[erostrate]

One main idea of EA is that you should make a lot of money in order to give it away. The obvious problem is that this can serve as a convenient moral justification for greed. SBF explicitly endorsed EA, Will MacAskill vouched for him, and I understand he was widely admired in EA circles. And he turned out to be the perfect incarnation of this problem, admitting himself he just used EA as a thin veil.

What would you count as evidence that effective altruism fails?

[tim333]

If effective altruism was not much good for the average adherent I'd say that was a fail. SBF was an outlier.