The Long-term Future Fund lists “$440k+ to support researchers working on relevant topics” as its largest category, and the copy clarifies that these grants “support individual researchers – both those working in academia, and alongside it – to skill up, and to work on key problems.” There’s no mention of MIRI (~$580k in grants) or CFAR (~$325k in grants, plus another $150k that was recommended but not granted since another funder stepped in before the grant was made).
The $440k section is intended to refer to funding for individual researchers, so not mentioning MIRI is intentional there. The title should probably be adjusted to say “$440k+ to support individual researchers and small organizations working on relevant topics”.
I feel a bit confused about how to list the $580k in grants to MIRI, since most of that was under the previous management of the fund (by Nick Beckstead) and the new fund team has given proportionally much less money to MIRI and other established organizations, and has instead focused more on funding smaller projects and individuals, since we think that area has larger room for funding, and higher expected value.
I think the current list is designed to help people get a sense of where their money is likely to go in the future, and so is mostly restricted to grants that were made under the current management. It seems good to make that more clear.
Listing the $300k recommended to CFAR under the current fund management seems reasonable to me.
I support having a spreadsheet with all the fund payouts. I actually would have found that useful myself a few times.
Distinguishing between grants made by the current management team and previous management makes sense (though it’d be good to state this methodology explicitly). If a spreadsheet does get built, the management regime would be a good piece of info to capture.
FWIW, for the Meta Fund “120k+ to Founders Pledge” looks quite reasonable if we only look at grants from the management team, but “250k+ to 80K” still seems like a poor way to describe the $415k granted to 80k by the team.
The $440k section is intended to refer to funding for individual researchers, so not mentioning MIRI is intentional there. The title should probably be adjusted to say “$440k+ to support individual researchers and small organizations working on relevant topics”.
I feel a bit confused about how to list the $580k in grants to MIRI, since most of that was under the previous management of the fund (by Nick Beckstead) and the new fund team has given proportionally much less money to MIRI and other established organizations, and has instead focused more on funding smaller projects and individuals, since we think that area has larger room for funding, and higher expected value.
I think the current list is designed to help people get a sense of where their money is likely to go in the future, and so is mostly restricted to grants that were made under the current management. It seems good to make that more clear.
Listing the $300k recommended to CFAR under the current fund management seems reasonable to me.
I support having a spreadsheet with all the fund payouts. I actually would have found that useful myself a few times.
Distinguishing between grants made by the current management team and previous management makes sense (though it’d be good to state this methodology explicitly). If a spreadsheet does get built, the management regime would be a good piece of info to capture.
FWIW, for the Meta Fund “120k+ to Founders Pledge” looks quite reasonable if we only look at grants from the management team, but “250k+ to 80K” still seems like a poor way to describe the $415k granted to 80k by the team.