I think it depends on the baseline. If I compare it to staying in a hostel like I would do when backpacking or a trip with friends, then it was definitely fancy. If I compare it to the hotel that a mid-sized German consulting firm used for a recruiting event I attended about five years ago, then I would say it was overall less fancy (though it depends on the criteria – e.g., in the Bahamas I think the rooms were relatively big while everything else [food, ‘fanciness’ as opposed to size of the rooms, etc.] was less fancy).
Huh. My impression is that the hotel I stayed at in my Google offsite (c.2019) was overall less fancy. The rooms were similarly nice but my Google offsite had 2 people to a room, and worse views.
(My understanding is that there were logistics reasons that made it hard for FTX to host a large contingent of people in a place that’s less fancy, but more cheaply. And this isn’t a big priority for them compared to making and donating billions of dollars. And of course Google has built up way more ops capacity over the decades to save resources while still delivering a good experience)
I guess Google is more reasonable than German consulting firms :)
FWIW, my sense is that for business trips that last several weeks it is uncommon for companies to host several people in one hotel room, but I only have few data points on this, and maybe there is a US-Europe difference here.
(It is worth noting that one of my data points is about a part of the German federal bureaucracy which otherwise has fairly strict regulation regarding travel/accommodation expenses. There is literally a federal law about this, which may also be an interesting baseline more generally. It is notable that it allows first-class train rides for trips exceeding two hours, and while economy-class flights are mandated as default it does allow business class flights when there are specific “work-related reasons” for them.)
(To be clear, I do think that “running a fellowship in the Bahamas predictably leads to incurring higher costs for accommodation than you would in a place with a larger supply” is a fair point, and I would be sad if all EA events worldwide used that level of fanciness in accommodation for participants while ignoring available alternatives that may be cheaper without a commensurate loss in productivity/impact.
I just don’t think it’s a decisive argument against the Bahamas fellowship having been a good idea. Like I expect it’s among the top 5–10 but very likely not the top 1–3 considerations one would need to look at whether the Bahamas fellowship was overall worth it.
I expect the two of us are roughly on the same page about this.)
I just don’t think it’s a decisive argument against the Bahamas fellowship having been a good idea. Like I expect it’s among the top 5–10 but very likely not the top 1–3 considerations one would need to look at whether the Bahamas fellowship was overall worth it.
I expect the two of us are roughly on the same page about this.)
Yeah I agree with this. To be more specific, I think the biggest reasons the high costs/fanciness can be bad are as the OP says optics and epistemics (or more descriptively, “losing the spartan character of earlier EA is bad for our soul or something”), though the opportunity cost of the money is also non-trivial in absolute terms.
I think it depends on the baseline. If I compare it to staying in a hostel like I would do when backpacking or a trip with friends, then it was definitely fancy. If I compare it to the hotel that a mid-sized German consulting firm used for a recruiting event I attended about five years ago, then I would say it was overall less fancy (though it depends on the criteria – e.g., in the Bahamas I think the rooms were relatively big while everything else [food, ‘fanciness’ as opposed to size of the rooms, etc.] was less fancy).
Huh. My impression is that the hotel I stayed at in my Google offsite (c.2019) was overall less fancy. The rooms were similarly nice but my Google offsite had 2 people to a room, and worse views.
(My understanding is that there were logistics reasons that made it hard for FTX to host a large contingent of people in a place that’s less fancy, but more cheaply. And this isn’t a big priority for them compared to making and donating billions of dollars. And of course Google has built up way more ops capacity over the decades to save resources while still delivering a good experience)
I guess Google is more reasonable than German consulting firms :)
FWIW, my sense is that for business trips that last several weeks it is uncommon for companies to host several people in one hotel room, but I only have few data points on this, and maybe there is a US-Europe difference here.
(It is worth noting that one of my data points is about a part of the German federal bureaucracy which otherwise has fairly strict regulation regarding travel/accommodation expenses. There is literally a federal law about this, which may also be an interesting baseline more generally. It is notable that it allows first-class train rides for trips exceeding two hours, and while economy-class flights are mandated as default it does allow business class flights when there are specific “work-related reasons” for them.)
(To be clear, I do think that “running a fellowship in the Bahamas predictably leads to incurring higher costs for accommodation than you would in a place with a larger supply” is a fair point, and I would be sad if all EA events worldwide used that level of fanciness in accommodation for participants while ignoring available alternatives that may be cheaper without a commensurate loss in productivity/impact.
I just don’t think it’s a decisive argument against the Bahamas fellowship having been a good idea. Like I expect it’s among the top 5–10 but very likely not the top 1–3 considerations one would need to look at whether the Bahamas fellowship was overall worth it.
I expect the two of us are roughly on the same page about this.)
Yeah I agree with this. To be more specific, I think the biggest reasons the high costs/fanciness can be bad are as the OP says optics and epistemics (or more descriptively, “losing the spartan character of earlier EA is bad for our soul or something”), though the opportunity cost of the money is also non-trivial in absolute terms.