most EAs should probably not be living in high cost-of-living (HCOL) areas most of the time
If you work a job that can mostly be done from anywhere[1], you should ask yourself if you are spending too much money on housing.
I felt prompted to write this post by the recent increased push for EAs to move to the Bay. Multiple people have urged me personally to relocate. Most of them want me to work on AI safety, but the move-to-the-Bay meme is now also strong in animal welfare. I remain unconvinced, although I am always open to visiting if there is something specific for me to do there.
the core case
Significant additional spare money isn’t just great for donating, but it can also make it easier to have an impactful career, as you can afford to:
take more risks (e.g. start a new org that might fail)
spend more time on your job search whenever it’s time to find your next step
spend more time upskilling
spend more time and money on your mental and physical health
generally worry less day-to-day about food and other essentials for yourself and your dependents
All of the above have massive benefits for your long-term impact and wellbeing.
Moving to a cheaper area might be particularly attractive for people who:
want to explore high-risk/high-upside paths
already have strong networks
have kids or would like to have kids
work in fields/roles with low-to-moderate salaries
You can (and should) still go to conferences and occasionally visit relevant hubs, especially when you’re between roles, considering a career change, or raising money. It’s fun, inspiring, and can lead to opportunities and connections. You want to stay on people’s radar.
But I think most people overestimate how much they benefit from living in an EA hub, especially after the first 1-3 months. This is hard to measure, but seems to true to me based on my own experience of having lived in Oxford for multiple years, having visited other hubs, and having observed other EAs who have lived in various places. (But please share your own experience in the comments!)
There definitely are exceptions, though. The additional cost of EA hubs in HCOL areas might pay off for people who:
are early in their “EA careers”, when they benefit loads from every (formal and informal) networking opportunity
work in a team that is already in one location
easily lose their motivation or experience value drift when they don’t constantly surround themselves with EA community
benefit hugely from slightly faster access to rumours on a particular localised community (e.g. some people in AI safety)
Lastly, don’t move to the absolutely cheapest place your passport allows if that’ll make you miserable. Ask around and try a few places. Consider coordinating with a few other people.
example
I personally live in Sheffield, England’s 4th largest city. I recently bought a 1-bedroom flat for £70k ($92k) in walking distance to the central train station. Sheffield has a walkable city centre, theatres, lots of small and large shops, access to nature, a cool arts/music scene, lots of vegan food, and good connections to other cities (e.g. ~2h train to London every ~30-60min).
I love London and probably like it ~50% more than Sheffield (mostly because of access to EA co-working spaces). But it’s ~3-6x more expensive on housing (depending on how much you’re willing to compromise on convenience, and more still if you account for interest on buying a place, plus the extra rent you pay while saving for a deposit). I just can’t justify moving there. I still visit for events, though.
My case is actually not a perfect example, as my exact current job probably couldn’t be done from anywhere. But I intend to stay here even if this changes, at least for now.
miscellaneous related thoughts
Anecdotally, many of my EA friends in hubs don’t actually “take advantage” of being in a hub that much. Many work from home most days and only go to two or fewer EA events per month. When they go to co-working spaces they often barely talk to anyone there.
Also anecdotally (but mechanistically plausibly), groupthink seems more common in the biggest hubs.
Building flourishing EA communities in cheaper (but still somewhat attractive) cities might
make the community more accessible
help with image issues that put people off EA, such as
elitism (“Only rich people from top unis are welcome.”)
hypocrisy (“How can they claim to care about cost-effectiveness if they spend all their time in the most expensive parts of the country?”)
If your organisation pays people less if they do the same work from a cheaper area, consider if you are creating weird incentives. (See also this thread under this post.)
Some related posts that some might find interesting or useful:
I wrote this post myself but used Claude Opus 4.8 to critique the draft so I could iterate.
- ^
I expect this to be the case for the majority of EAs, but if not please correct me and point me towards data that says otherwise!
I saw you linked to a previous comment of mine. My personal strategy in life these last few years has been:
Move to Paraguay, which is extremely low cost of living, extremely low tax rate
Save 80-90% of my earnings while there
Use the slack to be able to do illegible bets (e.g., early on I incubated Sentinel with my consulting profits, though eventually I did raise funding)
Visit the US/Europe for a bit in the summer (also modellable as consumption).
This has had tradeoffs. Ultimately my impact might have been higher in the US if this had resulted in me raising more funding/coordinating more with donors, but I didn’t really feel particularly welcome (as opposed to evaluated) when I visited.
I like this post, it raises some good points. But I can think of several reasons not mentioned for why big cities are natural hubs:
EAs who work on policy have to work in capitals (like London).
EAs generally benefit from being adjacent to tech (AI safety, alt proteins) and field experts (e.g. in biosecurity), both of which tend to be found in big cities.
England is a bit unusual in how easy it is to get into London. Living outside of San Fran or most other big cities outside of Europe will not offer the same access.
Although rent is high in big cities, the ability to save is often greater due to high salaries (for high skilled jobs outside EA). So you can do even better there—for example, @Imma🔸 moved to Zurich to earn to give, which has some of the highest salaries in the world.
That all said, why not both? It might make sense to push for hubs in cheap cities for those who can work remotely, and also have hubs in big cities for those who need the network and opportunities. So I don’t think the above necessarily contradict your argument.
I agree! It’s not that surprising that big cities are natural hubs. I also think that people who work on policy are a great example of a group that can’t really do their job from everywhere. So are people who earn-to-give in certain fields if they can get disproportionately high salaries in expensive cities. (Although the maths doesn’t work out like that in every role.)
In the UK, we probably also have a self-fulfilling prophecy, where almost all community building investment seems to go into Loxbridge. EA UK has historically almost exclusively focused on London. At one point while I was there, EA Oxford had 3 paid organisers with multiple free retreats a year. It’s not too surprising that you end up with lots of highly engaged EAs in places that get that kind of attention.
(I don’t think that all major cities and unis are completely equal in all ways, but I do think the differences are often overblown, at least in the UK.)
I feel like not many people really have “a job that can mostly be done from anywhere”, and a lot hinges on that assumption here. If you’re full time remote then sure, the case for being in a high COL area is weaker. But I suspect the majority of jobs have some expectation of being in the office at least sometimes.
If your org takes the view than collaborating in person is better than working fully remote (and plenty of orgs do take this view, and quite reasonably) then that org should be willing to put their money where their mouth is and pay people more if they’re coming into the office. This is what we did when I was running a fintech startup. By extension you should be willing to take a lower salary if you’re going to work remotely from a cheaper place.
I think your piece treats being in a high COL place as solely an EA move; in reality EA hubs are not picked from a random list and are attractive places in themselves. People want to be in e.g. London for lots of reasons (more connections, friends, fun things going on) and it being an EA hub is a nice side benefit. I was based in London for many years and wouldn’t for example make the move out to a cheaper UK city, leaving behind friends and family and a large dating pool—there would need to be a strong draw to overcome the cost of doing that beyond just lower cost of living.
I am uncertain about this and it probably heavily depends on how you define “EAs”. My impression might be very biased.
Hm, I don’t think it’s solely an EA move. I do prefer London, mostly for the EA community, but also because of access to art, food, architecture, and other niche communities. But I would consider choosing to live there a luxury, similar to taking expensive holidays. It seems strange to me that some employers are willing to subsidise and in some cases even financially reward the former.
This heavily depends on how exactly the COL-adjustment is made, and many orgs are not transparent about how exactly they do it. In most cases it seems like the adjustment is proportionate to your base salary. This means that in some cases, COL-adjustments encourage junior people to live in cheaper places while encouraging more senior people to move to more expensive places (because other expenses like housing aren’t relative to their salary.)
I don’t think I have fully developed my opinions on compensation yet and very interested in hearing other people’s thoughts on the topic. I am surprised that it’s not being discussed more.
I think transparency about pay is great, and I hope I am not discouraging it with this post.
Shout-out for also living in the North of England—housing is cheap and you’re actually really near London—certainly near enough that that anything in London you particularly want to get to, you can get to.
I 100% agree! I’m a digital nomad, and I tend to stay in relatively affordable places, like Southeast Asia and the Balkans. My expenses are usually around $2k–$3k a month for a pretty high standard of living as a nomad.
I do a lot of networking online and travel to in-person conferences when it makes sense. It definitely makes it easier for me to focus on building my consulting business, where I work on marketing with EA organizations, with a bit less financial pressure 🙏
In most cases, especially high-stakes cases, cost of living is small relative to prioritization/productivity/information benefits. (View not justified here.)