Stefan_Schubert comments on Earning to give may be the best option for patient EAs

[Stefan_Schubert]

Or are you saying it would make sense to use that money to fund further high-risk entrepreneurial activities?

Yes.

On the point about community building and research outperforming the stock market—I would like to see some sort of quantification of this rather than just an assertion.

In any event, I think it’s a relevant post which would be good to mention in this context. And fwiw I agree with Owen’s estimate that it’s substantially outperformed the stock market in the past. E.g. it has arguably led to many billions of dollars getting dedicated to longtermist causes.

[JackM]

Thanks. I agree Owen’s post is relevant.

This post is also very relevant. Especially this part which reflects an update away ETG:

Despite these caveats, the model has produced at least one important update for us. As the stock of EA capital has grown more quickly than the stock of EA labor, it has been widely claimed that earning to give is less valuable, relative to direct work, than it used to be. On a March 2020 episode of the 80,000 Hours podcast, Phil had argued that this claim was mistaken, on the grounds that the EA “capital to labor ratio” should simply be expected to fluctuate over time, suggesting that we had no reason to expect a long-run trend in either direction. Earning to give is thus still highly valuable, he argued, in light of the opportunity to invest for a time in which EA projects are again more capital-constrained. The results of our model suggest to us that this particular argument for earning to give was incorrect. It is at least plausible that, relative to direct work, earning to give has indeed grown less valuable, and—temporary fluctuations notwithstanding—will continue to do so.