I remember being surprised by the differing mindsets about operations when I transitioned to being more involved in the tech startup world after already being involved in EA. In the startup world you often hear things like “Ideas are cheap; execution is everything” which likely leads to operations feeling less low status. This is a major contrast to the EA world where many are highly intellectual, and place a high value on ideas. Given that startups tend to have more skin in the game than non-profits, perhaps EA non-profits could benefit from shifting more towards this mindset.
Yes, FWIW my guess is that at the current margin this would be good in many places (but of course there is considerable within-EA variance, so it won’t be the right marginal change everywhere and in every situation).
Another possible difference between the startup world and the EA world is that startups have access to much stronger direct feedback loops than non-profits, i.e. trying to sell to customers and seeing what happens. This means that startups don’t have to think through everything super carefully before executing.
I remember being surprised by the differing mindsets about operations when I transitioned to being more involved in the tech startup world after already being involved in EA. In the startup world you often hear things like “Ideas are cheap; execution is everything” which likely leads to operations feeling less low status. This is a major contrast to the EA world where many are highly intellectual, and place a high value on ideas. Given that startups tend to have more skin in the game than non-profits, perhaps EA non-profits could benefit from shifting more towards this mindset.
Yes, FWIW my guess is that at the current margin this would be good in many places (but of course there is considerable within-EA variance, so it won’t be the right marginal change everywhere and in every situation).
Agree!
Another possible difference between the startup world and the EA world is that startups have access to much stronger direct feedback loops than non-profits, i.e. trying to sell to customers and seeing what happens. This means that startups don’t have to think through everything super carefully before executing.