EA organizations often underrate experience relative to âintelligenceâ and âvalue alignmentâ
I believed this and wanted EV to hire more outside experts. To support my case, I made a spreadsheet of all the major issues EV had run into that I was aware of and whether having non-EA experts helped. To my dismay, the result was pretty equivocal: there were certainly instances where non-EA experts outperformed EAs, but ~as many instances to the contrary.
I donât think EA is unique here; I have half a foot in the startup world and pgâs recent Founder Mode post has ignited a bunch of discussion about how startup founders with ~0 experience often outperform the seasoned experts that they hire.
Unfortunately I donât have a good solution hereâhiring/âcontracting good people is just actually a very hard problem. But at least from the issues I am aware of at EV I donât think the correct update was in favor of experience and away from value alignment.[1]
If I had to come up with advice, I think it would be to note the scare quotes around âvalue alignmentâ. Someone sincerely trying to do well at the thing they are hired for is very valuable; someone professing to care about the organizationâs mission but not actually doing anything is not very valuable. And sometimes people confuse the two. [This is a general comment, not specific to EV.]
Seconding Ben, I did a similar exercise and got similarly mixed (with stark examples in both directions) results (including in some instances you allude to in the post)
I think itâs possible our views are compatible here. I want expertise to be valued more on the margin because I found EV and many other EA orgs to tilt towards an extreme of prioritizing value alignment, but I certainly believe there are cases where value alignment and general intelligence matter most and also that there are cases where expertise matters more.
I think the key lies in trying to figure out which situations are which in advance.
I guess the main thing to be aware of is how hiring non-value aligned people can lead to drift which isnât significant at first, but becomes significant over time. That said, I also agree that a certain level of professionalism within organisation becomes more important as they scale.
To support my case, I made a spreadsheet of all the major issues EV had run into that I was aware of and whether having non-EA experts helped.
Were these mostly situations in which EV had run into a major issue and then an outside expert was brought in? To the extent that the underlying developments that led to an issue came about from an EA /â EV-insider way of thinking, I would expect significant performance costs associated with changing horses in midstream. So I wouldnât update much on the advisability of bringing in outside experts before a problem happens, or after a problem happens if the outside experts had played a role in setting up the underlying developments.
As a rough analogy, one can imagine a gridiron football offense that has been built (in terms of training, personnel, etc.) to align with a particular offensive strategy (e.g., the West Coast offense). If your team is set up that way, subbing in a key player whose skill set doesnât align to the previously chosen offensive strategy isnât usually going to work well in the short to medium run. This doesnât imply that the new player is badâjust that your team has pre-committed to playing a particular offense. Ex ante, the new guy could have been the right player for your team contingent on your team having built a flexible enough system for him to work effectively in.
I would find it valuable if you could share some public version of the spreadsheet, or if you quickly remember some specific examples. Hiring/âcontracting is very hard but almost always necessary.
Surely itâs not a case of either-or. EA exists because we all found that existing charity was not up to scratch, hence we do want EA to take different approaches. However, I think itâs important to also have people from outside EA (but with good value alignment) to provide diversity of thought and make sure there are no blindspots.
Thanks for writing this! One small comment:
I believed this and wanted EV to hire more outside experts. To support my case, I made a spreadsheet of all the major issues EV had run into that I was aware of and whether having non-EA experts helped. To my dismay, the result was pretty equivocal: there were certainly instances where non-EA experts outperformed EAs, but ~as many instances to the contrary.
I donât think EA is unique here; I have half a foot in the startup world and pgâs recent Founder Mode post has ignited a bunch of discussion about how startup founders with ~0 experience often outperform the seasoned experts that they hire.
Unfortunately I donât have a good solution hereâhiring/âcontracting good people is just actually a very hard problem. But at least from the issues I am aware of at EV I donât think the correct update was in favor of experience and away from value alignment.[1]
If I had to come up with advice, I think it would be to note the scare quotes around âvalue alignmentâ. Someone sincerely trying to do well at the thing they are hired for is very valuable; someone professing to care about the organizationâs mission but not actually doing anything is not very valuable. And sometimes people confuse the two. [This is a general comment, not specific to EV.]
Seconding Ben, I did a similar exercise and got similarly mixed (with stark examples in both directions) results (including in some instances you allude to in the post)
I think itâs possible our views are compatible here. I want expertise to be valued more on the margin because I found EV and many other EA orgs to tilt towards an extreme of prioritizing value alignment, but I certainly believe there are cases where value alignment and general intelligence matter most and also that there are cases where expertise matters more.
I think the key lies in trying to figure out which situations are which in advance.
I guess the main thing to be aware of is how hiring non-value aligned people can lead to drift which isnât significant at first, but becomes significant over time. That said, I also agree that a certain level of professionalism within organisation becomes more important as they scale.
Drift isnât the issue I was pointing at it my comment
Were these mostly situations in which EV had run into a major issue and then an outside expert was brought in? To the extent that the underlying developments that led to an issue came about from an EA /â EV-insider way of thinking, I would expect significant performance costs associated with changing horses in midstream. So I wouldnât update much on the advisability of bringing in outside experts before a problem happens, or after a problem happens if the outside experts had played a role in setting up the underlying developments.
As a rough analogy, one can imagine a gridiron football offense that has been built (in terms of training, personnel, etc.) to align with a particular offensive strategy (e.g., the West Coast offense). If your team is set up that way, subbing in a key player whose skill set doesnât align to the previously chosen offensive strategy isnât usually going to work well in the short to medium run. This doesnât imply that the new player is badâjust that your team has pre-committed to playing a particular offense. Ex ante, the new guy could have been the right player for your team contingent on your team having built a flexible enough system for him to work effectively in.
I would find it valuable if you could share some public version of the spreadsheet, or if you quickly remember some specific examples. Hiring/âcontracting is very hard but almost always necessary.
Surely itâs not a case of either-or. EA exists because we all found that existing charity was not up to scratch, hence we do want EA to take different approaches. However, I think itâs important to also have people from outside EA (but with good value alignment) to provide diversity of thought and make sure there are no blindspots.