I share Holly’s appreciation for you all, and also the concern that Lightcone’s culture and your specific views of these problem don’t necessarily scale nor translate well outside of rat spheres of influence. I agree that’s sad, but I think it’s good for people to update their own views and with that in mind.
My takeaways from all this are fairly confidently the following:*
EA orgs could do with following more “common sense” in their operations.
For example,
hire “normie” staff or contractors early on who are expected to know and enforce laws, financial regulations, and labor practices conscientiously, despite the costs of “red tape.” Build org knowledge and infrastructure for conscientious accounting, payroll, and contracting practices, like a “normal” non-profit or startup. After putting that in place, allow leaders to pushback on red tape, but expect them to justify the costs of not following any “unnecessary” rules, rather than expecting junior employees to justify the costs of following rules.
don’t frequently mention a world-saving mission when trying to convince junior staff to do things they are hesitant to do. Focus on object level tasks and clear, org-level results instead. It’s fine to believe in the world-saving mission, obviously. But when you regularly invoke the potential for astronomical impact as a way to persuade junior staff to do things, you run a very high risk of creating manipulative pressure, suppressing disagreement, and short-circuiting their own judgment.
do not live with your employees. Peers might be ok, but it’s high risk of too much entanglement for junior and senior staff to live together.
similarly, do not expect staff to be your “family” or tribe, nor treat them with familial intimacy. Expecting productivity is enough. Expect them to leave for other jobs regularly, for a lot of reasons. Wish them well, don’t take it personally.
I think these 4 guidelines would have prevented 90%+ of the problems Alice and Chloe experienced.
I expect we only agree on the 4th point?
[*I have not worked directly with anyone involved. I have, however, worked in a similar rat-based project environment that lacked ‘normal’ professional boundaries. It left me seriously hurt, bewildered, isolated, and with a deeply distressing blow to my finances and sense of self, despite everyone’s good intentions. I resonated with Alice and Chloe a lot, even without dealing with any adversarial views like those attributed to Emerson.
I think the guidelines above would have prevented about 70% of my distress.
I believe Richenda and Minh that they’ve had good experiences with Kat. I had many positive experiences too on my project. I think it’s possible to have neutral to positive experiences with someone with Kat’s views, but only with much better boundaries in place].
I share Holly’s appreciation for you all, and also the concern that Lightcone’s culture and your specific views of these problem don’t necessarily scale nor translate well outside of rat spheres of influence. I agree that’s sad, but I think it’s good for people to update their own views and with that in mind.
My takeaways from all this are fairly confidently the following:*
EA orgs could do with following more “common sense” in their operations.
For example,
hire “normie” staff or contractors early on who are expected to know and enforce laws, financial regulations, and labor practices conscientiously, despite the costs of “red tape.” Build org knowledge and infrastructure for conscientious accounting, payroll, and contracting practices, like a “normal” non-profit or startup. After putting that in place, allow leaders to pushback on red tape, but expect them to justify the costs of not following any “unnecessary” rules, rather than expecting junior employees to justify the costs of following rules.
don’t frequently mention a world-saving mission when trying to convince junior staff to do things they are hesitant to do. Focus on object level tasks and clear, org-level results instead. It’s fine to believe in the world-saving mission, obviously. But when you regularly invoke the potential for astronomical impact as a way to persuade junior staff to do things, you run a very high risk of creating manipulative pressure, suppressing disagreement, and short-circuiting their own judgment.
do not live with your employees. Peers might be ok, but it’s high risk of too much entanglement for junior and senior staff to live together.
similarly, do not expect staff to be your “family” or tribe, nor treat them with familial intimacy. Expecting productivity is enough. Expect them to leave for other jobs regularly, for a lot of reasons. Wish them well, don’t take it personally.
I think these 4 guidelines would have prevented 90%+ of the problems Alice and Chloe experienced.
I expect we only agree on the 4th point?
[*I have not worked directly with anyone involved. I have, however, worked in a similar rat-based project environment that lacked ‘normal’ professional boundaries. It left me seriously hurt, bewildered, isolated, and with a deeply distressing blow to my finances and sense of self, despite everyone’s good intentions. I resonated with Alice and Chloe a lot, even without dealing with any adversarial views like those attributed to Emerson.
I think the guidelines above would have prevented about 70% of my distress.
I believe Richenda and Minh that they’ve had good experiences with Kat. I had many positive experiences too on my project. I think it’s possible to have neutral to positive experiences with someone with Kat’s views, but only with much better boundaries in place].