Thanks for engaging with this post! A few thoughts prompted by your comment in case they are helpful:
80k has been interested in longtermism-related causes for many years, including many years in which we’ve seen a lot of growth. We were interested in longtermism for several years before we received our first grant from Open Philanthropy.
We believe there’s still a lot of need for talent in the problems areas that we focus on, so we don’t think there’s a strong reason for us to shift our focus on that front — at least for the time being.
In evaluating our impact, you should consider whether the causes where we focus seem most pressing to you. If you think our focus areas are not that pressing, we think it’s reasonable to be less interested in donating to us.
We’re happy to see others offering alternatives to our career advice — this kind of competition is healthy and we are keen to encourage it in the ecosystem.
All that said, we do have a lot of advice to people who are not that interested in longtermism. For example, our job board features opportunities for people working on global health and animal issues, and our career guide offers advice that is widely applicable, including about how readers could approach thinking through the question of which problems are most pressing for themselves.
We’re happy to see others offering alternatives to our career advice — this kind of competition is healthy and we are keen to encourage it in the ecosystem.
I wanted to chime in and say that while a lot of people / organizations say things like this, in my experience, 80,000 really does mean it and follows through. When we were setting up Probably Good (and not only then) the amount of encouragement and help we received from Michelle, Niel and others there has been incredible.
Thanks for engaging with this post! A few thoughts prompted by your comment in case they are helpful:
80k has been interested in longtermism-related causes for many years, including many years in which we’ve seen a lot of growth. We were interested in longtermism for several years before we received our first grant from Open Philanthropy.
We believe there’s still a lot of need for talent in the problems areas that we focus on, so we don’t think there’s a strong reason for us to shift our focus on that front — at least for the time being.
In evaluating our impact, you should consider whether the causes where we focus seem most pressing to you. If you think our focus areas are not that pressing, we think it’s reasonable to be less interested in donating to us.
We’re happy to see others offering alternatives to our career advice — this kind of competition is healthy and we are keen to encourage it in the ecosystem.
All that said, we do have a lot of advice to people who are not that interested in longtermism. For example, our job board features opportunities for people working on global health and animal issues, and our career guide offers advice that is widely applicable, including about how readers could approach thinking through the question of which problems are most pressing for themselves.
I wanted to chime in and say that while a lot of people / organizations say things like this, in my experience, 80,000 really does mean it and follows through. When we were setting up Probably Good (and not only then) the amount of encouragement and help we received from Michelle, Niel and others there has been incredible.