The experience of software outsourcing is that replacing expensive western software devs with cheaper foreign devs is often much more expensive than people expect. You can make a decent business from doing so, but it’s no free lunch (unlike for GiveDirectly, where $->utils is straightforwardly better in the third world) and I wouldn’t fault a startup for exclusively hiring expensive American devs.
All the best tech companies have strong incentives to try to save money, but most end up still spending heavily in the US still.
Add to that the fact that EAs who apply are heavily selected from western countries.
All that said, I do support trying to outsource some of software and other things. I’ve had some success outsourcing technical and operations work, and will continue to try to do so in the future. I think different organizations have different advantages here, depending on their unique circumstances. (If your organization needs to be around other EAs, it might need to be based in the Bay / DC / London. If the management is already in a cheap place and prefers remote work, it’s easier to be more remote-friendly.)
@Larks@Ozzie Gooen@huw worked a decade in tech, and tradeoffs justifiably prevent outsourcing everything. The truism that frustratingly little commonly gets delivered for $100k felt like the original comment simply reiterating realities of the complaint. Questioning rather than defending status quo spending is still an effective altruism tenet. To clarify, I’d rather not fund anyone anywhere working on unpublished AI video games
Equally, the best talent from non-Western countries usually migrates to Western countries where wages are orders of magnitude higher. So this ends up being self-reinforcing.
The experience of software outsourcing is that replacing expensive western software devs with cheaper foreign devs is often much more expensive than people expect. You can make a decent business from doing so, but it’s no free lunch (unlike for GiveDirectly, where $->utils is straightforwardly better in the third world) and I wouldn’t fault a startup for exclusively hiring expensive American devs.
+1 to this.
All the best tech companies have strong incentives to try to save money, but most end up still spending heavily in the US still.
Add to that the fact that EAs who apply are heavily selected from western countries.
All that said, I do support trying to outsource some of software and other things. I’ve had some success outsourcing technical and operations work, and will continue to try to do so in the future. I think different organizations have different advantages here, depending on their unique circumstances. (If your organization needs to be around other EAs, it might need to be based in the Bay / DC / London. If the management is already in a cheap place and prefers remote work, it’s easier to be more remote-friendly.)
@Larks @Ozzie Gooen @huw worked a decade in tech, and tradeoffs justifiably prevent outsourcing everything. The truism that frustratingly little commonly gets delivered for $100k felt like the original comment simply reiterating realities of the complaint. Questioning rather than defending status quo spending is still an effective altruism tenet. To clarify, I’d rather not fund anyone anywhere working on unpublished AI video games
Equally, the best talent from non-Western countries usually migrates to Western countries where wages are orders of magnitude higher. So this ends up being self-reinforcing.