I’m already talking to a very senior developer (20+ years of experience) who’s done a lot of work with Animals Now and is interested to do more in the same/similar area (also climate change, if you hear about something! I have another eager developer for that too!), so if we’ll find a good opportunity, he’d probably be the first to take it, I think.
Also, working on animal welfare is less close to my heart than meta/rationality/systematic causes. I know this might sound strange. But it’s how my brain is wired, and I think there’s an advantage in working on things that come easily to me.
Projects that are already funded
I agree this would be good, but I’ll say this this happens not to be a limitation for me. I think I might even have an edge in being able to start early stage unfunded projects, without being dependent on grant makers having the capacity to evaluate them first.
The way I really think about this is like a startup, where I expect to show actual impressive relevant metrics before I go fundraising.
But maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe I should already fundraise for “Effective Developers”? Maybe it would at least elicit some unfiltered feedback from people who often evaluate such initiatives?
What the EA Funds are looking to make grants to support
Going over their list:
Animal welfare
See the “animal groups” title above.
Infrastructure: Access to talent
This would be a good fit for me, but it seems like a lot of people are starting to work on it, and I’m somewhat involved in part of it (I’m very grateful for the people approaching me about this! This is close to my heart).
I’m considering focusing on a smaller niche where I think I have some extra good fit: Startups and Software Developers.
Global health and development
Not accepting applications.
Also, there are other reasons I probably wouldn’t start a project here (such as, I could just work for Wave), unless it would be starting a mental health app with a specific approach that I don’t understand why nobody else is doing (disclaimer: I didn’t actually research this).
I tried this when I was a freelancer. Note I’m an extroverted person who wears colorful cat shirts and who probably shares many common interests with the other founders and developers over there, but still the atmosphere was mostly each person has their own space. I did meet some nice people, but orders of magnitude less than I do in a regular job that has an office.
EA workspace
TL;DR: HELL YES!
I proposed this [Hebrew link] ~3 months ago and there seems to be interest, I wonder if our community manager would be interested in pursuing this project, they’d probably be good at it.
I think this has the potential to free up Israelis to work remotely on way more impactful projects, if it’s done right. And once we have a critical mass (which is the hard part), more and more people could join easily.
I’m not sure I could pull this off, the temptation to work at home “just today”, everyday, would exist for everyone.
Working on EA projects funded by grants
TL;DR: Yes. (Which?)
Animal groups
I’m already talking to a very senior developer (20+ years of experience) who’s done a lot of work with Animals Now and is interested to do more in the same/similar area (also climate change, if you hear about something! I have another eager developer for that too!), so if we’ll find a good opportunity, he’d probably be the first to take it, I think.
Also, working on animal welfare is less close to my heart than meta/rationality/systematic causes. I know this might sound strange. But it’s how my brain is wired, and I think there’s an advantage in working on things that come easily to me.
Projects that are already funded
I agree this would be good, but I’ll say this this happens not to be a limitation for me. I think I might even have an edge in being able to start early stage unfunded projects, without being dependent on grant makers having the capacity to evaluate them first.
The way I really think about this is like a startup, where I expect to show actual impressive relevant metrics before I go fundraising.
But maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe I should already fundraise for “Effective Developers”? Maybe it would at least elicit some unfiltered feedback from people who often evaluate such initiatives?
What the EA Funds are looking to make grants to support
Going over their list:
Animal welfare
See the “animal groups” title above.
Infrastructure: Access to talent
This would be a good fit for me, but it seems like a lot of people are starting to work on it, and I’m somewhat involved in part of it (I’m very grateful for the people approaching me about this! This is close to my heart).
I’m considering focusing on a smaller niche where I think I have some extra good fit: Startups and Software Developers.
Global health and development
Not accepting applications.
Also, there are other reasons I probably wouldn’t start a project here (such as, I could just work for Wave), unless it would be starting a mental health app with a specific approach that I don’t understand why nobody else is doing (disclaimer: I didn’t actually research this).
Longtermism
See this section.
Co working space in Israel
Non EA workspace, like WeWork
TL;DR: Not so good
I tried this when I was a freelancer. Note I’m an extroverted person who wears colorful cat shirts and who probably shares many common interests with the other founders and developers over there, but still the atmosphere was mostly each person has their own space. I did meet some nice people, but orders of magnitude less than I do in a regular job that has an office.
EA workspace
TL;DR: HELL YES!
I proposed this [Hebrew link] ~3 months ago and there seems to be interest, I wonder if our community manager would be interested in pursuing this project, they’d probably be good at it.
I think this has the potential to free up Israelis to work remotely on way more impactful projects, if it’s done right. And once we have a critical mass (which is the hard part), more and more people could join easily.
I’m not sure I could pull this off, the temptation to work at home “just today”, everyday, would exist for everyone.
I wonder if
Someone has already tried this
Some org would sponsor an experiment