I should have clarified my points weren’t meant as disagreements—I think we’re basically on the same page.
I do think aggressive 80/20ing often makes sense
Yes, I agree. One way to reconcile the two comments is that you need to focus on the 20% of most valuable activities within each aspect (marketing, ops, follow up), but you can’t drop any aspect. I also agree that it’s likely that ‘really focusing on what drives impact’ is more important than ‘really caring’, though I think simply caring and trying can go a fairly long way.
On living together, I’m not concerned about living with friends in general (esp for students), just the idea of living 100% with EAs, while EA is also your main thing outside of studying. The more general point is that I think it’s valuable to have friendships outside of EA. So, if someone is new to EA, I might encourage them to live with EAs for a few years to make deeper friendships there, but if someone is already heavily involved, I might encourage them to live with people who aren’t in EA.
The intro to EA talk looks cool! I made some comments on a copy that I’ve shared with your stanford email address.
That’s great to hear!
I should have clarified my points weren’t meant as disagreements—I think we’re basically on the same page.
Yes, I agree. One way to reconcile the two comments is that you need to focus on the 20% of most valuable activities within each aspect (marketing, ops, follow up), but you can’t drop any aspect. I also agree that it’s likely that ‘really focusing on what drives impact’ is more important than ‘really caring’, though I think simply caring and trying can go a fairly long way.
On living together, I’m not concerned about living with friends in general (esp for students), just the idea of living 100% with EAs, while EA is also your main thing outside of studying. The more general point is that I think it’s valuable to have friendships outside of EA. So, if someone is new to EA, I might encourage them to live with EAs for a few years to make deeper friendships there, but if someone is already heavily involved, I might encourage them to live with people who aren’t in EA.
The intro to EA talk looks cool! I made some comments on a copy that I’ve shared with your stanford email address.