It’s why they pay them the big bucks...except for the founders of Rethink Priority and their officers, with mean salaries being about $33K according to their 2020 Form 990.
I think the takeaway is that I think there is a problem here that can be resolved completely by at least tripling the current salaries of RP officers and founders.
For onlookers, I will again note that our current pay range is 65k-85k for researchers. which is >2x 33k, though not quite 3x.
There are various reasons for the difference between our historically (and currently and probably future) lower rates of pay than Lightcone, including but not limited to a) being fully remote instead of based fully in one of the most expensive cities on the planet and b) most of RP’s historical focus being on animal welfare, where there is significantly less of a funding overhang than in x-risk circles and c) most of our employees (not myself) have counterfactuals in academia or other nonprofits rather than the tech or finance sector.
That said, I (personally) directionally agree with you that more pay for some of the earlier people is probably a good idea. At a risk of sounding obsequious, I do think there’s a strong case that Peter and Marcus and some of the other early employees ought to a) get some risk compensation for developing RP into the institution that it is today or b) have higher salaries to help them make better time-value tradeoffs or c) both.
For onlookers, I will again note that our current pay range is 65k-85k for researchers. which is >2x 33k, though not quite 3x.
There are various reasons for the difference between our historically (and currently and probably future) lower rates of pay than Lightcone, including but not limited to a) being fully remote instead of based fully in one of the most expensive cities on the planet and b) most of RP’s historical focus being on animal welfare, where there is significantly less of a funding overhang than in x-risk circles and c) most of our employees (not myself) have counterfactuals in academia or other nonprofits rather than the tech or finance sector.
That said, I (personally) directionally agree with you that more pay for some of the earlier people is probably a good idea. At a risk of sounding obsequious, I do think there’s a strong case that Peter and Marcus and some of the other early employees ought to a) get some risk compensation for developing RP into the institution that it is today or b) have higher salaries to help them make better time-value tradeoffs or c) both.