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How is Decision Intel different from ChatGPT or a general AI assistant?

ChatGPT gives one opinion from one model: ungoverned, untraceable, unaudited. Decision Intel is the reasoning audit platform. Most tools audit your data; we audit your reasoning — and catch the fatal blind spots in strategic memos before the committee does. It measures the noise in your reasoning the same way Kahneman did in the insurance underwriter study, simulates an AI boardroom of CEO, CFO, and board personas, runs what-if interventions against a 143-case public reference library, and compounds every confirmed outcome back into a calibrated Decision Quality Index your audit committee can defend. Not a chatbot; a reasoning audit, checkable from memo to outcome.

Which cognitive biases were evident in FTX's collapse?

4 bias patterns are documented in this case, led by Authority Bias. The full set: Authority Bias, Groupthink, Overconfidence Bias, Halo Effect. Each is mapped to Decision Intel's 22-bias R²F taxonomy with stable IDs and academic citations.

Did these cognitive biases cause FTX's collapse?

Decision Intel identifies reasoning-risk indicators correlated with poor outcomes — it does not claim to establish causation. That honesty is the procurement weapon: a CSO can defend a score that names the risk indicators a committee should pressure-test, not one that pretends to prove the cause. Authority Bias and the other documented patterns were detectable in the reasoning before the outcome was known; whether they caused it is a question no audit can settle — too many other factors (market, timing, execution) are in play. A reasoning audit names the risk indicators a committee should pressure-test, not a verdict it should accept.

What is Decision Intel's reasoning audit?

Decision Intel runs a 12-node Recognition-Rigor Framework (R²F) pipeline on strategic memos, detecting cognitive biases from a 22-bias canonical taxonomy and producing a Decision Quality Index (DQI) score. The audit produces a hashed, tamper-evident Decision Provenance Record (DPR) suitable for audit-committee review.

All case studies

Catastrophic failureFinancial Services2022

FTX

FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Collapse

Estimated impact: $32B

F16

Decision Quality Index (simulated)

Critical · 4 biases detected, 2 toxic combinations

FTX, valued at $32 billion, collapsed in days after it was revealed that customer deposits had been commingled with its sister trading firm Alameda Research. The company operated without a board of directors, and investors performed minimal due diligence, deferring to founder Sam Bankman-Fried's perceived authority.

Decision context

Whether investors, auditors, and regulators should have demanded standard corporate governance structures, independent boards, and segregation of customer funds before extending trust and capital.

Decision anatomy

Monetary stakes

Very high

Dissent suppressed

Yes

Time pressure

None

Unanimous consensus

Yes

Decision participants

Dissent encouraged

External advisors

Iterative process

Red = risk factor present · Green = protective factor present

Decision Intel Platform Analysis

Source: Press Release · 2022-01-31

The analysis below was produced from the pre-decision document only. No hindsight. This is what the platform would have surfaced if it had been running in 2022-01-31.

Press Release · 2022-01-31

“FTX raised $400M at a $32B valuation from investors including Sequoia, Paradigm, SoftBank, Temasek, and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. The company had no board of directors. CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was the sole signatory on corporate actions. No independent audit of the relationship between FTX and sister trading firm Alameda Research had been performed. Sequoia's published profile described SBF playing League of Legends during the pitch meeting as a positive trait.”

Source: FTX Series C press release; Sequoia Capital published profile of Sam Bankman-Fried (archived, deleted November 2022)

Red flags detectable at decision time

No board of directors at a company holding billions of dollars in customer assets
Founder-controlled holding companies commingling corporate and personal funds
No segregation of customer crypto deposits from sister trading firm balance sheet
Unaudited relationship between FTX exchange and Alameda Research
Sequoia published profile celebrating founder attention-splitting as a virtue

Cognitive biases the platform would have flagged

Authority BiasHalo EffectBandwagon EffectGroupthink

Hypothetical analysis

DI would flag the absence of a functioning board of directors at a $32B financial-services company as a binary governance failure. The Sequoia profile's framing of founder-as-genius as substitute for institutional due diligence is a textbook halo-effect signal. Customer funds commingling is a bright-line fiduciary red flag — no bias-adjusted valuation could survive basic audit-trail verification of customer-asset segregation.

Biases present in the decision

★Authority Bias

critical

Groupthink

high

Overconfidence Bias

high

Halo Effect

medium

★ Primary driver · Severity estimated from bias type and decision outcome

3D Decision Knowledge Graph

FTX · 4 biases, 2 toxic combinations

Drag to rotate · Scroll to zoom · Click to explore

Decision

Critical

High

Medium

Toxic

Bias Intensity Profile

Severity × confidence across 4 detected biases

Toxic combinations

!Yes Committee

Authority bias meets groupthink: the group converges on whatever leadership signals it wants.

!Golden Child

A favored initiative receives uncritical support, with scrutiny reserved for alternatives.

Reference class base rates

Across all 143 curated case studies in our library:

89%

base failure rate

-0%

partial / mixed

11%

base success rate

■ Failure■ Partial■ Success

Lessons learned

Authority bias toward charismatic founders can cause sophisticated investors to abandon basic due diligence.
The absence of a functioning board of directors is a critical governance red flag regardless of a company's valuation.
Commingling customer funds with proprietary trading is a fundamental violation of fiduciary duty that no amount of innovation justifies.

Source: FTX Debtors' First Interim Report, Chapter 11 Case No. 22-11068 (2023); SEC v. Samuel Bankman-Fried complaint (SEC Filing)

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Workflows that fire on decisions like FTX’s

The same Recognition-Rigor Framework that documents this case audits memos in the same shape — before the outcome forces the lesson.

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Greensill Capital

Greensill Capital Collapse

Catastrophic failure2017

Steinhoff International

Steinhoff International Accounting Fraud

Catastrophic failure2008

Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities

Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme

Lessons learned

Authority bias toward charismatic founders can cause sophisticated investors to abandon basic due diligence.

The absence of a functioning board of directors is a critical governance red flag regardless of a company's valuation.

Commingling customer funds with proprietary trading is a fundamental violation of fiduciary duty that no amount of innovation justifies.