I speculate that there are enough differences at play that a significant fraction of people should choose direct work and a significant fraction who should choose EtG.
It is often asserted that impact/success is significantly right-tailed. If that’s so, a modest raw difference in an individual’s suitability for EtG vs. suitability for direct work might create a large difference in expected outcome. Making numbers up, even the difference between being 99.99th percentile in one suitability (compared to the general population) versus the 99.9th percentile in the other might make a big difference. And it’s plausible to think that even if the two suitabilities are highly correlated, people could easily have these sorts of differences. I don’t think the difference needs to be anywhere near being “very mediocre [at] EA jobs” vs. “great at earning money.”
There have been discussions about the relative importance of value alignment in hiring for direct work. Although the concept is slippery to define, it seems less likely that the concept as applied to direct work significantly predicts success at EtG. There is a specific virtue that is needed for success at EtG—related to following through on your donation plans once the money rolls in—but it’s questionable whether this is strongly correlated with the kind of alignment that factors into success for “EA jobs.”
The differences involve not only skill sets but also idiosyncratic personal attributes such as presence of other obligations (e.g., family commitments), psychological traits, individual passions, and so on. These things differ among potential workers, and one would expect them to point in different directions.
I speculate that there are enough differences at play that a significant fraction of people should choose direct work and a significant fraction who should choose EtG.
It is often asserted that impact/success is significantly right-tailed. If that’s so, a modest raw difference in an individual’s suitability for EtG vs. suitability for direct work might create a large difference in expected outcome. Making numbers up, even the difference between being 99.99th percentile in one suitability (compared to the general population) versus the 99.9th percentile in the other might make a big difference. And it’s plausible to think that even if the two suitabilities are highly correlated, people could easily have these sorts of differences. I don’t think the difference needs to be anywhere near being “very mediocre [at] EA jobs” vs. “great at earning money.”
There have been discussions about the relative importance of value alignment in hiring for direct work. Although the concept is slippery to define, it seems less likely that the concept as applied to direct work significantly predicts success at EtG. There is a specific virtue that is needed for success at EtG—related to following through on your donation plans once the money rolls in—but it’s questionable whether this is strongly correlated with the kind of alignment that factors into success for “EA jobs.”
The differences involve not only skill sets but also idiosyncratic personal attributes such as presence of other obligations (e.g., family commitments), psychological traits, individual passions, and so on. These things differ among potential workers, and one would expect them to point in different directions.
I agree except that suitability is only part of the equation. Luck plays a very important role.