Do you think it would be great for a lot more EAs to donate like you did? Either around 50 percent of the salary, or perhaps capping their income at a certain level and giving the rest, like Maccaskill did back in the day (or maybe still does), and is an option on the giving what you can pledge?
And why do you think there there not 1000+ EAs giving this kind of money? Even just a thousand people giving 100k a year is 100 million. Not too far from matching Dustin. Is it because there aren’t enough high earners, or is it still a rare decision to give these amounts even though it is a high profile coreish EA thing? Or something else?
Love it and thanks for the Q And A, this is super interesting
And why do you think there there not 1000+ EAs giving this kind of money? Even just a thousand people giving 100k a year is 100 million. Not too far from matching Dustin. Is it because there aren’t enough high earners, or is it still a rare decision to give these amounts even though it is a high profile coreish EA thing?
I think there are thousands of times more people who could be giving $100k/y on incomes of $300k+/y than actually are. It’s a very rare thing.
Some of this is that in the normal world people who feel that seriously about doing good go and work valuable jobs that don’t maximize income instead of using donations as an intermediate step. Teachers, public defenders, academics, civil service. And within EA we’ve also been encouraging people to strongly consider leaving their well-paying jobs to do directly useful things (hi!). But I think most of it is that money is tempting, there are always things to spend it on, and we’re embedded in a culture where it’s normal to keep your earnings for yourself.
Do you think it would be great for a lot more EAs to donate like you did?
I think there are a lot of people donating 10% while working very high paying jobs who really could still have very nice lives giving, say, 30%. I think it’s especially important to avoid letting your standard of living rise with your income, or no matter how much you earn you still won’t feel secure.
But I don’t want to be too pushy: people donating 10% effectively are still doing way more than most people do, and I’m glad to see anyone join us at 10%.
perhaps capping their income at a certain level and giving the rest, like Maccaskill did back in the day (or maybe still does)
I think the further pledge is a good idea for somewhere between “almost no one” and “no one”. Possibly MacAskill, as a way to demonstrate that he’s really not in this for the money?
If a government wants to maximize tax revenue would they set anyone’s marginal tax rate at 100%? Clearly not: they’ll make some choices where they forgo cash earnings for non-monetary benefits. When you decide your donation rules you’re doing a bit of this yourself, and you should consider what incentives you want to be setting up for yourself.
I think the further pledge is a good idea for somewhere between “almost no one” and “no one”. Possibly MacAskill, as a way to demonstrate that he’s really not in this for the money?
If a government wants to maximize tax revenue would they set anyone’s marginal tax rate at 100%? Clearly not: they’ll make some choices where they forgo cash earnings for non-monetary benefits. When you decide your donation rules you’re doing a bit of this yourself, and you should consider what incentives you want to be setting up for yourself.
I don’t follow this, don’t incentives cut both ways? Someone who has not taken the further pledge will have strong incentives to work in AI Safety/capabilities (where some EAs are making >=7 digits) compared to working in animal welfare, and you had a strong incentive to stay at Alphabet instead of moving into direct work, despite thinking that the latter could be more positive for the world.
That’s not a way I was thinking about it, thanks for bringing this up! I normally think of the GWWC pledges as about donations, so the idea that it might be useful via keeping people from making choices that would lead to larger donations is initially a bit counterintuitive, but seems right.
RE: why aren’t there as many EAs giving this much money: I’m (obviously) not Jeff, but I was at Alphabet for many of the years Jeff was. Relevantly, I was also involved in the yearly donation matching campaigns. There were around 2-3 other folks who donated similar amounts to Jeff. Those four-ish people were the majority of EA matching funds at Alphabet.
It’s hard to be sure how many people actually donated outside of giving campaigns, so this might undercount things. But to get to 1k EAs donating this much money, you’d need like 300 companies with similarly sized EA contingents. I don’t think there are 300 companies with as large of a (wealthy) EA contingent as Alphabet, so the fact that Jeff was a strong outlier at Google explains most of this to me.
I think that there are only like 5k individuals as committed to EA as Jeff and his wife are. And making as much money as they did is fairly rare, especially when you consider the likelihood of super committed folks going into direct work.
I’m curious, since EA’s are concentrated in the same places that big tech companies are: Is it that surprisingly few EA’s work at Google, or are there a lot and they just mostly donate like 10% of their salaries instead of 50%?
There are a lot of ‘lurkers’, but less than 30 folks would be involved in the yearly holiday matching thread and sheet. Every self-professed EA I talked to at Google was involved in those campaigns, so I think that covers the most involved US Googlers.
Most people donated closer to 5-10% than Jeff or Oliver’s much higher amounts, that is for sure true.
So I think both your explanations are true. There are not that many EAs at Google (although I don’t think that’s surprising), and most donate much less than they likely could. I put myself in that bucket, as I donated around 20%, but likely could have done close to twice that. Although it would be hard for me to do that in recent years, as I switched to Waymo where I can’t sell my stock.
I don’t understand this reply. It seems to say that few people are donating as much as Jeff because Jeff is a strong outlier, which seems to be a tautology, what am I missing?
But to get to 1k EAs donating this much money, you’d need like 300 companies with similarly sized EA contingents.
Or you’d need a 30 times larger EA contingent at Alphabet and at 10 other high-paying companies. Why aren’t more people donating 50%?
As one who donates 50%, it doesn’t seem like it should be that uncommon. One way I think about it is earning like upper-middle-class, living like middle-class, and donating like upper-class. Tens of percent of people work for tens of percent less money in sectors like nonprofits and governments. And I’ve heard of quite a few non-EAs who have taken jobs for half the money. And yet most people think about donating that large of a percent very differently than taking a job that pays less. I’m still not sure why—other than that it is uncommon or “weird.”
(leading a—dare I say—successful effective nonprofit)
Sure—go ahead and dare. :)
My day job is associate professor of mechanical engineering at University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and I volunteer for ALLFED. Nearly 100% of my donations are to ALLFED. I think that ALLFED is the most cost-effective way of improving the long run future at the margin (see here and here, though I’m not quite as bullish as the mean survey/poll results in those papers), but there are orders of magnitude of uncertainty, and I think more total money should be put into AGI safety.
Do you think it would be great for a lot more EAs to donate like you did? Either around 50 percent of the salary, or perhaps capping their income at a certain level and giving the rest, like Maccaskill did back in the day (or maybe still does), and is an option on the giving what you can pledge?
And why do you think there there not 1000+ EAs giving this kind of money? Even just a thousand people giving 100k a year is 100 million. Not too far from matching Dustin. Is it because there aren’t enough high earners, or is it still a rare decision to give these amounts even though it is a high profile coreish EA thing? Or something else?
Love it and thanks for the Q And A, this is super interesting
I think there are thousands of times more people who could be giving $100k/y on incomes of $300k+/y than actually are. It’s a very rare thing.
Some of this is that in the normal world people who feel that seriously about doing good go and work valuable jobs that don’t maximize income instead of using donations as an intermediate step. Teachers, public defenders, academics, civil service. And within EA we’ve also been encouraging people to strongly consider leaving their well-paying jobs to do directly useful things (hi!). But I think most of it is that money is tempting, there are always things to spend it on, and we’re embedded in a culture where it’s normal to keep your earnings for yourself.
I think there are a lot of people donating 10% while working very high paying jobs who really could still have very nice lives giving, say, 30%. I think it’s especially important to avoid letting your standard of living rise with your income, or no matter how much you earn you still won’t feel secure.
But I don’t want to be too pushy: people donating 10% effectively are still doing way more than most people do, and I’m glad to see anyone join us at 10%.
As of 2022-08-10 MacAskill still was sticking with his “further pledge”.
I think the further pledge is a good idea for somewhere between “almost no one” and “no one”. Possibly MacAskill, as a way to demonstrate that he’s really not in this for the money?
If a government wants to maximize tax revenue would they set anyone’s marginal tax rate at 100%? Clearly not: they’ll make some choices where they forgo cash earnings for non-monetary benefits. When you decide your donation rules you’re doing a bit of this yourself, and you should consider what incentives you want to be setting up for yourself.
I don’t follow this, don’t incentives cut both ways? Someone who has not taken the further pledge will have strong incentives to work in AI Safety/capabilities (where some EAs are making >=7 digits) compared to working in animal welfare, and you had a strong incentive to stay at Alphabet instead of moving into direct work, despite thinking that the latter could be more positive for the world.
That’s not a way I was thinking about it, thanks for bringing this up! I normally think of the GWWC pledges as about donations, so the idea that it might be useful via keeping people from making choices that would lead to larger donations is initially a bit counterintuitive, but seems right.
RE: why aren’t there as many EAs giving this much money: I’m (obviously) not Jeff, but I was at Alphabet for many of the years Jeff was. Relevantly, I was also involved in the yearly donation matching campaigns. There were around 2-3 other folks who donated similar amounts to Jeff. Those four-ish people were the majority of EA matching funds at Alphabet.
It’s hard to be sure how many people actually donated outside of giving campaigns, so this might undercount things. But to get to 1k EAs donating this much money, you’d need like 300 companies with similarly sized EA contingents. I don’t think there are 300 companies with as large of a (wealthy) EA contingent as Alphabet, so the fact that Jeff was a strong outlier at Google explains most of this to me.
I think that there are only like 5k individuals as committed to EA as Jeff and his wife are. And making as much money as they did is fairly rare, especially when you consider the likelihood of super committed folks going into direct work.
I’m curious, since EA’s are concentrated in the same places that big tech companies are: Is it that surprisingly few EA’s work at Google, or are there a lot and they just mostly donate like 10% of their salaries instead of 50%?
There are a lot of ‘lurkers’, but less than 30 folks would be involved in the yearly holiday matching thread and sheet. Every self-professed EA I talked to at Google was involved in those campaigns, so I think that covers the most involved US Googlers.
Most people donated closer to 5-10% than Jeff or Oliver’s much higher amounts, that is for sure true.
So I think both your explanations are true. There are not that many EAs at Google (although I don’t think that’s surprising), and most donate much less than they likely could. I put myself in that bucket, as I donated around 20%, but likely could have done close to twice that. Although it would be hard for me to do that in recent years, as I switched to Waymo where I can’t sell my stock.
I don’t understand this reply. It seems to say that few people are donating as much as Jeff because Jeff is a strong outlier, which seems to be a tautology, what am I missing?
Or you’d need a 30 times larger EA contingent at Alphabet and at 10 other high-paying companies. Why aren’t more people donating 50%?
As one who donates 50%, it doesn’t seem like it should be that uncommon. One way I think about it is earning like upper-middle-class, living like middle-class, and donating like upper-class. Tens of percent of people work for tens of percent less money in sectors like nonprofits and governments. And I’ve heard of quite a few non-EAs who have taken jobs for half the money. And yet most people think about donating that large of a percent very differently than taking a job that pays less. I’m still not sure why—other than that it is uncommon or “weird.”
Yeah, Giving isn’t demanding and the median annual UK salary is £26,800
Could you share where you donate? I’ve always found it fascinating when people like you (leading a—dare I say—successful effective nonprofit) donate.
If you don’t donate to ALLFED, why is that? (Are you hedging, are you actually not convinced it’s the best giving opportunity out there...)
If you donate to ALLFED, what’s the case for not just taking a lower salary? (Or is that what you do?)
Sure—go ahead and dare. :)
My day job is associate professor of mechanical engineering at University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and I volunteer for ALLFED. Nearly 100% of my donations are to ALLFED. I think that ALLFED is the most cost-effective way of improving the long run future at the margin (see here and here, though I’m not quite as bullish as the mean survey/poll results in those papers), but there are orders of magnitude of uncertainty, and I think more total money should be put into AGI safety.