These chores don’t go away if you live in an expensive housing market or make a high income.
If you have a high income, though, you can pay other people to do them: for example, instead of cooking you could buy frozen food, buy restaurant food, or hire a cook.
I expect that these economies of scale effects will become even more valuable as the number of people in the hotel grows.
My experience with cooking is that above about 6-10 people the economies of scale drop off a lot. I really like living in a house with enough adults that I can cook about once a week, but as the number of people (and combinations of dietary restrictions) grows you get beyond what one person can cook easily.
Overall, though, it sounds like you’re more arguing for “group houses are great” (which I agree on) and not “taking the hotel manager job has high counterfactual impact” (which I think is much more important?)
(I’m assuming that the counterfactual here is someone who wants to do unpaid direct work full time, has some funds available that could be used to either support themselves or could be donated to something high impact, and could either live in SF or Blackpool.)
If you have a high income, though, you can pay other people to do them: for example, instead of cooking you could buy frozen food, buy restaurant food, or hire a cook.
These options don’t go away if you move to Blackpool. But your rent does get a lot cheaper.
It seems like maybe there are two questions here which are more or less orthogonal: the value of hiring a very talented full-time manager for your group house (someone who is passing up a job that pays $75K+ in order to be manager), and the value of moving to Blackpool. I think the value of having a very talented full-time manager for your group house is not about reducing expenses, it’s about creating a house culture that serves to multiply the impact of all the residents. If that’s not possible then it probably makes less sense to hire a manager whose opportunity cost is high.
I’m assuming that the counterfactual here is someone who wants to do unpaid direct work full time, has some funds available that could be used to either support themselves or could be donated to something high impact, and could either live in SF or Blackpool.
Is this the counterfactual for the hotel manager, or for a resident? I’m only trying to address the hotel manager role here, but I wouldn’t expect the counterfactual for a hotel manager to be unpaid direct work.
I think the value of having a very talented full-time manager for your group house is not about reducing expenses, it’s about creating a house culture that serves to multiply the impact of all the residents
This makes a lot of sense to me, but reading the Hotel Manager section the impression I get is that a hotel manager would be too busy to do much in that direction. There’s no discussion of their role in setting culture, and a lot of operations work.
If you have a high income, though, you can pay other people to do them: for example, instead of cooking you could buy frozen food, buy restaurant food, or hire a cook.
My experience with cooking is that above about 6-10 people the economies of scale drop off a lot. I really like living in a house with enough adults that I can cook about once a week, but as the number of people (and combinations of dietary restrictions) grows you get beyond what one person can cook easily.
Overall, though, it sounds like you’re more arguing for “group houses are great” (which I agree on) and not “taking the hotel manager job has high counterfactual impact” (which I think is much more important?)
(I’m assuming that the counterfactual here is someone who wants to do unpaid direct work full time, has some funds available that could be used to either support themselves or could be donated to something high impact, and could either live in SF or Blackpool.)
These options don’t go away if you move to Blackpool. But your rent does get a lot cheaper.
It seems like maybe there are two questions here which are more or less orthogonal: the value of hiring a very talented full-time manager for your group house (someone who is passing up a job that pays $75K+ in order to be manager), and the value of moving to Blackpool. I think the value of having a very talented full-time manager for your group house is not about reducing expenses, it’s about creating a house culture that serves to multiply the impact of all the residents. If that’s not possible then it probably makes less sense to hire a manager whose opportunity cost is high.
Is this the counterfactual for the hotel manager, or for a resident? I’m only trying to address the hotel manager role here, but I wouldn’t expect the counterfactual for a hotel manager to be unpaid direct work.
This makes a lot of sense to me, but reading the Hotel Manager section the impression I get is that a hotel manager would be too busy to do much in that direction. There’s no discussion of their role in setting culture, and a lot of operations work.