Rough estimate: if ~60% of Open Phil grantmaking decisioning is attributable to Holden, then 47.2% of all EA capital allocation, or $157.4M, was decided by one individual in 2017. 2018 & 2019 will probably have similar proportions.
It seems like EA entered into this regime largely due to historically contingent reasons (Cari & Dustin developing a close relationship with Holden, then outsourcing a lot of their philanthropic decision-making to him & the Open Phil staff).
This estimate seems to have a lot of problems with it, from attributing so much credit to Holden that way not only seeming in practice treating him as too unique an actor without substantiation, if not in principle playing fast and loose with how causation works, while being a wild overestimate from nowhere. This is a pretty jarring turn to what up until that point I had been reading as a reasonable question post.
Thanks. I think my main point is pretty orthogonal to this estimate. [edit: my main point is that we arrived at this structure for historically contingent reasons, and it’s not clear that the present structure is the best one for optimal altruistic allocation of capital, so perhaps we should consider alternatives.]
---
e.g. if instead we attribute 30% of Open Phil decisioning to Holden, the numbers are then:
23.6% of EA 2017 capital allocation is attributable to Holden, or ~$62.0M in 2017
I think attributing a sizable portion of Open Phil decision-making to Holden is appropriate, as I believe he has final sign-off on all major grants.
Right, but if all he is doing is signing off, then you’re attributing to him only the final part of the decision, and treating that as if it’s the whole decision.
Sure. “How much of this is attributable to Holden specifically?” is mostly orthogonal to my main point, though I think the degree of centralization is interesting.
Like I said in my above comment, asking interesting questions to avoid stating inconvenient if valuable opinions doesn’t go far in EA. If you think so much centralization of decision-making in Open Phil in the person of Holden Karnofsky is suboptimal, and there are better alternatives, why not just say so?
I’m not claiming that any of the above will necessarily lead to better capital allocation than the current structure, but it seems plausible that they might.
I don’t know enough yet to say that an alternative structure would necessarily be better.
I intend to think about this more, and it seems good to do some of that thinking in public fora so that other people can contribute when they’re interested + have comparative advantage.
Strongly upvoted. I don’t have anything else to add right now then I now understand why you’re asking this question as you have, and that I agree it makes sense as a first step with the background assumptions you’re coming in with.
This estimate seems to have a lot of problems with it, from attributing so much credit to Holden that way not only seeming in practice treating him as too unique an actor without substantiation, if not in principle playing fast and loose with how causation works, while being a wild overestimate from nowhere. This is a pretty jarring turn to what up until that point I had been reading as a reasonable question post.
Thanks. I think my main point is pretty orthogonal to this estimate. [edit: my main point is that we arrived at this structure for historically contingent reasons, and it’s not clear that the present structure is the best one for optimal altruistic allocation of capital, so perhaps we should consider alternatives.]
---
e.g. if instead we attribute 30% of Open Phil decisioning to Holden, the numbers are then:
23.6% of EA 2017 capital allocation is attributable to Holden, or ~$62.0M in 2017
I think attributing a sizable portion of Open Phil decision-making to Holden is appropriate, as I believe he has final sign-off on all major grants.
Right, but if all he is doing is signing off, then you’re attributing to him only the final part of the decision, and treating that as if it’s the whole decision.
Sure. “How much of this is attributable to Holden specifically?” is mostly orthogonal to my main point, though I think the degree of centralization is interesting.
(I edited my above comment for clarity.)
Like I said in my above comment, asking interesting questions to avoid stating inconvenient if valuable opinions doesn’t go far in EA. If you think so much centralization of decision-making in Open Phil in the person of Holden Karnofsky is suboptimal, and there are better alternatives, why not just say so?
From the OP:
I don’t know enough yet to say that an alternative structure would necessarily be better.
I intend to think about this more, and it seems good to do some of that thinking in public fora so that other people can contribute when they’re interested + have comparative advantage.
Strongly upvoted. I don’t have anything else to add right now then I now understand why you’re asking this question as you have, and that I agree it makes sense as a first step with the background assumptions you’re coming in with.