I feel like this post illustrates large inferential gaps. In my experience trying to work in EA works for a rather small number of people. I certainly don’t recommend it. Let me quote something I posted on the 80K hours thread:
80K Hour’s advice seems aimed, perhaps implicitly, at extremely talented people. I >would roughly describe the level of success/talent as ‘top half of Oxford’. If you do >not have that level of ability, then the recommend career paths are going to be long >shots at best. Most people are not realistically capable of getting a job at Jane Street > (I am certainly not). It is also very hard to get a job at a well regarded EA organization.
Unless someone has a very good track record of success I would advise them not to > follow 80K style advice. Trying to get a ‘high impact job’ has lead to failure for every > rationalist I know who was not ‘top half of Oxford’ talented. In some cases they made > it to ‘work sample’ got an internship, but they still failed to land a job. Many of these > rationalists are well regarded and considered quite intelligent. These people are fairly > talented and in many cases make low six figures.
80K is very depressing to read. Making ‘only’ 200K and donating 60K a year is implicitly treated like a failure. We at least need advise for people who are ‘only’ Google-programmer levels of talented. And ideally we need advice for EAs of all skill levels. But the fact that our standard advice is not even applicable to ‘normal Google programmer’ levels of talent is extremely depressing.
Maybe there are talent constraints but they don’t seem to me like talent constraints that are satisfied by pushing more EAs into trying to work in EA. I think that mostly works if you are unusually talented or extremely dedicated and ‘agenty’. I do think you can probably find a way to work on an EA cause if you are willing to accept low wages and hustle.
EA is really not set up to handle an influx of people trying to work in the field. Maybe this is a crux?
For completeness sake, responding more in depth to your 80k comment. (It’s plausible this should go in the other 80k post-thread but it seemed just as much part of this conversation. shrug)
Disclaimer Re: 80k
I haven’t read 80k very thoroughly and am not sure whether I endorse their advice or if my picture of their overall advice is accurate. But what advice I’ve seen does seem like it’s aiming to fill a fairly narrow set of top-vacancies. And that it does seem pretty alienating if you’re not part of their demographic.
This doesn’t necessarily mean 80k should change focus – the top career paths are still highly important to fill and they have limited time. But I do think it probably means 80k style advice shouldn’t be the only/primary place we direct newcomer’s attention.
My own take on what kind of direct work is advisable is still a probably a bit depressing – I don’t think there are easy answers on how to help, and it’d be hard to scale across 10,000s of people.
[It’s possible 80k actually shares these views, or even that they’re listed on the website, I haven’t checked]
My take:
[edit: updated because I didn’t quite address deluks917′s points as worded]
I think the issues getting into EA Direct Work has less do with how skilled you need to be, and more to do with limitations in network bandwidth.
There is some agentiness needed to get involved, but a) I think agency is a learnable skill, b) the amount required is less than you might think.
If you can successfully get yourself into the EA network, then you can be aware of early stage projects forming. Early stage projects need a variety of skills, and just being median-competent is often enough to get them off the ground. Basically every project needs a website and an ops person (or, better – a programmer who uses their power to automate ops). They often need board members and people to sit in boring meetings, handle taxes and bureaucracy.
I think this is quite achievable for the median EA.
Early stage orgs often have neither money, or time for an extensive hiring project – people just start working together with people they know. The bottleneck is more on people knowing each other than particular skills.
But, new projects and orgs also increase the surface area of EA, adding more places for newcomers to plug into. So if you can help a budding project grow into an institution, you’re not just doing direct work, you’re helping the overall community scale.
These jobs are lower pay, sure. But that’s precisely why I think Earn-to-Save is important.
This is still a bit rate limited, and couldn’t handle an influx of 10,000s of thousands. But I think it can handle more than it currently does. And it’s definitely not because people aren’t top-half-of-oxford talented.
Meanwhile, although “being agenty enough to found a project yourself” is fairly hard, it’s learnable. The path to learning it is a bit circuitous and doesn’t necessarily fit directly into EA. But I think most EAs would benefit from taking on a complex project that forces them to grow, learning “hustle” and “networking”, etc. This works best when it’s a project you already are excited about (doesn’t matter much if it’s EA related), so it doesn’t feel like you’re making a sacrifice so much as just exploring something new and cool.
I don’t think people know if they can be agenty until they try, and I currently think it’s a better default-path for aspiring EAs to go something like:
Start donating a bit as a credible signal
Build up runway
Do some projects in your spare time, practice thinking seriously about EA, and try a few things to see if some of the direct work stuff is a good fit for you.
Depending on how the previous bit goes, do one of:
try a low-medium risk plan that could move you into a higher impact path, but fails gracefully (i.e. move to an EA hub for a regular job you’ll enjoy, but then explore the network there and see if you can transition)
try a high risk plan if you’re feeling ambitious
or, just try to move into the most lucrative version of whatever your default career was going to be anyway, if the above 2 options don’t make sense for you.
All three of which benefit from having enough runway to quit your current job.
Great Comment. Thanks for the detailed explanation. This was especially useful for me to understand your model:
Early stage projects need a variety of skills, and just being median-competent is often enough to get them off the ground. Basically every project needs a website and an ops person (or, better – a programmer who uses their power to automate ops). They often need board members and people to sit in boring meetings, handle taxes and bureaucracy.
I think this is quite achievable for the median EA.
(initial version of the above comment wasn’t quite replying to what deluks was saying – I accidentally started writing and then got tunnel vision and forgot the points about agentiness. Reworded a bit to address that)
So I have a mixture of agreements and disagreements with your quoted comment (minor meta point: I recommend formatting it such that it’s a blockquote to make it easier to see which section is which)
I’ll summarize my own version of that comment in a bit (the tldr of which is “it’s not as bad as you describe it, but yeah, it’s still pretty bad”).
But I don’t think the applicability hinges on the specifics of your comment. Instead, I’d argue:
Earn-to-save is relevant to a much broader swath of people. Even if you’re just trying to Earn-to-Give ultimately, it’s still much more important to seek out higher paying jobs than to donate when you’re at at a low-to-mid-paying job. This is relevant even if you’re “just” moving from $50k to $80k.
My biggest crux here is that having 2 years of runway is important even for switching jobs at that level, and I think this should dominate even within your framework (at least by my understanding of your position).
Meanwhile, I’d make a more speculative claim which is that while yes, most people probably won’t end up getting a Direct Impact career, the people that do still have enough expected value that that early EAs should at least be seriously considering that possibility. (I very much don’t think you need to be top-half of oxford to for direct work to be better than earning to give)
Making ‘only’ 200K and donating 60K a year is implicitly treated like a failure.
Odd, I never felt that way while reading 80,000 hours, even though it always felt like they (and EA in general) are seeking out people who are as smart as possible and positioned to earn a lot. But if I could make 200K and donate 60K, I’d consider it a huge success!
I feel like this post illustrates large inferential gaps. In my experience trying to work in EA works for a rather small number of people. I certainly don’t recommend it. Let me quote something I posted on the 80K hours thread:
Maybe there are talent constraints but they don’t seem to me like talent constraints that are satisfied by pushing more EAs into trying to work in EA. I think that mostly works if you are unusually talented or extremely dedicated and ‘agenty’. I do think you can probably find a way to work on an EA cause if you are willing to accept low wages and hustle.
EA is really not set up to handle an influx of people trying to work in the field. Maybe this is a crux?
For completeness sake, responding more in depth to your 80k comment. (It’s plausible this should go in the other 80k post-thread but it seemed just as much part of this conversation. shrug)
Disclaimer Re: 80k
I haven’t read 80k very thoroughly and am not sure whether I endorse their advice or if my picture of their overall advice is accurate. But what advice I’ve seen does seem like it’s aiming to fill a fairly narrow set of top-vacancies. And that it does seem pretty alienating if you’re not part of their demographic.
This doesn’t necessarily mean 80k should change focus – the top career paths are still highly important to fill and they have limited time. But I do think it probably means 80k style advice shouldn’t be the only/primary place we direct newcomer’s attention.
My own take on what kind of direct work is advisable is still a probably a bit depressing – I don’t think there are easy answers on how to help, and it’d be hard to scale across 10,000s of people.
[It’s possible 80k actually shares these views, or even that they’re listed on the website, I haven’t checked]
My take:
[edit: updated because I didn’t quite address deluks917′s points as worded]
I think the issues getting into EA Direct Work has less do with how skilled you need to be, and more to do with limitations in network bandwidth.
There is some agentiness needed to get involved, but a) I think agency is a learnable skill, b) the amount required is less than you might think.
If you can successfully get yourself into the EA network, then you can be aware of early stage projects forming. Early stage projects need a variety of skills, and just being median-competent is often enough to get them off the ground. Basically every project needs a website and an ops person (or, better – a programmer who uses their power to automate ops). They often need board members and people to sit in boring meetings, handle taxes and bureaucracy.
I think this is quite achievable for the median EA.
Early stage orgs often have neither money, or time for an extensive hiring project – people just start working together with people they know. The bottleneck is more on people knowing each other than particular skills.
But, new projects and orgs also increase the surface area of EA, adding more places for newcomers to plug into. So if you can help a budding project grow into an institution, you’re not just doing direct work, you’re helping the overall community scale.
These jobs are lower pay, sure. But that’s precisely why I think Earn-to-Save is important.
This is still a bit rate limited, and couldn’t handle an influx of 10,000s of thousands. But I think it can handle more than it currently does. And it’s definitely not because people aren’t top-half-of-oxford talented.
Meanwhile, although “being agenty enough to found a project yourself” is fairly hard, it’s learnable. The path to learning it is a bit circuitous and doesn’t necessarily fit directly into EA. But I think most EAs would benefit from taking on a complex project that forces them to grow, learning “hustle” and “networking”, etc. This works best when it’s a project you already are excited about (doesn’t matter much if it’s EA related), so it doesn’t feel like you’re making a sacrifice so much as just exploring something new and cool.
I don’t think people know if they can be agenty until they try, and I currently think it’s a better default-path for aspiring EAs to go something like:
Start donating a bit as a credible signal
Build up runway
Do some projects in your spare time, practice thinking seriously about EA, and try a few things to see if some of the direct work stuff is a good fit for you.
Depending on how the previous bit goes, do one of:
try a low-medium risk plan that could move you into a higher impact path, but fails gracefully (i.e. move to an EA hub for a regular job you’ll enjoy, but then explore the network there and see if you can transition)
try a high risk plan if you’re feeling ambitious
or, just try to move into the most lucrative version of whatever your default career was going to be anyway, if the above 2 options don’t make sense for you.
All three of which benefit from having enough runway to quit your current job.
Great Comment. Thanks for the detailed explanation. This was especially useful for me to understand your model:
(initial version of the above comment wasn’t quite replying to what deluks was saying – I accidentally started writing and then got tunnel vision and forgot the points about agentiness. Reworded a bit to address that)
So I have a mixture of agreements and disagreements with your quoted comment (minor meta point: I recommend formatting it such that it’s a blockquote to make it easier to see which section is which)
I’ll summarize my own version of that comment in a bit (the tldr of which is “it’s not as bad as you describe it, but yeah, it’s still pretty bad”).
But I don’t think the applicability hinges on the specifics of your comment. Instead, I’d argue:
Earn-to-save is relevant to a much broader swath of people. Even if you’re just trying to Earn-to-Give ultimately, it’s still much more important to seek out higher paying jobs than to donate when you’re at at a low-to-mid-paying job. This is relevant even if you’re “just” moving from $50k to $80k.
My biggest crux here is that having 2 years of runway is important even for switching jobs at that level, and I think this should dominate even within your framework (at least by my understanding of your position).
Meanwhile, I’d make a more speculative claim which is that while yes, most people probably won’t end up getting a Direct Impact career, the people that do still have enough expected value that that early EAs should at least be seriously considering that possibility. (I very much don’t think you need to be top-half of oxford to for direct work to be better than earning to give)
Odd, I never felt that way while reading 80,000 hours, even though it always felt like they (and EA in general) are seeking out people who are as smart as possible and positioned to earn a lot. But if I could make 200K and donate 60K, I’d consider it a huge success!