I think your logic follows for research, policy etc. But I’m not sure about all the things you name.
Why is it reasonable to assume the best people to hire for web development, marketing or events management would be EAs rather than a standard web dev org?
If anything it seems to me you’d prefer aligned people took impactful roles rather than replicating non impactful roles in the EA community. The whole point of 80k is that there is more impact by choosing non-standard careers.
What’s more, it feels off. I think if I heard that the libertarians wanted to hire libertarian web devs and libertarian events managers, I’d think they were off track. It’s hard to pin down why, but maybe I’d feel it was becoming a cash grab.
In short, I agree, for things that are EAs comparative advantage—policy, research etc, but am unconvinced in general. Happy to give a case by case run down of the above if that’s useful. Feel free to break the above arguments.
Yeah, I originally had the same thought, and I considered e.g. web development, event management, legal services, and HR services as not benefiting enough from EA context etc. to be worth the opportunity cost of EA talent, but then several people at multiple organizations said “Actually we’ve struggled to get what we want from non-EA consultants doing those things. I really wish I could contract EA consultants to do that work instead.” So I added them to the list of possibilities for services that EA consultancies could provide.
I’m still not sure which conditions make it worth the opportunity cost of EA talent to provide these kinds of services, but I wanted to list them as possibilities given the feedback I got on earlier drafts of this post.
A related confusion to me is why there is EA comparative advantage in policy/research, like naively you’d expect external policy groups, consultancies, and academia to do a fine job of it. Yet in practice I think many EA orgs have paid academics to investigate questions of interest to EAs, and while there’s a lot of interesting work, the hit rate is lower than what we might naively have expected (moderate confidence, lukeprog and others can correct me on whether this gestalt view is correct).
So maybe this is a useful reference class to consider.
I don’t think EAs have a comparative advantage in policy/research in general, but I do think some EAs have a comparative advantage in doing some specific kinds of policy/research for other EAs, since EAs care more than many (not all) clients about certain analytic features, e.g. scope-sensitivity, focus on counterfactual impact, probability calibration, reasoning transparency of a particular sort, a tolerance for certain kinds of weirdness, etc.
Why is it reasonable to assume the best people to hire for web development, marketing or events management would be EAs rather than a standard web dev org?
Answer from the post:
Web development projects for which EA context and habits are helpful, e.g. for new EA discussion platforms, forecasting/calibration software, or interactive visualizations of core EA ideas.
I think the emphasis is on the relationship with the EA community. You do not need to be an EA-dedicated consultancy team, but you should have some group dedicated to serving EA interests.
I believe this is what all consultancy firms do. They take care of their customer organisations, by becoming familiar with the expectation, aspirations, and goals. (And it is easier if the people carrying out the work share the same aspirations of the organisations they serve, just because they are likely to be more receptive)
Here, the post is only asking new or old consultancy to give some attention to the EA community.
Thanks for writing this.
I think your logic follows for research, policy etc. But I’m not sure about all the things you name.
Why is it reasonable to assume the best people to hire for web development, marketing or events management would be EAs rather than a standard web dev org?
If anything it seems to me you’d prefer aligned people took impactful roles rather than replicating non impactful roles in the EA community. The whole point of 80k is that there is more impact by choosing non-standard careers.
What’s more, it feels off. I think if I heard that the libertarians wanted to hire libertarian web devs and libertarian events managers, I’d think they were off track. It’s hard to pin down why, but maybe I’d feel it was becoming a cash grab.
In short, I agree, for things that are EAs comparative advantage—policy, research etc, but am unconvinced in general. Happy to give a case by case run down of the above if that’s useful. Feel free to break the above arguments.
Yeah, I originally had the same thought, and I considered e.g. web development, event management, legal services, and HR services as not benefiting enough from EA context etc. to be worth the opportunity cost of EA talent, but then several people at multiple organizations said “Actually we’ve struggled to get what we want from non-EA consultants doing those things. I really wish I could contract EA consultants to do that work instead.” So I added them to the list of possibilities for services that EA consultancies could provide.
I’m still not sure which conditions make it worth the opportunity cost of EA talent to provide these kinds of services, but I wanted to list them as possibilities given the feedback I got on earlier drafts of this post.
See also footnote 18.
Will ponder. Thanks again for going to the effort. I largely agree regardless.
A related confusion to me is why there is EA comparative advantage in policy/research, like naively you’d expect external policy groups, consultancies, and academia to do a fine job of it. Yet in practice I think many EA orgs have paid academics to investigate questions of interest to EAs, and while there’s a lot of interesting work, the hit rate is lower than what we might naively have expected (moderate confidence, lukeprog and others can correct me on whether this gestalt view is correct).
So maybe this is a useful reference class to consider.
I don’t think EAs have a comparative advantage in policy/research in general, but I do think some EAs have a comparative advantage in doing some specific kinds of policy/research for other EAs, since EAs care more than many (not all) clients about certain analytic features, e.g. scope-sensitivity, focus on counterfactual impact, probability calibration, reasoning transparency of a particular sort, a tolerance for certain kinds of weirdness, etc.
Your question:
Answer from the post:
I think the emphasis is on the relationship with the EA community. You do not need to be an EA-dedicated consultancy team, but you should have some group dedicated to serving EA interests.
I believe this is what all consultancy firms do. They take care of their customer organisations, by becoming familiar with the expectation, aspirations, and goals. (And it is easier if the people carrying out the work share the same aspirations of the organisations they serve, just because they are likely to be more receptive)
Here, the post is only asking new or old consultancy to give some attention to the EA community.