LTFF, OP, SFF, FTXF etc. are all keen to fund bio stuff. If they donât do so in practice, itâs because nobody pitches them with good proposals, not because theyâre not interested. Also, some of the bio grants arenât public.
If they donât do so in practice, itâs because nobody pitches them with good proposals, not because theyâre not interested
I think âgood proposalsâ should be disambiguated a bit here. Thereâs a range of possible options* for what you might mean.
*eg
âgoodâness from the POV of the specific funders vs an ideal rational observer vs an ominiscient entity with perfect clairvoyance,
goodness as defined by naive EV vs (e.g) including vetting costs
âproposalâ defined literally vs meaning the whole package including e.g. founder quality, etc, etc.
I mention this because I personally found it hard to parse your comment, and I expect Iâm more familiar with the EA funding landscape than the average reader.
Thanks! I donât have strong evidence for this, but I definitely have a strong prior that weâll miss good grants, evaluated from the POV of benevolent impartial agents with perfect clairvoyance. The world just doesnât seem that fundamentally predictable to me.
I disagree with this, not because weâre particularly good at predicting which projects get successful, but because funders have been very generous with money lately (e.g., EAIF and LTFF have had pretty high acceptance rates), which makes it pretty unlikely that weâll miss one.
Keen to hear about any data on this topic, James is right it is the number of ~EA funders with unique perspectives.
LTFF, OP, SFF, FTXF etc. are all keen to fund bio stuff. If they donât do so in practice, itâs because nobody pitches them with good proposals, not because theyâre not interested. Also, some of the bio grants arenât public.
I think âgood proposalsâ should be disambiguated a bit here. Thereâs a range of possible options* for what you might mean.
*eg
âgoodâness from the POV of the specific funders vs an ideal rational observer vs an ominiscient entity with perfect clairvoyance,
goodness as defined by naive EV vs (e.g) including vetting costs
âproposalâ defined literally vs meaning the whole package including e.g. founder quality, etc, etc.
I mention this because I personally found it hard to parse your comment, and I expect Iâm more familiar with the EA funding landscape than the average reader.
I meant pretty much any of the possible interpretations of goodness, though not the literal interpretation of âproposalâ.
Thanks! I donât have strong evidence for this, but I definitely have a strong prior that weâll miss good grants, evaluated from the POV of benevolent impartial agents with perfect clairvoyance. The world just doesnât seem that fundamentally predictable to me.
I disagree with this, not because weâre particularly good at predicting which projects get successful, but because funders have been very generous with money lately (e.g., EAIF and LTFF have had pretty high acceptance rates), which makes it pretty unlikely that weâll miss one.
Oh yeah thatâs a really good point.