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this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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TechTakes
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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Back in 2019, Ben Pace of Lightcone said that CFAR and Lightcone were one legal entity, but two boards with no overlap. Did CFAR + Lightcone really spend $22 million on real estate in Berkeley without spending a few grand to create a separate nonprofit and separate the finances? In 2024, CFAR still had the real estate and the mortgage on its books. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/eR7Su77N2nK3e5YRZ/the-lesswrong-team-is-now-lightcone-infrastructure-come-work-3
I have never opened a US business bank account, but I would think it would be hard to keep the bank accounts separate if one organization has no independent legal existence, and transactions in the millions or tens of millions tempt the most righteous person to stick his fingers in the till.
It's theoretically possible to keep them separate, but I would assume in this case that it's evidence that regardless of intentions CFAR and lightcone are sufficiently closely linked to be basically the same organization. I mean, if there's not a separate legal entity then I would assume anything involving money is going to require the same person or persons to sign off on the transaction, regardless of what the board looks like.
Forming a single legal entity would have made it hard to protect the other projects if the CFAR side had lost a lawsuit over abuse of a minor at a CFAR event, or Lightcone had lost a judgment over taking money from FTX and had to sell the Rose Garden property, I know these people don't do "fear of frequent consequences of ordinary human weaknesses" but that is a big risk.
I also wonder who served as treasurer and bookkeeper for each project. If one person served both projects, he or she could have caused all kinds of trouble, even if there were separate bank accounts.
Man, I wish I had enough money to fuck around with nonprofit shenanigans