I’m really grateful I got to be a part of your team, Max. Coming into working at CEA nearly 2 years ago I was aware of some of its past reputation for stressful dynamics and tumult. I can happily say that’s just never been my experience, and by all accounts the shift from that CEA of yore to the functioning, welcoming CEA I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of came significantly from the work you’ve done as executive director.
Thinking about my interactions with you, the thing that stands out most is that you’ve felt consistently great at balancing priorities: you manage to maintain epistemic humility and openness to criticism, but also agency and willingness to make tough calls. You’re committed to outcomes, but you also abide by legible principles that create trust and sidestep naive utilitarian mirages. You clearly feel the immense stakes of your/our potential in your bones, while never seeming to lose your air of levity and warmth. You helm a company culture where specific improvements to the lives of beings out in the world are the consistent focus, while also ensuring that people (or at least, certainly I) never feel like mere fodder for the impact engine.
A key EA tenet is a priori implementation agnosticism. When I imagine how that looks at its best, I imagine it looking a lot like this: a delicate balance of considerations, avoiding easy answers, moving forward with your best guesses and then listening carefully to what the world has to tell you.
I’m really grateful I got to be a part of your team, Max. Coming into working at CEA nearly 2 years ago I was aware of some of its past reputation for stressful dynamics and tumult. I can happily say that’s just never been my experience, and by all accounts the shift from that CEA of yore to the functioning, welcoming CEA I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of came significantly from the work you’ve done as executive director.
Thinking about my interactions with you, the thing that stands out most is that you’ve felt consistently great at balancing priorities: you manage to maintain epistemic humility and openness to criticism, but also agency and willingness to make tough calls. You’re committed to outcomes, but you also abide by legible principles that create trust and sidestep naive utilitarian mirages. You clearly feel the immense stakes of your/our potential in your bones, while never seeming to lose your air of levity and warmth. You helm a company culture where specific improvements to the lives of beings out in the world are the consistent focus, while also ensuring that people (or at least, certainly I) never feel like mere fodder for the impact engine.
A key EA tenet is a priori implementation agnosticism. When I imagine how that looks at its best, I imagine it looking a lot like this: a delicate balance of considerations, avoiding easy answers, moving forward with your best guesses and then listening carefully to what the world has to tell you.