2023 Board Crisis
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On November 17, 2023, OpenAI announced that Altman would leave as chief executive and the board, and that Brockman would step down as chairman of the board while remaining at the company. The directors who acted were Sutskever, [[Adam D'Angelo]], [[Tasha McCauley]] and [[Helen Toner]].[^3] Brockman quit instead.[^4] Microsoft's chief executive, [[Satya Nadella]], announced on November 20 that Altman and Brockman would lead a new advanced-research lab inside [[Microsoft]].[^4]
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|
||||
OpenAI's announcement of November 29, 2023 was subtitled "Mira Murati as CTO, Greg Brockman returns as President," restoring [[Mira Murati]] as chief technology officer, and named a new initial board of [[Bret Taylor]] as chair, [[Larry Summers]] and D'Angelo. Altman wrote to staff: "Greg and I are partners in running this company. We have never quite figured out how to communicate that on the org chart, but we will." Taylor wrote that the board was "thrilled that Sam, Mira and Greg are back together leading the company."[^5] The review that the board's special committee commissioned from the law firm [[WilmerHale]] covered "the November 17, 2023 removal of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman from the OpenAI Board of Directors and Mr. Altman's termination as CEO." On March 8, 2024, the committee recommended that the full board "endorse the November 21 decision to rehire Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman," and Taylor stated: "We have unanimously concluded that Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
In December 2023 OpenAI's superalignment team published "Weak-to-strong generalization," listing [[Collin Burns]] first among its authors and Brockman and Sutskever among its contributors.[^7] Burns was selected in April 2026 to direct the federal [[U.S. AI Safety Institute|Center for AI Standards and Innovation]] and removed within days.[^8] In February 2024 Musk sued OpenAI, Altman and Brockman in California state court for breach of contract over the company's founding agreement.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Political Giving
|
||||
|
||||
On September 12, 2025, Brockman gave 12,500,000 dollars to the super PAC [[Leading the Future]] and 12,500,000 dollars to the hybrid political committee [[MAGA Inc.]], listing his employer as OpenAI and his occupation as "President and Co-Founder." [[Anna Brockman]] of San Francisco gave the same amounts to both committees on the same day; the MAGA Inc. filing lists her occupation as "Retired." The four contributions total 50 million dollars.[^10] With 50 million dollars from the management company of [[Andreessen Horowitz]], attributed half to [[Marc Andreessen]] and half to [[Ben Horowitz]], and 100,000 dollars from the company behind [[Perplexity]], the Brockmans' 25 million dollars made up Leading the Future's 75.1 million dollars in contributions through July 2026.[^10][^11] The committee passed most of its money to affiliated committees; one of them, [[Think Big (PAC)|Think Big]], spent 8,145,697.68 dollars opposing [[Alex Bores]], the New York Assembly member who sponsored the state's [[RAISE Act]] on AI safety, in the Democratic primary for the 12th congressional district, where the [[Anthropic]]-funded [[Public First Action]] backed him.[^12][^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "OpenAI launches as a nonprofit with a billion-dollar pledge," December 11, 2015. *IEEE Spectrum,* December 2015. https://spectrum.ieee.org/billiondollar-nonprofit-ai-research-lab-to-open-in-san-francisco
|
||||
[^2]: "The messy, secretive reality behind OpenAI's bid to save the world." *MIT Technology Review,* February 17, 2020. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/17/844721/ai-openai-moonshot-elon-musk-sam-altman-greg-brockman-messy-secretive-reality/
|
||||
[^3]: OpenAI. "OpenAI announces leadership transition." November 17, 2023, archived November 17, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20231117210540/https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transition
|
||||
[^4]: "Effective Altruism's Role in the OpenAI Chaos, Explained." *Bloomberg,* November 22, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-22/effective-altruism-s-role-in-the-openai-chaos-explained
|
||||
[^5]: OpenAI. "Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board." November 29, 2023, archived September 13, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260913004743/https://openai.com/index/sam-altman-returns-as-ceo-openai-has-a-new-initial-board/
|
||||
[^6]: OpenAI. "Review completed & Altman, Brockman to continue to lead OpenAI." March 8, 2024, archived September 13, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260913014725/https://openai.com/index/review-completed-altman-brockman-to-continue-to-lead-openai/
|
||||
[^7]: OpenAI. "Weak-to-strong generalization." December 14, 2023, archived September 17, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260917090610/https://openai.com/index/weak-to-strong-generalization/
|
||||
[^8]: Mitchell, Elizabeth Troutman. "Trump Admin Changes Plan to Tap Former Anthropic Researcher to Direct Federal AI Safety Org." *The Daily Signal,* April 23, 2026, https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/04/23/trump-anthropic-researcher/ ; Khanna, Ro. Letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, August 13, 2026. https://democrats-selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/8.13.26-khanna-letter-to-commerce-on-caisi.pdf
|
||||
[^9]: "Elon Musk sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman over contract breach." *CNBC,* March 1, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/01/elon-musk-sues-openai-and-ceo-sam-altman-over-contract-breach.html
|
||||
[^10]: Federal Election Commission, itemized receipts (Schedule A) for committees C00916114 (Leading the Future) and C00892471 (MAGA Inc.), contributor name Brockman, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00916114&contributor_name=Brockman ; https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00892471&contributor_name=Brockman
|
||||
[^11]: Federal Election Commission, financial totals and itemized receipts for committee C00916114, 2025 to 2026 cycle, through the report of July 15, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00916114/?tab=summary
|
||||
[^12]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00923417 ("Think Big"), independent expenditures (Schedule E), by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00923417
|
||||
[^13]: Bellan, Rebecca. "Anthropic-funded group backs candidate attacked by rival AI super PAC." *TechCrunch,* February 20, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/20/anthropic-funded-group-backs-candidate-attacked-by-rival-ai-super-pac/
|
||||
32
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Marc Gunther.md
Normal file
32
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Marc Gunther.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Authors & Journalists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Journalist
|
||||
- Philanthropy
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- OpenPhilanthropy
|
||||
summary: "Former Fortune senior writer who covers foundations, effective altruism and psychedelics, and whose 2018 Stanford Social Innovation Review article mapped the entities around Cari Tuna and Open Philanthropy."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Fortune (magazine)]]"
|
||||
role: "senior writer"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
|
||||
start: 2018
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Marc Gunther is an American journalist who has worked as a reporter for nearly 50 years, on politics, government, television, the media business, corporate sustainability, the nonprofit world and psychedelics, for *[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]*, *[[The Guardian]]*, *[[The Chronicle of Philanthropy]]* and other publications. He edits the Medium publications *Nonprofit Chronicles*, *The Psychedelic Renaissance* and *The Great Vape Debate*, and describes his subjects as "psychedelics, smoking and vaping, animal rights, philanthropy and effective altruism."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Open Philanthropy
|
||||
|
||||
In the Summer 2018 issue of the *[[Stanford Social Innovation Review]]*, which described him as a former senior writer at *Fortune* and author or co-author of four books, Gunther profiled [[Cari Tuna]], who became an effective altruist after reading [[Peter Singer]]'s *The Life You Can Save* and joined the board of [[GiveWell]] in 2011. He wrote that she played "a key role in no fewer than seven entities" as a director or major donor, including [[Good Ventures]], the [[Open Philanthropy Action Fund]] and donor-advised funds at the [[Silicon Valley Community Foundation]]. [[Alexander Berger]] told him that "each has a reason for being" and that "tax considerations are key." Gunther reported that [[Holden Karnofsky]], a co-founder of GiveWell who had worked at [[Bridgewater Associates]], sat on the board of [[OpenAI]], that Good Ventures made its first grant, of 50,000 dollars, to GiveWell in 2011, and that [[Open Philanthropy]], which separated from GiveWell in 2017, "does not disclose its annual operating costs or the salaries or benefits of its highest-paid staff members."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Gunther, Marc. "About." *Medium,* archived April 14, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250414190549/https://marcgunther.medium.com/about
|
||||
[^2]: Gunther, Marc. "Giving in the Light of Reason." *Stanford Social Innovation Review,* Summer 2018. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason
|
||||
92
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar.md
Normal file
92
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Anthropic
|
||||
- CarnegieEndowment
|
||||
- StanfordUniversity
|
||||
- PresidentsIntelligenceAdvisoryBoard
|
||||
- AIGovernance
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Tino Cuéllar
|
||||
- Tino Cuellar
|
||||
- Mariano-Florentino Cuellar
|
||||
summary: "Former California Supreme Court justice and Carnegie Endowment president who sat on Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust in 2026 before becoming Anthropic's first chief global affairs officer in August 2026."
|
||||
location: "Matamoros, Mexico (born)"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]]"
|
||||
role: "president"
|
||||
start: 2021-11
|
||||
end: 2026-06
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Long-Term Benefit Trust]]"
|
||||
role: "trustee"
|
||||
start: 2026-01
|
||||
end: 2026-08
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Anthropic]]"
|
||||
role: "chief global affairs officer"
|
||||
start: 2026-08
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Inflection AI]]"
|
||||
role: "board member"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[LawZero]]"
|
||||
role: "board member"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Harvard University]]"
|
||||
role: "board member"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]]"
|
||||
role: "board chair"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[President's Intelligence Advisory Board]]"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Stanford University]]"
|
||||
role: "Stanley Morrison Professor; director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: spouse_of
|
||||
with: "[[Lucy Koh]]"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Mariano-Florentino "Tino" Cuéllar is a lawyer, political scientist and former justice of the [[Supreme Court of California]] who was president of the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] from November 2021 to June 2026 and in August 2026 became the first chief global affairs officer of [[Anthropic]].[^1][^2] He was born in [[Matamoros]], Mexico, and grew up mainly in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border. He graduated from [[Harvard University|Harvard College]] and [[Yale Law School]] and holds a Ph.D. in political science from [[Stanford University]]. He is married to Judge [[Lucy Koh]] of the [[Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals|U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit]]; they have two children.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Government and Stanford
|
||||
|
||||
Cuéllar began his career at the [[Department of the Treasury|U.S. Department of the Treasury]] in [[Bill Clinton]]'s second term. In the first term of the [[Barack Obama]] administration he led the [[White House]] [[Domestic Policy Council]]'s teams on civil and criminal justice, public health, immigration and regulatory reform; he had earlier co-chaired the Obama-Biden transition's immigration working group, and he co-chaired the Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission. He has served on the [[President's Intelligence Advisory Board]] and the [[State Department]]'s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
At Stanford he was the Stanley Morrison Professor, with appointments in law, political science and international affairs; he directed the [[Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies]], co-directed the [[Center for International Security and Cooperation]] and led its Honors Program in International Security Studies.[^1] Anthropic's announcement adds that he directed the Stanford Cyber Initiative, holds the Cameron Schrier Family Professorship at [[Stanford Law School]], where he "began organizing classes on artificial intelligence nearly a decade ago," and is a senior fellow at Stanford's [[Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence|Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence]].[^2] During nearly seven years on the California Supreme Court, while continuing to teach at Stanford, he wrote opinions on "separation of powers, policing and criminal justice, democracy, technology and privacy, international agreements, and climate and environmental law."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
He is a member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] and chairs the board of the [[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]]. He previously chaired the boards of the [[Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences]] and the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. The [[National Academy of Sciences]] appointed him to its Committee on Responsible Computing Research, and he co-chaired the bipartisan Task Force on Nuclear Proliferation and American Security and co-led California's Frontier AI Working Group.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Carnegie Endowment
|
||||
|
||||
Cuéllar became president of the endowment in November 2021; [[William Burns]] had been its president from 2015 to 2021.[^1][^3] In March 2022 [[Open Philanthropy]] recommended 597,717 dollars over two years to the endowment for "a research project on international AI governance led by [[Matt Sheehan]]."[^4] When [[Holden Karnofsky]] left Open Philanthropy for Carnegie as a visiting scholar on April 29, 2024, he wrote: "Tino Cuellar, Carnegie's President, has been an advocate for taking (what I see as) the biggest risks from AI seriously. Carnegie is looking to increase its attention to AI risk."[^5] Karnofsky, whose wife [[Daniela Amodei]] is Anthropic's president, joined Anthropic in January 2025.[^6] Cuéllar's Carnegie biography lists him as a director of [[Inflection AI]], Harvard University and [[LawZero]], and as a trustee of Anthropic's [[Long-Term Benefit Trust]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Anthropic
|
||||
|
||||
Cuéllar joined the Long-Term Benefit Trust, the body holding Anthropic's Class T shares and empowered to elect a growing share of its board, in January 2026, when the trustees [[Kanika Bahl]] and [[Zach Robinson]] left. [[Richard Fontaine]], chief executive of the [[Center for a New American Security]], had joined in May 2025, and [[Ben Bernanke]], former chairman of the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]], joined in July 2026.[^7] He left Carnegie in June 2026.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On August 4, 2026, Anthropic announced that he would join the company as its first chief global affairs officer, "leading the company's work on policy, strategic international engagement, and government relationships worldwide," and that he had stepped down from the trust, which would select a successor "under its normal process." Cuéllar said: "Democracies must set the terms on which this technology advances, and there is no more consequential place to be shaping that work right now than Anthropic." Daniela Amodei said that he had "spent his career helping public institutions respond to times of change with thoughtfulness, pragmatism, and deep commitment to the common good."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar," former president (2021 to 2026), biography, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/people/mariano-florentino-tino-cuellar
|
||||
[^2]: Anthropic, "Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar to join Anthropic as Chief Global Affairs Officer," August 4, 2026. https://www.anthropic.com/news/tino-cuellar
|
||||
[^3]: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "William J. Burns," former president (2015 to 2021), biography, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/people/william-j-burns
|
||||
[^4]: Open Philanthropy, "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, AI Governance Research," March 2022, archived July 8, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220708131413/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace-ai-governance-research/
|
||||
[^5]: Karnofsky, Holden. "Joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." EA Forum, April 29, 2024. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7gzgwgwefwBku2cnL/joining-the-carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace
|
||||
[^6]: Mathews, Jessica. "Anthropic hired president Daniela Amodei's husband to work on the company's AI safety strategy." *Fortune,* February 13, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/anthropic-hired-president-daniela-amodei-husband-ai-safety-responsible-scaling/
|
||||
[^7]: Anthropic, "The Long-Term Benefit Trust," September 19, 2023, with later updates on changes in the trust's composition. https://www.anthropic.com/news/the-long-term-benefit-trust
|
||||
41
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Naina Bajekal.md
Normal file
41
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Naina Bajekal.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Authors & Journalists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Journalist
|
||||
- TimeMagazine
|
||||
- OpenPhilanthropy
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
summary: "Former Time international editor and executive editor who joined Open Philanthropy, now Coefficient Giving, in July 2024 and leads its communications team."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Time]]"
|
||||
role: "reporter, later international editor and executive editor"
|
||||
end: 2024
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
|
||||
role: "managing director, communications"
|
||||
start: 2024
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Newsweek]]"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Naina Bajekal is a journalist and the managing director for communications of Coefficient Giving, the name taken in November 2025 by [[Open Philanthropy]], the grantmaker of [[Dustin Moskovitz]] and [[Cari Tuna]]. She joined in July 2024.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Journalism
|
||||
|
||||
Bajekal holds a B.A. in English literature and modern languages from the [[University of Oxford]]. She began as a reporter in the [[London]] bureau of *[[Time]]*, held editing roles at *[[Newsweek]]*, [[Magnum Photos]] and the [[Fuller Project]], and returned to *Time* in 2018, where over six years she was international editor and executive editor, edited more than 30 cover stories and launched Women of the Year and the TIME100 AI list.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Coefficient Giving
|
||||
|
||||
In December 2025 *[[Semafor]]* reported that *Time* had hosted four fellows of the [[Tarbell Center for AI Journalism]], most of whose funding came from Coefficient Giving. Bajekal said Coefficient had "no involvement in coverage decisions" and that AI held "enormous potential to accelerate science and fuel economic growth."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Coefficient Giving. "Naina Bajekal." Team page, archived May 23, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260523180247/https://coefficientgiving.org/team/naina-bajekal/
|
||||
[^2]: Tani, Max. "AI critics funded AI coverage at top newsrooms." *Semafor,* December 7, 2025. https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2025/ai-critics-funded-ai-coverage-at-top-newsrooms
|
||||
|
|
@ -42,9 +42,13 @@ Paul Christiano led alignment research at [[OpenAI]] from 2017 to 2021 and contr
|
|||
|
||||
In September 2023 Christiano became one of the five original trustees of [[Anthropic]]'s [[Long-Term Benefit Trust]], the body empowered to elect a growing share of the board of the company founded by Dario and Daniela Amodei. He left in April 2024 to become head of AI safety at the [[U.S. AI Safety Institute]].[^3] Commerce Secretary [[Gina Raimondo]] announced the appointment on April 16, 2024.[^4] The Action Fund of the [[Center for AI Safety]], an Open Philanthropy grantee, stated that it had led a bipartisan congressional effort that "secured $10 million to establish" the institute.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### U.S. AI Safety Institute
|
||||
|
||||
On March 7, 2024, *[[VentureBeat]]* reported, citing unnamed sources, that staff members at the [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] were threatening to resign over Christiano's expected appointment, that the hire "was allegedly rushed through the hiring process without anyone knowing until today," that it had come directly from Raimondo, and that staff feared his ties to effective altruism and longtermism "could threaten the institute's objectivity."[^6] The April 16 announcement placed him alongside the institute's director, [[Elizabeth Kelly]], its chief technology officer, [[Elham Tabassi]], and four other new leaders, among them the Stanford political scientist [[Rob Reich]] as senior advisor; the Commerce Department stated that Christiano would "design and conduct tests of frontier AI models, focusing on model evaluations for capabilities of national security concern."[^4][^7] Christiano had been expected to join the board of [[METR]], the evaluations group his Alignment Research Center had incubated as ARC Evals; its announcements of September and December 2023 stated that "he declined involvement in light of his new role as Head of Safety at the US AI Safety Institute."[^8] In June 2025 the Commerce Department under [[Howard Lutnick]] renamed the institute the Center for AI Standards and Innovation.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### The OpenAI Foundation
|
||||
|
||||
On September 9, 2026, the [[OpenAI Foundation]], the nonprofit that controls OpenAI Group PBC, appointed Christiano to its board and its Safety and Security Committee, chaired by [[Zico Kolter]], and made him a non-voting observer on the board of the for-profit company. The announcement described him as a senior technical advisor at the [[Center for AI Standards and Innovation]] within the [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]], where he had "worked on evaluating frontier AI models, including capabilities with national security implications," and stated: "As a Senior Technical Advisor, Paul will recuse himself from all OpenAI-related matters as well as all model evaluations." The board chair, [[Bret Taylor]], said his "experience working on frontier AI safety and standards in government" would strengthen the board's oversight.[^1]
|
||||
On September 9, 2026, the [[OpenAI Foundation]], the nonprofit that controls OpenAI Group PBC, appointed Christiano to its board and its Safety and Security Committee, chaired by [[Zico Kolter]], and made him a non-voting observer on the board of the for-profit company. The announcement described him as a senior technical advisor at the Center for AI Standards and Innovation within the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he had "worked on evaluating frontier AI models, including capabilities with national security implications," and stated: "As a Senior Technical Advisor, Paul will recuse himself from all OpenAI-related matters as well as all model evaluations." The board chair, [[Bret Taylor]], said his "experience working on frontier AI safety and standards in government" would strengthen the board's oversight.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -53,3 +57,7 @@ On September 9, 2026, the [[OpenAI Foundation]], the nonprofit that controls Ope
|
|||
[^3]: Anthropic, "The Long-Term Benefit Trust," September 19, 2023, with later updates. https://www.anthropic.com/news/the-long-term-benefit-trust
|
||||
[^4]: National Institute of Standards and Technology, "U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Announces Expansion of U.S. AI Safety Institute Leadership Team," April 16, 2024. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/04/us-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-announces-expansion-us-ai-safety
|
||||
[^5]: Center for AI Safety Action Fund, "2024 Annual Impact Report." https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66438c042d15b14b53b83006/68012dcfec6880aba24f528a_CAIS-ActionFund-ImpactReport_05.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: Goldman, Sharon. "NIST staffers revolt against expected appointment of 'effective altruist' AI researcher to US AI Safety Institute." *VentureBeat,* March 7, 2024. https://venturebeat.com/ai/nist-staffers-revolt-against-potential-appointment-of-effective-altruist-ai-researcher-to-us-ai-safety-institute
|
||||
[^7]: U.S. Department of Commerce, "U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Announces Expansion of U.S. AI Safety Institute Leadership Team," April 16, 2024, archived December 31, 2024. http://web.archive.org/web/20241231010954/https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2024/04/us-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-announces-expansion-us-ai-safety
|
||||
[^8]: Barnes, Beth. "ARC Evals is spinning out from ARC." METR, September 19, 2023, https://metr.org/blog/2023-09-19-spin-out-announcement/ ; METR, "ARC Evals is now METR," December 4, 2023. https://metr.org/blog/2023-12-04-metr-announcement/
|
||||
[^9]: Mitchell, Elizabeth Troutman. "Trump Admin Changes Plan to Tap Former Anthropic Researcher to Direct Federal AI Safety Org." *The Daily Signal,* April 23, 2026. https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/04/23/trump-anthropic-researcher/
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
77
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Raymond Banoun.md
Normal file
77
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Raymond Banoun.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "BCCI Scandal"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Lawyer
|
||||
- Prosecutor
|
||||
- BCCI
|
||||
- RevolvingDoor
|
||||
- WhiteCollarDefense
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Ray Banoun
|
||||
summary: "Former head of the fraud division of the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington who defended BCCI from 1988 and whom the Senate subcommittee found may have willfully misled it."
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
|
||||
role: "Assistant United States Attorney, District of Columbia, for 13 years; head of the Fraud Division"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Arent Fox]]"
|
||||
role: "partner; chair of the Business Fraud Group"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
|
||||
role: "defense counsel brought in by Robert Altman; oversaw production of documents to the Senate subcommittee"
|
||||
start: 1988
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report]]"
|
||||
role: "found to have possibly acted unethically by willfully misleading the subcommittee"
|
||||
start: 1992-12
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft]]"
|
||||
role: "partner for 25 years; founder of the White Collar Group; managing partner of the Washington office for 10 years"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Banoun Law]]"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Raymond Banoun is an American lawyer who was for thirteen years an Assistant [[United States]] Attorney for the District of Columbia, heading its Fraud Division, and who from 1988 was one of the defense lawyers of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) in Washington. The Senate subcommittee of [[John Kerry]] concluded that he "may have acted unethically by willfully misleading it in an attempt to impede the investigation."[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Prosecutor
|
||||
|
||||
Banoun received a B.A. from the City College of New York in 1965 and a J.D. with honors from [[George Washington University]] Law School in 1968. He clerked for U.S. District Judge [[Harold H. Greene]], served for three years as a Special Assistant to the United States Attorney for the Central District of California in [[Los Angeles]], and for thirteen years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he headed the Fraud Division.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### BCCI
|
||||
|
||||
He then became a partner at [[Arent Fox]], Kintner, Plotkin & Kahn in Washington, where he chaired the Business Fraud Group.[^1] The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]] listed him with [[Lawrence Wechsler]] and [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|Lawrence Barcella]] as the former federal prosecutors among BCCI's Washington "cadre of professional help," which also included [[Clark Clifford]], former members of Congress [[John Culver]] and [[Michael Barnes]], and the former [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]] attorneys [[Baldwin Tuttle]], Jerry Hawke and Michael Bradfield. [[Robert Altman]] brought Banoun into the case, according to the report, "to assist in the bank's defense." The report stated: "Aside from Altman, the lawyer who had the most contact with the Subcommittee concerning BCCI was Banoun."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Altman charged him with overseeing the production of documents in response to the subpoenas the subcommittee issued to BCCI in the summer of 1988, among them "all records relating to General Noriega's accounts in the United States." The subcommittee received information that was "clearly incomplete." Banoun told *[[Newsweek]]* that he had cooperated fully, but that "lawyers don't go around searching for documents for clients"; he told the *National Journal* that the subcommittee had been "outlawyered," adding, "We don't allow our clients to get pushed around. This is an adversary system, not a roll-over system"; and he complained to the *Legal Times* that "more and more these days the government [is] wanting information obtained under the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product," calling it "an unfortunate and frightening sign because it erodes very seriously the ability of a lawyer to represent a client." The report noted that "BCCI, of course, waived it [sic] attorney client privilege."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 14, 1989, Altman, Banoun and Wechsler met subcommittee staff and produced 775 pages of new documents concerning General [[Manuel Noriega]]. The lawyers stated that they had relied on the statements of the BCCI officer [[Amjad Awan]] and had conducted no independent searches for documents in response to the 1988 subpoena.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
A memorandum by [[Roma Theus]], a partner in the Florida firm of [[Holland & Knight]], stated that Altman and Banoun "were doing everything within their power to call in political markers." Banoun called its author a misinformed "fruitcake." Theus told the subcommittee that his information came from the private investigator [[Phillip Manuel]], who had worked for Barcella; Manuel told the subcommittee he had no idea why Theus would write such a thing and that his only information about the investigation came from "journalists with who [sic] he played poker."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
In the fall of 1988 Banoun was also charged with reviewing all of BCCI's accounts in Florida to decide whether criminal referrals should be made. According to the report, documents suggested "that despite evidence of criminal activity produced by the manager of one of BCCI Florida offices (one of BCCI's few honest officers) Banoun made no criminal referrals."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Florida License and the Senate
|
||||
|
||||
After the United States Attorney in Tampa, [[Robert Genzman]], told Florida regulators on January 31, 1990, that his office took no position on BCCI's state license, "BCCI's lawyers, principally former federal prosecutors Lawrence Wechsler, Lawrence Barcella, and Raymond Banoun, dissatisfied with this result, decided to talk to others in the Justice Department to bring about a different result." On February 13, 1990, [[Charles Saphos]], head of the narcotics section of the Criminal Division, wrote to the Florida comptroller, [[Gerald Lewis]], asking that BCCI be permitted to keep operating, and sent copies to the Federal Reserve "and to BCCI lawyers Banoun and Wechsler." When Lewis invited him to Tallahassee to explain, Saphos wrote back that the Department of Justice took no position on the license.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
According to the report, documents showed that Wechsler "and Banoun lobbied the US Senate on behalf of BCCI," and John Culver, a former senator and another Arent Fox partner, lobbied the subcommittee "with Banoun, Weschler and Altman, assuring Subccommittee staff that the bank was fully cooperating, and that, save events in Florida, a sound and honorable institution." In the spring of 1990 Banoun called in his Arent Fox colleague Michael Barnes, a former congressman from [[Maryland]], over a pending article on [[First American Bank]] by the journalist [[Larry Gurwin]] for *Regardie's* magazine; Barnes called the publisher, William A. Regardie, to complain, and the magazine published the article.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Later Career
|
||||
|
||||
At the time of the Senate report in December 1992 Banoun headed the white collar criminal defense group in the Washington office of [[Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft]], which the report rendered as "Caldawater, Wickersham and Taft."[^2] He was a partner at Cadwalader for 25 years, founded its White Collar Group, and was managing partner of its Washington office for ten years, before establishing [[Banoun Law]] PLLC. He has chaired the [[American Bar Association]] Criminal Justice Section's White Collar Crime Committee and the Business Crimes Committee of the [[International Bar Association]]'s Section of Business Law, founded the ABA's annual National Institute on White Collar Crime, and co-authored the treatise *Money Laundering, Terrorism and Financial Institutions*. His practice covers the [[Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]], money laundering and asset forfeiture, and foreign bank secrecy in jurisdictions including [[Switzerland]], [[Luxembourg]], [[Hong Kong]], [[Bermuda]], the [[Cayman Islands]], the [[Bahamas]] and [[Panama]]. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Raymond Banoun," Banoun Law LLC. https://sites.google.com/site/banounlaw
|
||||
[^2]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 17, "BCCI's Lawyers and Lobbyists," section "Ray Banoun." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/17law.htm
|
||||
[^3]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 13, "Clark Clifford and Robert Altman." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/13clifford.htm
|
||||
[^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 8, "BCCI and Law Enforcement: The Justice Department and the U.S. Customs Service." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm
|
||||
|
|
@ -24,13 +24,13 @@ Abdul Qadeer Khan was a [[Pakistan|Pakistani]] scientist "closely associated wit
|
|||
|
||||
### Kahuta and the Procurement Network
|
||||
|
||||
In 1979 the administration of [[Jimmy Carter]] suspended aid to Pakistan under the Symington amendment after discovering the Kahuta enrichment plan; in 1981 the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration obtained a five-year waiver from Congress because of Pakistan's role in channeling U.S. aid to the [[Mujahideen]] in [[Afghanistan]]. State Department telegrams of September and November 1985 show U.S. officials pressing [[West Germany]] over Pakistani agents seeking aluminum tubes for the Khan Laboratory's centrifuge program, and by fall 1986 the U.S. government regarded Multinational Inc. as a "procurement agent" for Khan's network. In May 1986 Representative [[Stephen Solarz]] told [[Zia ul-Haq]] that U.S. intelligence indicated Kahuta was enriching uranium to weapons grade, which Pakistani officials denied.[^2]
|
||||
In 1979 the administration of [[Jimmy Carter]] suspended aid to Pakistan under the Symington amendment after discovering the Kahuta enrichment plan; in 1981 the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration obtained a five-year waiver from Congress because of Pakistan's role in channeling U.S. aid to the [[Mujahideen]] in [[Afghanistan]]. State Department telegrams of September and November 1985 show U.S. officials pressing [[West Germany]] over Pakistani agents seeking aluminum tubes for the Khan Laboratory's centrifuge program, and by fall 1986 the [[U.S. government]] regarded Multinational Inc. as a "procurement agent" for Khan's network. In May 1986 Representative [[Stephen Solarz]] told [[Zia ul-Haq]] that U.S. intelligence indicated Kahuta was enriching uranium to weapons grade, which Pakistani officials denied.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Pervez Case
|
||||
|
||||
Arshad Pervez, a native of Pakistan who had moved to [[Canada]] in 1967, ran an import-export business, A.P. Enterprises, in [[Toronto]]. In October 1986 he sought "maraging 350 steel," a high-strength steel used in gas centrifuge enrichment plants, from [[Carpenter Technology Corporation]] of Pennsylvania, whose staff alerted the [[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]] and the [[U.S. Customs|United States Customs Service]]. Pervez named his client as Inam Ul-Haq of Multinational Corporation of Lahore. He offered a series of end uses, among them a research project of [[Karachi]] University's engineering program, rocket motors and antitank weapons, and paid 1,000 dollars to an undercover Customs agent posing as a [[United States Department of Commerce|Commerce Department]] licensing officer. In 1987 he added a request for beryllium and proposed commingling it with the steel. When the undercover agent suggested that other metals were for "another application in the plant at Kahuta," Pervez answered, "Could be," and at the end of the meeting said that "the Kahuta client is ready." He was arrested in [[Philadelphia]] in July 1987 while arranging the first shipment.[^1]
|
||||
Arshad Pervez, a native of Pakistan who had moved to [[Canada]] in 1967, ran an import-export business, A.P. Enterprises, in [[Toronto]]. In October 1986 he sought "maraging 350 steel," a high-strength steel used in gas centrifuge enrichment plants, from [[Carpenter Technology Corporation]] of Pennsylvania, whose staff alerted the [[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]] and the [[U.S. Customs|United States Customs Service]]. Pervez named his client as [[Inam Ul-Haq]] of Multinational Corporation of Lahore. He offered a series of end uses, among them a research project of [[Karachi]] University's engineering program, rocket motors and antitank weapons, and paid 1,000 dollars to an undercover Customs agent posing as a [[United States Department of Commerce|Commerce Department]] licensing officer. In 1987 he added a request for beryllium and proposed commingling it with the steel. When the undercover agent suggested that other metals were for "another application in the plant at Kahuta," Pervez answered, "Could be," and at the end of the meeting said that "the Kahuta client is ready." He was arrested in [[Philadelphia]] in July 1987 while arranging the first shipment.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
A federal grand jury indicted Pervez and Inam Ul-Haq on July 28, 1987. Pervez was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States, attempting to export beryllium and making false statements to the Commerce Department, acquitted on the bribery counts after claiming entrapment, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment on the conspiracy count. On March 6, 1989, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit]] vacated the conspiracy and beryllium convictions and ordered a new trial on those counts under *Mathews v. United States*, which entitles a defendant who denies elements of the offense to an entrapment instruction whenever the evidence could support one, and remanded for a hearing on entrapment on the false statement counts.[^1] According to the [[National Security Archive]], Inam Ul-Haq, whom it called "a key figure in the A. Q. Khan nuclear procurement network," left the United States before he could be arrested.[^2]
|
||||
A federal grand jury indicted Pervez and Inam Ul-Haq on July 28, 1987. Pervez was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States, attempting to export beryllium and making false statements to the Commerce Department, acquitted on the bribery counts after claiming entrapment, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment on the conspiracy count. On March 6, 1989, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit]] vacated the conspiracy and beryllium convictions and ordered a new trial on those counts under *Mathews v. United States*, which entitles a defendant who denies elements of the offense to an entrapment instruction whenever the evidence could support one, and remanded for a hearing on entrapment on the false statement counts.[^1] According to the [[National Security Archive]], Inam Ul-Haq, whom it called "a key figure in the A. Q. Khan nuclear procurement network," left the United States before he could be arrested.[^2] The Third Circuit's ruling opened the way to a retrial on all counts; after plea negotiations Pervez pleaded nolo contendere to the count of illegal export of beryllium and was released from prison on April 4, 1990, on the basis of time served. The State Department's legal adviser, [[Abraham Sofaer]], wrote that the outcome "did not suggest either innocence on the defendant's part or a lack of evidence supporting the government's case."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
A State Department intelligence memorandum of December 29, 1987, linked [[Khan Research Laboratories]] to the maraging steel and the [[Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission]] to the beryllium, and concluded that the network "could not exist without the umbrella of government approval, protection, and funding." An [[Arms Control and Disarmament Agency]] memorandum stated that "there is no plausible end-use for 25 tons of grade 350 maraging steel other than in the manufacture of centrifuges." President Reagan certified to Congress on December 17, 1987, that "Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device," and in January 1988 invoked and then waived the Solarz amendment.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
60
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Elie Hassenfeld.md
Normal file
60
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Elie Hassenfeld.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- GiveWell
|
||||
- OpenPhilanthropy
|
||||
- BridgewaterAssociates
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Elie Hassenfeld
|
||||
summary: "Former Bridgewater analyst who cofounded GiveWell with Holden Karnofsky in 2007, has run it since, sat on Open Philanthropy's early leadership team and was a director of its Action Fund."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[GiveWell]]"
|
||||
role: "cofounder with Holden Karnofsky"
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[GiveWell]]"
|
||||
role: "co-executive director, executive director, then chief executive officer"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Bridgewater Associates]]"
|
||||
role: "analyst"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Elie Hassenfeld is the cofounder and chief executive of [[GiveWell]], the charity evaluator he started with [[Holden Karnofsky]] in 2007. His GiveWell biography states that he "co-founded GiveWell in 2007 when he was unable to find data-driven recommendations for his own charitable giving," that "prior to GiveWell, he worked in the hedge fund industry," and that he has a B.A. in religion from [[Columbia University]]. He also sits on GiveWell's board.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Bridgewater and GiveWell
|
||||
|
||||
Hassenfeld and Karnofsky met as investment analysts at [[Bridgewater Associates]], the [[Connecticut]] hedge fund run by [[Ray Dalio]], where in 2006 they formed a group of eight colleagues to research charitable giving. In 2007 the two left their jobs, raised about 300,000 dollars from former coworkers and incorporated the organization as the Clear Fund.[^2][^3] In December 2007 both were found to have promoted GiveWell online without disclosing their affiliation; Hassenfeld posted comments on sites including Marginal Revolution and Boing Boing, among them under the name "Talia." GiveWell's board removed Karnofsky as executive director and fined him, while Hassenfeld remained at the head of the organization.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Compensation and Board
|
||||
|
||||
The Clear Fund's returns list Hassenfeld as co-executive director and board member, paid 100,000 dollars for 2013, 120,000 for 2014 and 141,330 for 2015, each time the same or nearly the same as Karnofsky; as executive director, paid 172,378 dollars for 2016, 186,582 for 2017 and 222,900 for 2018; and as chief executive officer, paid 262,395 dollars for 2019, 286,992 for 2020, 304,439 for 2021, 355,000 for 2022, 400,000 for 2023 and 424,805 dollars plus 38,590 dollars in other compensation for 2024.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Its unpaid board over those years included [[Cari Tuna]] of the foundation [[Good Ventures]] as treasurer and later board member; Karnofsky as secretary and later vice chair "thru 8/21/23"; the [[Stanford University]] political scientist [[Rob Reich]], listed on every return from 2013 until April 2019; [[Greg Jensen]], listed until December 1, 2017; and [[Julia Wise]]. The returns for 2023 and 2024 list [[Daniela Amodei]], president of [[Anthropic]] and Karnofsky's wife, as a board member, with [[Tim Ogden]] as chair in 2024.[^5][^6] GiveWell's board listing of 2018 described Reich as "a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University"; in April 2024 the Commerce Department named him senior advisor to the [[U.S. AI Safety Institute]].[^7][^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Open Philanthropy
|
||||
|
||||
GiveWell Labs, the joint project of GiveWell and Good Ventures, became the [[Open Philanthropy|Open Philanthropy Project]].[^2] A document prepared for a GiveWell board meeting of June 17, 2015, stated that Tuna, as president of Good Ventures, was "a member of OP's leadership team and decides on whether to approve grants," and that "the OP leadership team also includes Elie, Alexander and Howie," meaning Hassenfeld, [[Alexander Berger]] and a third staff member.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Open Philanthropy Action Fund]], the 501(c)(4) affiliated with Open Philanthropy, listed Hassenfeld as an unpaid director on its returns for 2017 and 2018, alongside Tuna, [[Dustin Moskovitz]], Karnofsky and [[Divesh Makan]], and reported that he received 186,582 dollars and 222,900 dollars in those years from a related organization, the same amounts the Clear Fund reported paying him as executive director.[^5][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: GiveWell, "People," retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.givewell.org/about/people
|
||||
[^2]: Gunther, Marc. "Giving in the Light of Reason." *Stanford Social Innovation Review,* Summer 2018. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason
|
||||
[^3]: GiveWell, "Our Story." https://www.givewell.org/about/story
|
||||
[^4]: GiveWell, "Full account of GiveWell staff's inappropriate online promotion in December 2007." https://www.givewell.org/about/official-records/board-meeting-3/FAQ-on-inappropriate-marketing/full-account ; "GiveWell in turmoil after 'horrible lapse of judgement' by founders." *Alliance.* https://www.alliancemagazine.org/news/givewell-in-turmoil-after-horrible-lapse-of-judgement-by-founders/
|
||||
[^5]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "The Clear Fund," EIN 20-8625442, Form 990 compensation and officer listings for fiscal years 2013 to 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/208625442
|
||||
[^6]: Mathews, Jessica. "Anthropic hired president Daniela Amodei's husband to work on the company's AI safety strategy." *Fortune,* February 13, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/anthropic-hired-president-daniela-amodei-husband-ai-safety-responsible-scaling/
|
||||
[^7]: GiveWell, "People," archived December 21, 2018. http://web.archive.org/web/20181221001410/https://www.givewell.org/about/people
|
||||
[^8]: National Institute of Standards and Technology, "U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Announces Expansion of U.S. AI Safety Institute Leadership Team," April 16, 2024. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/04/us-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-announces-expansion-us-ai-safety
|
||||
[^9]: U.S. Department of Commerce, "U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Announces Expansion of U.S. AI Safety Institute Leadership Team," April 16, 2024, archived December 31, 2024. http://web.archive.org/web/20241231010954/https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2024/04/us-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-announces-expansion-us-ai-safety
|
||||
[^10]: GiveWell, "Attachment C: The Open Philanthropy Project: Good Ventures' and GiveWell's roles and responsibilities," board meeting of June 17, 2015. https://files.givewell.org/files/ClearFund/Meeting_2015_06_17/Attachment_C_Open_Phil_roles_and_responsibilities.pdf
|
||||
[^11]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Coefficient Giving Action Fund," EIN 81-2644663, Form 990 Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2016 to 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/812644663
|
||||
|
|
@ -27,19 +27,19 @@ Eugene Albert Horsch (born 1981) is the son of the Philadelphia pornographic fil
|
|||
|
||||
### Timaru and Bucks County
|
||||
|
||||
Horsch was born in [[Timaru]], [[New Zealand]], where his father, a fugitive from a [[Philadelphia]] methamphetamine charge, worked as a chemist under the stolen identity of Dr. Stanley Edward Stokowski. His mother was [[Myroslawa Ferkuniak|Myroslawa "Anna" Ferkuniak]], whom his father had married in [[Nevada]] under the same name. *The Press* of [[Christchurch]] reported in 1984 that the family had arrived in [[Canterbury, New Zealand|Canterbury]] in 1980 with an 18-month-old son, which does not agree with his 1981 New Zealand birth reported by the *Inquirer*. His father left New Zealand in March 1984 on a stolen passport, leaving his wife and son behind, and was arrested by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] in [[Florida]] later that year; he was sentenced in April 1985 and imprisoned until 1987.[^3][^4] His mother died at the family's house on Devereaux Avenue in Philadelphia on July 28, 1989; her obituary gave the cause as a lengthy illness, and the *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that it was an accidental overdose.[^1][^5] He grew up in his father's house in [[New Britain Township, Pennsylvania]]. The [[Central Bucks School District]] has no record that he graduated.[^1][^6] The house on West Chew Avenue had been the home of his great-grandparents, [[Albert Hoersch|Albert]] and [[Helen E. Hoersch]], by 1968, and of their daughter [[Helen M. Hoersch]] until her death in 2004.[^7][^8][^9] The city's deed index records its transfer to him by a deed executed on October 1, 2007, with Helen M. Hoersch named as grantor; the *Inquirer* reported that his father used a power of attorney to make the transfer, for one dollar.[^10][^11]
|
||||
Horsch was born in [[Timaru]], [[New Zealand]], where his father, a fugitive from a [[Philadelphia]] methamphetamine charge, worked as a chemist under the stolen identity of Dr. Stanley Edward Stokowski. His mother was [[Myroslawa Ferkuniak|Myroslawa "Anna" Ferkuniak]], whom his father had married in [[Nevada]] under the same name. *[[The Press]]* of [[Christchurch]] reported in 1984 that the family had arrived in [[Canterbury, New Zealand|Canterbury]] in 1980 with an 18-month-old son, which does not agree with his 1981 New Zealand birth reported by the *Inquirer*. His father left New Zealand in March 1984 on a stolen passport, leaving his wife and son behind, and was arrested by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] in [[Florida]] later that year; he was sentenced in April 1985 and imprisoned until 1987.[^3][^4] His mother died at the family's house on Devereaux Avenue in Philadelphia on July 28, 1989; her obituary gave the cause as a lengthy illness, and the *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that it was an accidental overdose.[^1][^5] He grew up in his father's house in [[New Britain Township, Pennsylvania]]. The [[Central Bucks School District]] has no record that he graduated.[^1][^6] The house on West Chew Avenue had been the home of his great-grandparents, [[Albert Hoersch|Albert]] and [[Helen E. Hoersch]], by 1968, and of their daughter [[Helen M. Hoersch]] until her death in 2004.[^7][^8][^9] The city's deed index records its transfer to him by a deed executed on October 1, 2007, with Helen M. Hoersch named as grantor; the *Inquirer* reported that his father used a power of attorney to make the transfer, for one dollar.[^10][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Convictions
|
||||
|
||||
In 2003, while a student at [[Drexel University]], Horsch caused a drunk-driving crash that left the other driver in a vegetative state; the man died sixteen years later. Horsch pleaded guilty in 2004 to driving under the influence and aggravated assault and was sentenced to two to four years. He was released in 2006. In 2013 police found about 1.9 million dollars' worth of marijuana in the house, and he was sentenced to four to eight years. He was in prison from 2013 to 2017. His father's former wife [[Amy McHale]] was last seen at the house in 2016. After a fire at the house in May 2025 he was charged with possession of marijuana and amphetamine and received three years of probation.[^1][^6][^12]
|
||||
In 2003, while a student at [[Drexel University]], Horsch caused a drunk-driving crash that left the other driver in a vegetative state; the man died sixteen years later. Horsch pleaded guilty in 2004 to driving under the influence and aggravated assault and was sentenced to two to four years. He was released in 2006. In 2013 police found about 1.9 million dollars' worth of marijuana in the house, and he was sentenced to four to eight years. He was in prison from 2013 to 2017. His father's former wife [[Amy McHale]] was last seen at the house in 2016. After a fire at the house in May 2025 he was charged with possession of marijuana and amphetamine and received three years of probation.[^1][^6][^12] Firefighters had answered a small fire on the second floor on May 18, 2025, and a fire marshal and a patrolman found a marijuana grow, an AR-15 pattern rifle modified to fire automatically, a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun, and a 9mm pistol, all with destroyed serial numbers, and more than a hundred rounds of ammunition. According to a spokesperson for District Attorney [[Larry Krasner]], [[Jerome Brown]] told the court that the guns had belonged to his father, who had died three days before the raid, and that he had planned to dispose of them properly. The *Inquirer* reported that he pleaded guilty to manufacturing drugs and that prosecutors withdrew the gun charges.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Krista Killen]], who lived in the house and appeared in his father's films, told friends that Horsch broke down her bedroom door and threatened to kill her. She died of drug intoxication some months after his father's death in May 2025.[^13]
|
||||
[[Krista Killen]], who lived in the house and appeared in his father's films, told friends that Horsch broke down her bedroom door and threatened to kill her. She died of drug intoxication some months after his father's death in May 2025.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Arrest and Federal Case
|
||||
|
||||
On the morning of June 19, 2026, a federal park ranger approached Horsch's BMW at a fire hydrant beside [[Independence National Historical Park]]. His passenger said he was going to hurt her. She carried an identification card in the name of [[Blair Tonzelli]], missing since 2023. In the car were two handguns with obliterated serial numbers, a switchblade, a baton, a cattle prod, crack cocaine, and [[Drug Enforcement Administration]] credentials with his photograph in the name Eugene Frederick Steiner. The search of his house produced forged FBI credentials and the computer used to make them.[^2][^13]
|
||||
On the morning of June 19, 2026, a federal park ranger approached Horsch's BMW at a fire hydrant beside [[Independence National Historical Park]]. His passenger said he was going to hurt her. She carried an identification card in the name of [[Blair Tonzelli]], missing since 2023. In the car were two handguns with obliterated serial numbers, a switchblade, a baton, a cattle prod, crack cocaine, and [[Drug Enforcement Administration]] credentials with his photograph in the name Eugene Frederick Steiner. The search of his house produced forged FBI credentials and the computer used to make them.[^2][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
A federal grand jury indicted him on July 9, 2026. State prosecutors withdrew their five counts on August 6. [[United States]] v. Horsch, No. 2:26-cr-00296, is before Judge [[John Milton Younge]] in the [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania|Eastern District of Pennsylvania]]. A January trial date had been reported; on the defense's request the trial was postponed in September 2026 to begin no earlier than March 22.[^14] He is represented by [[Jerome Brown]], who had also defended his father in the federal case of 2009; the government's attorneys of record are Maureen McCartney and Justin Ashenfelter, who appear for the United States Attorney's Office in the district's grand jury and warrant matters.[^15] Brown said: "We categorically deny that Eugene Horsch is a serial killer," "there's zero evidence right now that anyone was killed at that location," and "I'd be shocked if they found any harm related to those missing persons at that location."[^2][^12][^16][^17]
|
||||
A federal grand jury indicted him on July 9, 2026. On August 6 Assistant District Attorney [[Alyssa Amoroso]] of the [[Philadelphia District Attorney's Office]] withdrew the five state counts of illegal gun and drug possession, telling a city judge that the [[United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania|United States Attorney's Office]] would handle the case; neither Horsch nor Brown attended the hearing.[^15] [[United States]] v. Horsch, No. 2:26-cr-00296, is before Judge [[John Milton Younge]] in the [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania|Eastern District of Pennsylvania]]. A January trial date had been reported; on the defense's request the trial was postponed in September 2026 to begin no earlier than March 22.[^16] He is represented by Jerome Brown, who had also defended his father in the federal case of 2009; the government's attorneys of record are Maureen McCartney and Justin Ashenfelter, who appear for the United States Attorney's Office in the district's grand jury and warrant matters.[^17] Brown said: "We categorically deny that Eugene Horsch is a serial killer," "there's zero evidence right now that anyone was killed at that location," and "I'd be shocked if they found any harm related to those missing persons at that location."[^2][^12][^18][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -55,8 +55,10 @@ A federal grand jury indicted him on July 9, 2026. State prosecutors withdrew th
|
|||
[^10]: "What we know about the Olney investigation into missing women," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* June 27, 2026 (which calls Helen M. Hoersch his sister; her 1991 and 2004 notices make her his aunt). https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/olney-investigation-eugene-horsch-missing-women-20260627.html
|
||||
[^11]: City of Philadelphia, Department of Records, real estate transfer index, 417 W. Chew Ave., deed document 51798675, executed October 1, 2007, recorded October 26, 2007, grantor "Hoersch Helen M," grantee "Horsch Eugene A"; later mortgages of 2007 and 2009 and satisfaction of 2025, via the city's open data (rtt_summary). https://phl.carto.com/api/v2/sql?q=SELECT%20*%20FROM%20rtt_summary%20WHERE%20street_address%20=%20%27417%20W%20CHEW%20AVE%27
|
||||
[^12]: "Who is Eugene Horsch? Man at Center of Philadelphia 'House of Horrors,'" *Newsweek,* 2026. https://www.newsweek.com/who-is-eugene-horsch-man-at-center-of-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-12459693
|
||||
[^13]: "Five takeaways from Philly missing women mystery connected to Raymond and Eugene Horsch," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 4, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-missing-women-20260804.html
|
||||
[^14]: Charns, David. "Eugene Horsch trial delayed amid missing women investigations." *NBC10 Philadelphia,* September 22, 2026. https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/eugene-horsch-trial-delayed-amid-philadelphia-missing-women-investigations/4467226/
|
||||
[^15]: *United States v. Horsch,* Nos. 2:26-mj-01270 and 2:26-cr-00296, and *United States v. Horsch,* No. 2:09-cr-00794 (E.D. Pa.), docket metadata and attorney listings via CourtListener search. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73593607/united-states-v-horsch/
|
||||
[^16]: United States v. Horsch, No. 2:26-cr-00296 (E.D. Pa. filed July 8, 2026), docket via CourtListener / RECAP.
|
||||
[^17]: "Eugene Horsch Denies He's a Serial Killer as Philadelphia Cops Hunt for Missing Women," *Newsweek,* 2026. https://www.newsweek.com/philadelphia-obviously-serial-killer-former-fbi-agent-12457175
|
||||
[^13]: Marin, Max, Ryan W. Briggs, Ellie Rushing, and Barbara Laker. "Police searched Olney home last summer, but drugs, not missing women, were the focus," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* July 1, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/eugene-raymond-horsch-olney-home-search-guns-drugs-20260701.html
|
||||
[^14]: "Five takeaways from Philly missing women mystery connected to Raymond and Eugene Horsch," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 4, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-missing-women-20260804.html
|
||||
[^15]: Rushing, Ellie. "Feds will take over gun case of Olney man at center of missing women investigation, as Philly DA withdraws charges," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 6, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/eugene-horsch-federal-charges-olney-missing-women-20260806.html
|
||||
[^16]: Charns, David. "Eugene Horsch trial delayed amid missing women investigations." *NBC10 Philadelphia,* September 22, 2026. https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/eugene-horsch-trial-delayed-amid-philadelphia-missing-women-investigations/4467226/
|
||||
[^17]: *United States v. Horsch,* Nos. 2:26-mj-01270 and 2:26-cr-00296, and *United States v. Horsch,* No. 2:09-cr-00794 (E.D. Pa.), docket metadata and attorney listings via CourtListener search. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73593607/united-states-v-horsch/
|
||||
[^18]: United States v. Horsch, No. 2:26-cr-00296 (E.D. Pa. filed July 8, 2026), docket via CourtListener / RECAP.
|
||||
[^19]: "Eugene Horsch Denies He's a Serial Killer as Philadelphia Cops Hunt for Missing Women," *Newsweek,* 2026. https://www.newsweek.com/philadelphia-obviously-serial-killer-former-fbi-agent-12457175
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
82
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ghulam Ishaq Khan.md
Normal file
82
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ghulam Ishaq Khan.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,82 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Political Figure"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Pakistan
|
||||
- BCCI
|
||||
- NuclearProliferation
|
||||
- CivilService
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Ishaq Khan
|
||||
- G. I. Khan
|
||||
summary: "Pakistani civil servant who ran the State Bank under Bhutto and the finance ministry under Zia, chaired the Pakistani BCCI Foundation, and was president of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993."
|
||||
born: 1915-01-15
|
||||
died: 2006-10-27
|
||||
location: "Peshawar, Pakistan"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: appointed
|
||||
with: "[[Zulfikar Ali Bhutto]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "governor of the State Bank of Pakistan"
|
||||
start: 1971-12
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: appointed
|
||||
with: "[[Zia ul-Haq]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "minister of finance"
|
||||
start: 1977
|
||||
end: 1984
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[BCCI Foundation]]"
|
||||
role: "chairman of the Pakistani BCCI Foundation"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Pakistan]]"
|
||||
role: "president"
|
||||
start: 1988-08-17
|
||||
end: 1993
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: relative_of
|
||||
with: "[[Anwar Saifullah]]"
|
||||
role: "father-in-law"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Ghulam Ishaq Khan was a [[Pakistan|Pakistani]] civil servant who was governor of the [[State Bank of Pakistan]] under [[Zulfikar Ali Bhutto]], minister of finance under [[Zia ul-Haq]], and president of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993. Through the 1980s he chaired the Pakistani foundation of [[Agha Hasan Abedi]]'s [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI), which received the bank's Pakistani profits free of tax.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Civil Service
|
||||
|
||||
He was born on January 15, 1915, in Ismail Khel, a village about eight kilometres from [[Bannu]] toward Lakki Marwat, in what became the [[North-West Frontier Province]]. His father died when he was a child. After graduating in chemistry and botany he joined the NWFP Civil Service in 1938, and in his early years served as treasury officer in Bannu, extra assistant commissioner in [[Abbottabad]], assistant commissioner of Haripur and Nowshera, and, in the mid-1940s, bursar of Islamia College in [[Peshawar]]. He was Development Commissioner of the NWFP in the early 1950s, federal secretary of irrigation, water and power from 1954, member for finance of the [[Water and Power Development Authority]] from 1956 and its chairman from 1963, and secretary of finance and secretary of the cabinet in the second half of the 1960s.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Bhutto and Zia
|
||||
|
||||
In December 1971 Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto appointed him governor of the State Bank, a post he held for slightly over three years before becoming secretary of defence in March 1975, according to his obituary in *Dawn*. A United Press International dispatch of 1988 described him instead as having been "deputy defense minister" under Bhutto.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
In July 1977, shortly after the chief of army staff, General Zia ul-Haq, proclaimed himself Chief Martial Law Administrator, suspended the constitution and overthrew Bhutto's government, Ishaq Khan was made secretary-general-in-chief. He then served as federal finance minister in the military government, from 1977 to 1984. In early 1985 he was elected to the [[Senate of Pakistan|Senate]] on the NWFP quota of seats reserved for technocrats, and Zia nominated him as a candidate for chairman of the Senate.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The BCCI Foundation
|
||||
|
||||
The Pakistani [[BCCI Foundation]] was created "as a means of sheltering BCCI profits from taxation," according to the [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]], and "in 1981, it received tax-free status while Ishaq Khan was Pakistan's minister of finance." The foundation received BCCI's profits from its Pakistani operations "and then used some of those profits to finance projects the Pakistani government wanted and could not pay for itself." Among them, BCCI "provided $10 million in grants in the late 1980's to finance an officially 'private' science and technology institute named for Pakistani President Ishaq Khan, whose director, A. Qadir Khan, has been closely associated with Pakistan's efforts to build a nuclear bomb." The report stated that Ishaq Khan "had served as chairman of the BCCI Foundation throughout the 1980's, and had close ties to Abedi."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The report recorded that "among BCCI officials, it was generally believed that if Zia had still been alive in October, 1988, he would have used his influence with the U.S. government to soften the handling of the case against BCCI in Tampa," and continued: "With Zia gone, BCCI was not left without resources in Pakistan, however. The man who became President, Ishaq Khan, had served as chairman of the BCCI Foundation."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
He established the 2.2 billion rupee [[Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute]] of Engineering Sciences and Technology in [[Swabi]], of which [[A.Q. Khan]] was project director. His long-time aide [[Roedad Khan]] said that his part in the nuclear programme had led a U.S. diplomat to call him "Mr Nuke."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### President
|
||||
|
||||
On August 17, 1988, the [[C-130]] carrying Zia exploded after takeoff from Bahawalpur. As acting president, Ishaq Khan said in a national broadcast, "There is the possibility of sabotage in the crash. The aircraft exploded soon after takeoff. I have ordered an inquiry into the incident." He declared a state of emergency "with immediate effect," and the army was deployed at government installations in the capital and in [[Karachi]]. Zia had announced on July 20 that elections would be held on November 16 and declared the next day that they would be held on a non-party basis; on the day of the crash [[Benazir Bhutto]] had petitioned the Supreme Court to require elections on a party basis.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
He held the presidency for over four years. In that time he removed two elected governments, one led by Benazir Bhutto and the other by [[Nawaz Sharif]], installing interim governments first under a deal with Sharif in 1990 and later with Bhutto in 1993. He left the President's House in 1993 under a compromise brokered by the chief of army staff, General [[Abdul Waheed Kakar]], that also removed Sharif as prime minister. "He would never speak about those days and happenings around him as he always chose to keep memories of those times close to his heart describing them as state's secrets," said Haroon Bilour, a member of his family.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Death
|
||||
|
||||
Ishaq Khan died at his residence in University Town, Peshawar, at 10:55 on the morning of October 27, 2006, at about 92, and was buried the same day in the University Town graveyard with official protocol. Those at his funeral prayers included [[Qazi Hussain Ahmed]], [[Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain]], [[Samiul Haq]], [[Gohar Ayub Khan]], former President [[Farooq Leghari]], the federal ministers [[Ijazul Haq]] and Salim Saifullah Khan, and the minister of state Omer Ayub; Prime Minister [[Shaukat Aziz]] later called on the family. He left a son, Mamoon Ishaq Khan, and five daughters, of whom Samina was married to the former federal minister [[Anwar Saifullah]] and Rakhsha to Irfanullah Marwat, a provincial minister in [[Sindh]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Amir, Intikhab. "Ghulam Ishaq Khan passes away," *Dawn*, October 28, 2006. https://www.dawn.com/news/216492/ghulam-ishaq-khan-passes-away
|
||||
[^2]: Barnetson, Denholm. "President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel and...," United Press International, August 17, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/08/17/President-Mohammad-Zia-ul-Haq-US-Ambassador-Arnold-Raphel-and/3467587793600/
|
||||
[^3]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 5, "BCCI's Relationship with Foreign Governments, Central Banks, and International Organizations," section "Pakistan." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/05foreign.htm
|
||||
65
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/John Krol.md
Normal file
65
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/John Krol.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Historical Figure"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- CatholicChurch
|
||||
- Cardinal
|
||||
- Philadelphia
|
||||
- Censorship
|
||||
- RCHorsch
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- John Joseph Krol
|
||||
- Cardinal Krol
|
||||
- Cardinal John Krol
|
||||
summary: "Archbishop of Philadelphia from 1961 to 1988 and cardinal from 1967, who led sixteen religious leaders in condemning R.C. Horsch's film Black Mass in 1975."
|
||||
born: 1910-10-26
|
||||
died: 1996-03-03
|
||||
location: "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia]]"
|
||||
role: "archbishop"
|
||||
start: 1961-03-22
|
||||
end: 1988-02-11
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: appointed
|
||||
with: "[[Pope John XXIII]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1961-02-11
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[United States Conference of Catholic Bishops]]"
|
||||
role: "president"
|
||||
start: 1971
|
||||
end: 1974
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
John Joseph Krol (October 26, 1910, to March 3, 1996) was archbishop of the [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia]] from 1961 to 1988 and a cardinal from 1967. He was known both as a conservative and as an opponent of the nuclear arms race. In 1975 he led the religious leaders of [[Philadelphia]] who condemned the film [[Black Mass (1975 film)|Black Mass]] by Ray Hoersch, later [[R.C. Horsch]].[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cleveland and Rome
|
||||
|
||||
Krol was born in [[Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland]] to Polish immigrants, the fourth of eight children, and managed the meat department of a Kroger store before entering the priesthood. Bishop Joseph Schrembs of Cleveland ordained him on February 20, 1937, and he earned a licentiate in canon law at the [[Pontifical Gregorian University]] in [[Rome]] in 1940. He was auxiliary bishop of Cleveland from 1953 to 1961.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Philadelphia
|
||||
|
||||
[[Pope John XXIII]] named him the tenth archbishop of Philadelphia on February 11, 1961, and he was installed on March 22, succeeding John Francis O'Hara. He cleared several million dollars of archdiocesan debt within two years and opened 34 parishes over the following fifteen years. At the [[Second Vatican Council]] he was an undersecretary who organized its debates and votes. [[Pope Paul VI]] made him a cardinal on June 26, 1967, in the same consistory as Karol Wojtyła, later [[Pope John Paul II]], and both voted in the two conclaves of 1978. He was president of the [[United States Conference of Catholic Bishops]] from 1971 to 1974. He retired on February 11, 1988, and was succeeded by [[Anthony Bevilacqua]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Black Mass
|
||||
|
||||
In February 1975 a midnight run of *Black Mass*, a film of a satanic mass, was cancelled at the [[Arcadia Theatre (Philadelphia)|Arcadia]] in Center City "after reported pressure by the Philadelphia Archdiocese," according to [[Art Carduner]], whose [[Bandbox Theater]] in [[Germantown, Philadelphia|Germantown]] showed it instead on March 1.[^3] Krol led sixteen Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Jewish leaders in a joint statement that called the film "a blasphemous attack on the religious rites held in sacred reverence by millions of Christian believers" and "a frontal attack on the sacred itself," said that it was "obviously intended not to be viewed as a film, but as a blasphemous ritualistic observance," and asked everyone in the local film industry "to resist and reject every attempt to market or portray this film." The signers included Rabbi Charles Lacks of the [[Greater Philadelphia Board of Rabbis]] and Francis G. Brown of the [[Philadelphia Yearly Meeting]] of the Religious Society of Friends.[^4] Eleven weeks before the Bandbox screening, on December 10, 1974, Hoersch had been arrested by the [[United States Secret Service]] for counterfeiting ten-dollar bills.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Death
|
||||
|
||||
Krol, who had diabetes and a heart ailment, was hospitalized on February 14, 1996, and failed to respond to treatment for kidney problems and a blood clot in a lung, according to the [[Associated Press]]. He died at his home on March 3, 1996, aged 85.[^2] He was buried in the crypt of the [[Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul]] after a funeral attended by seven cardinals, sixty bishops, and 1,500 priests, at which Cardinal [[John O'Connor]] of [[New York City|New York]] preached.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Weil, Martin. "Cardinal John Krol Dies; Philadelphia Archbishop," *The Washington Post,* March 4, 1996; "Cardinal Krol laid to rest," United Press International, March 8, 1996. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1996/03/04/cardinal-john-krol-dies/8d845f35-61a2-4b44-934a-0bdc39ca14df/ ; https://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/03/08/Cardinal-Krol-laid-to-rest/8760826261200/
|
||||
[^2]: Weil, Martin. "Cardinal John Krol Dies; Philadelphia Archbishop," *The Washington Post,* March 4, 1996. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1996/03/04/cardinal-john-krol-dies/8d845f35-61a2-4b44-934a-0bdc39ca14df/
|
||||
[^3]: [Society and nightlife column], *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* February 28, 1975, p. 21. https://www.newspapers.com/image/173366667/
|
||||
[^4]: "Offensive Material: Leaders Condemn Black Mass Film," Religious News Service, *Lake Shore Visitor* (Erie), March 7, 1975, p. 3. https://www.newspapers.com/image/951794835/
|
||||
[^5]: "[...] bogus $180,000 in Bucks raid," *The Morning Call* (Allentown), December 11, 1974, p. 5. https://www.newspapers.com/image/275702319/
|
||||
[^6]: "Cardinal Krol laid to rest," United Press International, March 8, 1996. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/03/08/Cardinal-Krol-laid-to-rest/8760826261200/
|
||||
67
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Arshad Pervez.md
Normal file
67
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Arshad Pervez.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Nuclear Scientists & Programs"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Pakistan
|
||||
- Canada
|
||||
- NuclearProliferation
|
||||
- ExportControl
|
||||
- Kahuta
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Arshad Z. Pervez
|
||||
- Arshed Pervez
|
||||
summary: "Pakistani-born Toronto trader arrested in 1987 while buying maraging steel and beryllium for Pakistan's nuclear program, whose case ended in 1990 with a nolo contendere plea and release for time served."
|
||||
location: "Toronto, Canada"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[A.P. Enterprises]]"
|
||||
start: 1986
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Multinational Inc.]]"
|
||||
role: "buyer of maraging steel and beryllium for Inam Ul-Haq's Lahore firm"
|
||||
start: 1986-10
|
||||
end: 1987-07
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: prosecuted
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "United States v. Pervez, Crim. No. 87-00283"
|
||||
start: 1987-07-28
|
||||
end: 1990-04-04
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Arshad Z. Pervez was a native of [[Pakistan]] who moved to [[Canada]] in 1967 and ran an import-export business in [[Toronto]]. In July 1987 he was arrested in [[Philadelphia]] while arranging the shipment to Pakistan of maraging steel, a high-strength steel used in gas centrifuges, and he had also sought beryllium for the same buyer, a [[Lahore]] firm that [[United States]] officials regarded as a procurement agent for the nuclear network of [[A.Q. Khan]].[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### A.P. Enterprises
|
||||
|
||||
Pervez incorporated [[A.P. Enterprises]] in Toronto in 1986 and contracted with companies in [[Saudi Arabia]] and Pakistan to export pillows, food, mini-TVs, satellite antennas, computers and lumber. In October 1986 he asked a business acquaintance to find a source of "maraging steel" and was referred to [[Carpenter Technology Corporation]] of Pennsylvania. Carpenter's staff told him the steel required a [[United States Department of Commerce|Commerce Department]] license for use in an unsafeguarded nuclear facility; one of them, Tomley, notified the [[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]] and the [[U.S. Customs|United States Customs Service]]. In November 1986 Tomley and the Customs special agent John New, posing as a marketing analyst for Carpenter, met Pervez in Toronto, where he named his client as [[Inam Ul-Haq]] of [[Multinational Inc.|Multinational Corporation]] of Lahore.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Sting
|
||||
|
||||
Pervez offered a series of end uses: the Pakistani equivalent of [[NASA]], a research project of [[Karachi]] University's engineering program, rocket motors, high-speed compressors and turbines, and antitank weapons. Told in December 1986 that a cash payment to the licensing officer might be needed, he said he would pay 5,000 dollars and then asked to reduce the "kickback" to 3,000. On January 13, 1987, he met in Philadelphia the Customs special agent Frank Rovello, who was posing as a Commerce Department licensing officer, and gave him 1,000 dollars as a down payment on the license. The next day he toured Carpenter's plant at Reading; at dinner Tomley told him he believed the end use was the uranium enrichment plant in Pakistan, and, according to New, Pervez nodded. About a month later he mailed two end-use statements, one in the name of Noeem Pasha, general manager of Multinational, and one from the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, stating that the steel would be used for turbines and compressors.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The Commerce Department issued a false license on March 31, 1987. At a later meeting in Toronto Pervez added beryllium to the order, and when New said it was illegal to ship, remarked that "the United States won't mind a small piece." When New suggested that other hard metals were for "another application in the plant at Kahuta," Pervez answered, "Could be," and at the end of the meeting said that "the Kahuta client is ready." On June 18, 1987, he gave New the dimensions and chemical formula of the beryllium by telephone and asked him to commingle it with the steel. In July he drove to Philadelphia to arrange the first shipment of steel and make another payment to Rovello, and was arrested.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Exhibits assembled for the prosecution included his notebooks, with entries reading "atom," "military," and "my expert is procurement manager for nuclear plant." In a letter of early 1987 Ul-Haq told him that "personal interests must not be allowed to overtake national interests," that "in this bargain I have suffered a loss of nearly 15000 $," and that the loss could be "made up" by an "order for other items." A [[State Department]] intelligence report called Pervez "a convenient tool" for Pakistani procurement agents, who had supplied him with nuclear "shopping lists." Ul-Haq left the United States before he could be arrested. On September 2, 1987, the U.S. consulate in Lahore reported a secondhand claim, which its source had not witnessed, that the Pakistani government had detained him and was rotating him among locations in Pakistan-controlled [[Kashmir]].[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Trial
|
||||
|
||||
A federal grand jury indicted Pervez and Ul-Haq on eight counts on July 28, 1987. Pervez admitted the elements of the bribery counts and claimed entrapment. On December 17, 1987, the jury convicted him of conspiracy to defraud the government, attempting to export beryllium without a license, and making false statements to the Commerce Department about the steel, and acquitted him on the bribery and interstate travel counts; Ul-Haq was also found guilty of conspiracy and false statements. According to the State Department, the jurors found Pervez's testimony "confused and not credible" and "accepted the theory that [he] was part of a plot to send nuclear materials to Kahuta for an enrichment program aimed at producing nuclear bombs." He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on the conspiracy count, with sentence suspended and five years' probation on the remaining counts.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
On the day of the verdict President [[Ronald Reagan]] certified to Congress that he had "concluded that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device," which allowed aid to Pakistan to resume. [[Kenneth Adelman]] of the [[Arms Control and Disarmament Agency]] had argued since the arrest for invoking the Solarz amendment, which required a cut-off of aid when a recipient's agents illegally procured nuclear materials in the United States, warning that if the administration "lawyer[ed] our way around" it, "Zia will conclude once again that he need do nothing about his bomb program." In January 1988 the [[White House]] invoked the amendment and waived it.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Appeal and Plea
|
||||
|
||||
On March 6, 1989, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit]] (Judges Becker, Hutchinson and Scirica) vacated the conspiracy and beryllium convictions and ordered a new trial on them under *Mathews v. United States*, and remanded for a hearing on entrapment on the false statement counts.[^1] The ruling allowed Pervez to seek a retrial on all counts. After plea negotiations he pleaded nolo contendere to the count of illegal export of beryllium, and he was released from prison on April 4, 1990, on the basis of time served. The State Department's legal adviser, [[Abraham Sofaer]], wrote that the outcome "did not suggest either innocence on the defendant's part or a lack of evidence supporting the government's case."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]] stated that arms trafficking involving the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] "included the financing of Pakistan's procurement of nuclear weapons through BCCI Canada, as documented in the Parvez case," citing the testimony of the State Department's deputy legal adviser, [[Alan Kreczko]]. The Third Circuit's opinion does not mention BCCI or any bank.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: *United States v. Pervez*, 871 F.2d 310 (3d Cir. 1989), No. 88-1109, argued October 19, 1988, decided March 6, 1989, opinion of Scirica, J. https://static.case.law/f2d/871/cases/0310-01.json
|
||||
[^2]: Burr, William, ed. "The Pervez Case and Reagan Administration Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy, 1987," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 446, November 22, 2013, including Documents 18, 21, 23A-C, 24 and 28A-B (Department of State, memorandum from Abraham Sofaer to Mr. Kimmitt, "Pakistan Nuclear-Final Resolution of Pervez Case," April 10, 1990). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb446/
|
||||
[^3]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 4, "BCCI's Criminality" (citing testimony of Alan Kreczko, Deputy Legal Adviser, Department of State, S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 3, p. 599). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
|
||||
56
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Saigol family.md
Normal file
56
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Saigol family.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Business & Finance"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Family
|
||||
- Pakistan
|
||||
- BCCI
|
||||
- Textiles
|
||||
- Nationalization
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Saigols
|
||||
- the Saigols
|
||||
- Saigol Group
|
||||
- Saigol group
|
||||
summary: "Punjabi textile and industrial family whose account Agha Hasan Abedi carried from Habib Bank to United Bank and BCCI, and which owed BCCI 44 million dollars by 1990."
|
||||
location: "Pakistan"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Kohinoor Textile Mills]]"
|
||||
role: "Yusuf, Bashir and Sayed Saigol"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "loans; 44 million dollars owed with no evidence of repayment, per Price Waterhouse"
|
||||
end: 1990
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Saigol family was a [[Pakistan|Pakistani]] industrial family whose fortune began in textiles and which, according to the [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]], was "as close to 'old wealth' as existed at the time within Pakistan's commercial class." [[Agha Hasan Abedi]] held the family's account at [[Habib Bank]], [[United Bank Limited|United Bank]] and the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) in turn, and by 1990 the family owed BCCI 44 million dollars.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Origins
|
||||
|
||||
According to the Pakistani columnist [[Ikram Sehgal]], the Saigols were Awans from the village of Khothian, later renamed Saigolabad, and set up a rubber shoe factory in [[Calcutta]] in 1930. As civilian contractors for the wartime logistics centred in Calcutta during the Second World War they "became fabulously rich." They planned their first textile mills in Calcutta at the partition of 1947; on the personal intervention of [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah]] the machinery was moved to Pakistan to set up the [[Kohinoor Textile Mills]] at [[Faisalabad]], and Nasim Saigol later claimed that the first letter of credit opened with the [[State Bank of Pakistan]] was for the mills. The group was owned jointly by three of the four sons of the founder, Amin Saigol: Yusuf, Bashir and Sayed. The fourth, Gul Saigol, stayed in India in 1947.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Habib, United and BCCI
|
||||
|
||||
The Senate report described the Saigol group as "one of the major industrial and trade groups in Pakistan by the mid-1950's." Abedi "first secured the Saigol account while at Habib, and took the account with him when he left to form United Bank, making the Saigol's United's principal shareholders." At the time, "some in Pakistani's commercial community wondered how Abedi had managed to take the important Saigol relationship from the Habib Bank. Thirty years later, Price Waterhouse was to detail the reason," namely "Abedi's willingness to reschedule millions in loans to the Saigols whenever they found it inconvenient to repay them." The report cited Price Waterhouse's "Problem Loans" reports to BCCI of February 14, 1990, and a BCCI Task Force Report on the Saigols.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
According to the report, "the nationalization of Pakistani banking which provided the impetus for BCCI also insured that BCCI would retain the Saigol relationship, as a substantial portion of their businesses were also nationalized by Bhutto in 1972." BCCI gave the Saigols and the [[Gokal brothers]] "the freedom to defer repayment of past loans and to borrow new money at will," and "a special privilege similar to that afforded BCCI's own officers: when something went wrong and they lost money, BCCI would help them cover it up."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 1990 Audit
|
||||
|
||||
In the new audit reports that began reaching BCCI's acting head, [[Swaleh Naqvi]], in February 1990, [[Price Waterhouse]] found that there was no evidence that the Saigols' loans or interest on them were being repaid, and that BCCI had lied to the auditors about the family's accounts. The auditors wrote: "Representations previously given about the beneficial ownership of companies to which new loans were extended in Bahrain in 1989 have been false. The loans have been given, in part, to repay delinquent loans in other locations." The same audit raised problems with the lending to the BCCI shareholders [[Ghaith Pharaon]], the bin Mahfouz family and members of the [[Abu Dhabi]] royal family.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Split
|
||||
|
||||
According to Sehgal, the Saigol group divided in 1976 among sixteen male descendants and afterwards operated as four groups: the Saigol group of Nasim Saigol, the Mohib group of Rafiq Saigol, the Kohinoor group of Tariq Sayed Saigol, and a smaller Iqbal Saigol group.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI," sections "Abedi As Pakistani Political Paymaster" and "Impact of Nationalization" (citing Price Waterhouse reports to BCCI on "Problem Loans," February 14, 1990, "S. Hrg. 103-350" [sic], pt. 1, pp. 359-360, and BCCI Task Force Report on Saigols, pp. 437-438). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm
|
||||
[^2]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 10, "BCCI and Its Accountants" (citing S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 1, p. 360). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/10accounta.htm
|
||||
[^3]: Sehgal, Ikram. "Family business in Pakistan-II: The Houses of Habibs, Adamjees and Saigols," *Pakistan Observer*, September 16, 2022. https://pakobserver.net/family-business-in-pakistan-ii-the-houses-of-habibs-adamjees-and-saigols-by-ikram-sehgal/
|
||||
85
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Bret Taylor.md
Normal file
85
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Bret Taylor.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- OpenAI
|
||||
- Salesforce
|
||||
- Twitter
|
||||
- Facebook
|
||||
- Google
|
||||
- Axon
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Bret Taylor
|
||||
summary: "Google Maps co-creator, Facebook chief technology officer, Salesforce co-chief executive and Twitter board chair who has chaired OpenAI's board since Sam Altman's reinstatement in November 2023."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[OpenAI]]"
|
||||
role: "chair of the board of directors"
|
||||
start: 2023-11-29
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Google]]"
|
||||
role: "group product manager"
|
||||
end: 2007-06
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[FriendFeed]]"
|
||||
role: "cofounder and chief executive officer"
|
||||
start: 2007-10
|
||||
end: 2009-08
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Facebook]]"
|
||||
role: "chief technology officer"
|
||||
start: 2009-08
|
||||
end: 2012-07
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Quip]]"
|
||||
role: "cofounder and chief executive officer"
|
||||
start: 2012-09
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Salesforce]]"
|
||||
role: "president and chief product officer, president and chief operating officer, then vice chair and co-chief executive officer"
|
||||
start: 2017-11
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Twitter]]"
|
||||
role: "director; independent board chair from November 2021"
|
||||
start: 2016-07
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Axon Enterprise]]"
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 2014-06
|
||||
end: 2019-06
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Bret Taylor is a software executive who has chaired the board of [[OpenAI]] since November 2023. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science from [[Stanford University]].[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Career
|
||||
|
||||
According to the proxy statement [[Twitter]] filed in April 2022, Taylor was a group product manager at [[Google]] before June 2007, where he "co-created Google Maps and the Google Maps API." From June to September 2007 he was an entrepreneur-in-residence at the venture firm [[Benchmark]], where he cofounded [[FriendFeed]], a social network he ran as chief executive from October 2007 to August 2009. He was chief technology officer of [[Facebook]] from August 2009 to July 2012, then cofounded the productivity-software company [[Quip]], which [[Salesforce]] acquired.[^2] Salesforce's proxy statement of the same month gave his Quip tenure as chief executive from September 2012 to August 2016 and as president of Quip within Salesforce from August 2016 to November 2017; Twitter's gave it as chief executive through November 2017. At Salesforce he was president and chief product officer from November 2017, president and chief operating officer from December 2019, and vice chair and co-chief executive from November 2021. The Salesforce statement gave his age as 41.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Taylor joined Twitter's board in July 2016 and became its independent board chair in November 2021. From June 2014 to June 2019 he was a director of [[Axon Enterprise]], "formerly known as TASER International," which the Twitter statement described as "a protection technologies company."[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### OpenAI
|
||||
|
||||
After OpenAI's board removed [[Sam Altman]] as chief executive on November 17, 2023, Altman returned on November 29 with "a new initial board" of Taylor as chair, [[Larry Summers]] and [[Adam D'Angelo]]. Altman thanked "Will Hurd, Brian Chesky, Bret Taylor and Larry Summers" for having "put their lives on hold" to support the company. In his own message to staff Taylor wrote that the board was "thrilled that Sam, Mira and Greg are back together leading the company," that it would include "a non-voting observer for [[Microsoft]]," and that it would convene "an independent committee of the Board to oversee a review of the recent events." On December 8, 2023, he announced that the committee, consisting of himself and Summers, had selected Anjan Sahni and Hallie B. Levin of [[WilmerHale]] to conduct the review.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On March 8, 2024, the special committee announced that the review was complete and that the board expressed "full confidence" in Altman and [[Greg Brockman]]. "We have unanimously concluded that Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI," Taylor stated. The WilmerHale summary found that the prior board's decision "did not arise out of concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI's finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners," and that Altman's "conduct did not mandate removal." The board added [[Sue Desmond-Hellmann]], former chief executive of the [[Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation]], [[Nicole Seligman]], formerly of [[Sony]], and [[Fidji Simo]] of [[Instacart]], and Altman rejoined it.[^4] Reporting in May 2024 on an account of the removal given by the former director [[Helen Toner]], *CNBC* quoted Taylor as saying the review had found "a significant breakdown of trust between the prior board and Sam and Greg."[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
On September 9, 2026, the [[OpenAI Foundation]], the nonprofit controlling OpenAI Group PBC, appointed [[Paul Christiano]], then a senior technical advisor at the federal [[U.S. AI Safety Institute|Center for AI Standards and Innovation]], to its board. Taylor, as board chair, said Christiano's "experience working on frontier AI safety and standards in government" would strengthen its oversight.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: OpenAI. "Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board." November 29, 2023, with update of December 8, 2023, archived September 13, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260913004743/https://openai.com/index/sam-altman-returns-as-ceo-openai-has-a-new-initial-board/
|
||||
[^2]: Twitter, Inc. Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 12, 2022, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000114036122014049/ny20001921x3_def14a.htm
|
||||
[^3]: Salesforce, Inc. Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 28, 2022, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1108524/000119312522127612/d301179ddef14a.htm
|
||||
[^4]: OpenAI. "Review completed & Altman, Brockman to continue to lead OpenAI." March 8, 2024, archived September 13, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260913014725/https://openai.com/index/review-completed-altman-brockman-to-continue-to-lead-openai/
|
||||
[^5]: "Former OpenAI board member explains why CEO Sam Altman got fired before he was rehired." *CNBC,* May 29, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/29/former-openai-board-member-explains-why-ceo-sam-altman-was-fired.html
|
||||
[^6]: OpenAI Foundation, "Paul Christiano joins OpenAI Foundation Board," September 9, 2026. https://openaifoundation.org/news/paul-christiano-joins-openai-foundation-board
|
||||
49
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Nate Thomas.md
Normal file
49
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Nate Thomas.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- AISafety
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- Longtermism
|
||||
- RedwoodResearch
|
||||
- StanfordUniversity
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Nathaniel Thomas
|
||||
- Nathaniel C. Thomas
|
||||
summary: "Stanford-affiliated machine-learning researcher who cofounded Redwood Research in 2021 as chief executive, later chaired its board, and led the affiliated Constellation Institute in Berkeley."
|
||||
location: "Berkeley, California"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Constellation Institute]]"
|
||||
role: "chief executive"
|
||||
end: 2024-07
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
created: 2026-09-23
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-23
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Nathaniel "Nate" Thomas is a machine-learning researcher who cofounded [[Redwood Research]], the [[Berkeley]], California AI-alignment nonprofit, in 2021 and served as its chief executive and later its board chair.[^1][^2] Redwood's filings with the [[Internal Revenue Service]] are made in care of Nathaniel Thomas at 2150 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 1200, Berkeley.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Stanford
|
||||
|
||||
Thomas was the lead author, with [[Tess Smidt]] of the [[University of California, Berkeley]] and the [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]] and five researchers from [[Google]] in Mountain View (Steven Kearnes, Lusann Yang, Li Li, Kai Kohlhoff and Patrick Riley), of "Tensor field networks: Rotation- and translation-equivariant neural networks for 3D point clouds," posted in February 2018. The paper gives his affiliation as [[Stanford University]].[^3] In April 2023 the pseudonymous authors of a LessWrong critique of Redwood, signed "Omega.", wrote that "CEO Nate Thomas has a Physics PhD and published some papers on ML during his PhD."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Redwood Research
|
||||
|
||||
Announcing the organization on October 6, 2021, Thomas wrote: "Redwood Research is a longtermist research lab focusing on applied AI alignment. We're led by Nate Thomas (CEO), [[Buck Shlegeris]] (CTO), and [[Bill Zito]] (COO/software engineer); our board is Nate, [[Paul Christiano]] and [[Holden Karnofsky]]. We currently have ten people on staff."[^1] Karnofsky was then co-chief executive of [[Open Philanthropy]], which recommended "four grants totaling $9,420,000 to Redwood Research for general support" in November 2021, with [[Nick Beckstead]] as grant investigator, and gave Redwood 62.52 million dollars in all by the end of 2025.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
On Redwood's return for 2021 Thomas was chief executive and president and was paid 56,250 dollars, the same as Shlegeris and Zito, with Karnofsky as unpaid treasurer and Christiano as unpaid secretary. For 2022 he was chairperson and president, paid 274,361 dollars. The return for 2023 listed him as director and board chair, Shlegeris as chief executive, and Open Philanthropy's senior program officer for AI risk, [[Ajeya Cotra]], as a director.[^2] The "Omega." critique stated: "Two of Redwood's leadership team have or have had relationships to an OP grant maker. A Redwood board member is married to a different OP grantmaker. A co-CEO of OP is one of the other three board members of Redwood."[^4]
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### Constellation
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The same critique described Constellation as an office of about 30,000 square feet run by Redwood, "hosting staff from several technical AI safety focused and longtermist EA-aligned organizations such as OP, ARC, the Atlas Fellowship, CEA and OpenAI," and stated that "OP pays Redwood for use of the space."[^4] The [[Constellation Institute]], EIN 93-2465256, a 501(c)(3) filing from Redwood's Shattuck Avenue address, listed Thomas as chief executive on its return for 2023, when it paid him 91,091 dollars while Redwood paid him 183,333 dollars, each reporting the other's payment as related-organization compensation. Its return for 2024 listed him as chief executive "thru 7/24."[^2][^7]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Thomas, Nate. "We're Redwood Research, we do applied alignment research, AMA." LessWrong, October 6, 2021, linkpost of the EA Forum original. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qHvHvBR8L6oycnMXe/we-re-redwood-research-we-do-applied-alignment-research-ama
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[^2]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Redwood Research Group Inc," EIN 87-1702255, organization record and Form 990 Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2021 to 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/871702255
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[^3]: Thomas, Nathaniel, Tess Smidt, Steven Kearnes, Lusann Yang, Li Li, Kai Kohlhoff, and Patrick Riley. "Tensor field networks: Rotation- and translation-equivariant neural networks for 3D point clouds." arXiv:1802.08219, submitted February 22, 2018, revised May 18, 2018. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.08219
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[^4]: Omega. "Critiques of prominent AI safety labs: Redwood Research." LessWrong, April 17, 2023, linkpost of the EA Forum original. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SuZ6Guuos7CjfwRQb/critiques-of-prominent-ai-safety-labs-redwood-research
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[^5]: Open Philanthropy, "Redwood Research, General Support," November 2021, archived August 11, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220811081927/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support/
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[^6]: Smith, Ben. "Coefficient Giving's CEO on Silicon Valley's $40 billion philanthropy boom." *Semafor,* September 3, 2026. https://www.semafor.com/article/09/03/2026/coefficient-givings-ceo-on-silicon-valley-40-billion-philanthropy-boom
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[^7]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Constellation Institute Inc," EIN 93-2465256, organization record, Form 990 data and Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/932465256
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