One other part of those sections that feels worth highlighting:
Rob Wiblin: Is there anything you can say to people who I guess either don’t think it’s possible they’ll get hired by Open Phil and maybe were a bit disappointed by that, or have applied and maybe didn’t manage to get a trial?
Ajeya Cotra: Yeah. I guess my first thought is that Open Phil is not people’s only opportunity to do good. Even doing generalist research of the kind that I think Open Phil does a lot of, especially for that kind of research, I think it’s a blessing and a curse, but you just need a desk and a computer to do it. I would love to see people giving it a shot more, and I think it’s a great way to get noticed. So when we write reports, all the reports we put out recently have long lists of open questions that I think people could work on. And I know of people doing work on them and that’s really exciting to me. So that’s one way to just get your foot in the door, both in terms of potentially being noticed at a place like Open Phil or a place like FHI or GPI, and also just get a sense of what does it feel like to do this? And do you like it? Or are the cons outweighing the pros for you?
I sort-of effectively followed similar advice, and have been very happy with the apparent results for my own career. And I definitely agree that there are a remarkable number of open questions (e.g., here and here) which it seems like a variety of people could just independently have a crack at, thereby testing their fit and/​or directly providing useful insights.
One other part of those sections that feels worth highlighting:
I sort-of effectively followed similar advice, and have been very happy with the apparent results for my own career. And I definitely agree that there are a remarkable number of open questions (e.g., here and here) which it seems like a variety of people could just independently have a crack at, thereby testing their fit and/​or directly providing useful insights.