Thank you for sharing your concerns, though we do not feel this is the relevant or appropriate venue to discuss anonymous accusations from a former intern(s) without first discussing them privately, especially given the personal issues of the ex-interns involved and the fact that every organization has disgruntled former interns/employees.
Importantly, key details of the above can be easily proven false. For example, the outflux of people was just two people, who we have verifiable evidence we paid as much as we committed to.
We are DMing you right now, and if you do not respond promptly, we will respond publicly.
I haven’t specified whether I heard my info from the employees/interns themselves. (My language was “Based on things I’ve heard from various people around Nonlinear.”)
I never used the word “outflux,” but rather “group.” That said, I believe that Kat is right about it being only two people (I had thought I remembered three, but I now think that was wrong).
I think it’s plausible but not >50% likely that this is based on the exaggerated report of an ordinary disgruntled employee. [EDIT: actually, considering other negative gossip I’ve heard about Nonlinear, I’d be extremely surprised if this was all downstream of an exaggerated report from a single person.] I’m pretty unsure whether it was a good idea to post this. Sorry if I made the wrong call.
My guess (50% true/certain) is that it’s probably fair to say that Kat and Emerson have a bit of a hustle vibe (I mean look at Emerson’s description).
Like I would do, and you would do, they try to maximize their local success. However, their output hasn’t been extremely high. There might be a small departure from some EA cooperate norms, that might be due cultural differences.
With the greatest uncertainty, but the most importance?: I think the potentially major issue is that by trying to sit as a meta org, Nonlinear can attract inflows of EA talent that scales with the movement (and not their ability), and also self-replicate. That is bad for movement health and incentives. EA is also small enough (and the course has seen a negative trajectory) that this could be an issue, e.g. the lemons sit in the aftermath, there’s a path dependency. The communication/publicity maximization adds to this concern.
As this thread shows, they are unpopular enough at this point, that I think the concerns are probably minor, like top #30-50 item on the list of things that CEA or OP needs to worry about in the next year or two.
I’m trying to more succinctly understand what you’re saying since your second last paragraph has confusing wording. You’re saying that Nonlinear can scale as EA scales (as opposed to scaling by their ability) and thereby attract competent clout like Emerson (since EA has become more famous as a whole it attracts big-shots), but that as an organization they don’t yet produce enough value/output for someone like Emerson to be a good fit at their organization? And that this plausibly has a causal relationship to why there has been conflict? e.g. Emerson being a bad fit leads to him more easily getting frustrated with other employees?
(PS: just a note that this doesn’t excuse Emerson mistreating employees if he was indeed mistreating employees. My comment here is just trying to understand what the comment above is saying since it confused me, but I think it might be valuable to clarify)
a couple of comments on this from a mere bystander:
“we do not feel this is the relevant or appropriate venue to discuss anonymous accusations from a former intern(s) without first discussing them privately”
this is how gossip works
also confused because the original commenter says that they were not involved:
“I can’t share any specifics because anything specific was told to me in confidence; I also have no way of knowing whether the things I’ve heard were exaggerated. Additionally, a lot of what I was told I remember only vaguely. Given that none of the people wronged spoke up, it’s not clear that I should (due to concerns about the reliability of secondhand knowledge, for example).”
“especially given the personal issues of the ex-interns involved”
this seems disingenuous to me, esp b/c you could’ve chosen not to say this
“the fact that every organization has disgruntled former interns/employees”
for small orgs (ie # of employees and contractors < 30), I think this is just false.
I partially agree that even small orgs will likely have someone who’s disgruntled if you ask them, I think this is just not true about having a number of people who complain about it unprovoked or warn others (as seems to be the case here)
“who we have verifiable evidence we paid as much as we committed to.”
fwiw, this could still be consistent with the main comment
Hi anonymous,
Thank you for sharing your concerns, though we do not feel this is the relevant or appropriate venue to discuss anonymous accusations from a former intern(s) without first discussing them privately, especially given the personal issues of the ex-interns involved and the fact that every organization has disgruntled former interns/employees.
Importantly, key details of the above can be easily proven false. For example, the outflux of people was just two people, who we have verifiable evidence we paid as much as we committed to.
We are DMing you right now, and if you do not respond promptly, we will respond publicly.
To clarify:
I never worked with Nonlinear.
I haven’t specified whether I heard my info from the employees/interns themselves. (My language was “Based on things I’ve heard from various people around Nonlinear.”)
I never used the word “outflux,” but rather “group.” That said, I believe that Kat is right about it being only two people (I had thought I remembered three, but I now think that was wrong).
I think it’s plausible but not >50% likely that this is based on the exaggerated report of an ordinary disgruntled employee. [EDIT: actually, considering other negative gossip I’ve heard about Nonlinear, I’d be extremely surprised if this was all downstream of an exaggerated report from a single person.] I’m pretty unsure whether it was a good idea to post this. Sorry if I made the wrong call.
What you did was valuable, useful and brave.
With difficulty, trying to communicate in a way that gets at the heart of the issue and not pick out facts and tries to be fair:
My guess (50% true/certain) is that it’s probably fair to say that Kat and Emerson have a bit of a hustle vibe (I mean look at Emerson’s description).
Like I would do, and you would do, they try to maximize their local success. However, their output hasn’t been extremely high. There might be a small departure from some EA cooperate norms, that might be due cultural differences.
With the greatest uncertainty, but the most importance?: I think the potentially major issue is that by trying to sit as a meta org, Nonlinear can attract inflows of EA talent that scales with the movement (and not their ability), and also self-replicate. That is bad for movement health and incentives. EA is also small enough (and the course has seen a negative trajectory) that this could be an issue, e.g. the lemons sit in the aftermath, there’s a path dependency. The communication/publicity maximization adds to this concern.
As this thread shows, they are unpopular enough at this point, that I think the concerns are probably minor, like top #30-50 item on the list of things that CEA or OP needs to worry about in the next year or two.
I’m trying to more succinctly understand what you’re saying since your second last paragraph has confusing wording. You’re saying that Nonlinear can scale as EA scales (as opposed to scaling by their ability) and thereby attract competent clout like Emerson (since EA has become more famous as a whole it attracts big-shots), but that as an organization they don’t yet produce enough value/output for someone like Emerson to be a good fit at their organization? And that this plausibly has a causal relationship to why there has been conflict? e.g. Emerson being a bad fit leads to him more easily getting frustrated with other employees?
(PS: just a note that this doesn’t excuse Emerson mistreating employees if he was indeed mistreating employees. My comment here is just trying to understand what the comment above is saying since it confused me, but I think it might be valuable to clarify)
(n.b., My comment was referring to a quote in Kat’s comment that they edited out at some point after I posted this.)
That blatant misquote is minor in the scheme of things but seems concerning.
a couple of comments on this from a mere bystander:
“we do not feel this is the relevant or appropriate venue to discuss anonymous accusations from a former intern(s) without first discussing them privately”
this is how gossip works
also confused because the original commenter says that they were not involved:
“I can’t share any specifics because anything specific was told to me in confidence; I also have no way of knowing whether the things I’ve heard were exaggerated. Additionally, a lot of what I was told I remember only vaguely. Given that none of the people wronged spoke up, it’s not clear that I should (due to concerns about the reliability of secondhand knowledge, for example).”
“especially given the personal issues of the ex-interns involved”
this seems disingenuous to me, esp b/c you could’ve chosen not to say this
“the fact that every organization has disgruntled former interns/employees”
for small orgs (ie # of employees and contractors < 30), I think this is just false.
I partially agree that even small orgs will likely have someone who’s disgruntled if you ask them, I think this is just not true about having a number of people who complain about it unprovoked or warn others (as seems to be the case here)
“who we have verifiable evidence we paid as much as we committed to.”
fwiw, this could still be consistent with the main comment