Ok, so it sounds like your comparisons with GiveWell were an irrelevant distraction, given that you understand the point of āhits based givingā. Instead, your real question is: āwhy not [hire] a cheap developer literally anywhere else?ā
Iām guessing the literal answer to that question is that no such cheaper developer applied for funding in the same round with an equivalent project. But we might expand upon your question: should a fund like LTFF, rather than just picking from among the proposals that come to them, try taking some of the ideas from those proposals and finding different (perhaps cheaper) PIs to develop them?
Itās possible that a more active role in developing promising longtermist projects would be a good use of their time. But I donāt find it entirely obvious the way that you seem to. A few thoughts that immediately spring to mind:
(i) My sense of that time period was that finding grantmakers was itself a major bottleneck, and given that longtermism seemed more talent-constrained than money-constrained at that time, having key people spend more time just to save some money presumably would not have seemed a wise tradeoff.
(ii) A software developer that comes to you with an idea presumably has a deeper understanding of it, and so could be expected to do a better job of it, than an external contractor to whom you have to communicate the idea. (That is, external contractors increase risk of project failure due to miscommunication or misunderstanding.)
(iii) Depending on the details, e.g. how specific the idea is, taking an idea from someoneās grant proposal to a cheaper PI might constitute intellectual theft. It certainly seems uncooperative /ā low-integrity, and not a good practice for grant-makers who want to encourage other high-skilled people with good ideas to apply to their fund!
Ok, so it sounds like your comparisons with GiveWell were an irrelevant distraction, given that you understand the point of āhits based givingā. Instead, your real question is: āwhy not [hire] a cheap developer literally anywhere else?ā
Iām guessing the literal answer to that question is that no such cheaper developer applied for funding in the same round with an equivalent project. But we might expand upon your question: should a fund like LTFF, rather than just picking from among the proposals that come to them, try taking some of the ideas from those proposals and finding different (perhaps cheaper) PIs to develop them?
Itās possible that a more active role in developing promising longtermist projects would be a good use of their time. But I donāt find it entirely obvious the way that you seem to. A few thoughts that immediately spring to mind:
(i) My sense of that time period was that finding grantmakers was itself a major bottleneck, and given that longtermism seemed more talent-constrained than money-constrained at that time, having key people spend more time just to save some money presumably would not have seemed a wise tradeoff.
(ii) A software developer that comes to you with an idea presumably has a deeper understanding of it, and so could be expected to do a better job of it, than an external contractor to whom you have to communicate the idea. (That is, external contractors increase risk of project failure due to miscommunication or misunderstanding.)
(iii) Depending on the details, e.g. how specific the idea is, taking an idea from someoneās grant proposal to a cheaper PI might constitute intellectual theft. It certainly seems uncooperative /ā low-integrity, and not a good practice for grant-makers who want to encourage other high-skilled people with good ideas to apply to their fund!