(I don’t disagree with you, or at least I suspect there could be very little actual disagreement if we drilled down to the root issues).
Assuming the comp for the general counsel was at market rates, which might not be true, here are some key points:
That institution you mention has a culture, management/faculties and reputation that is strong, even among good EA organizations. I think these traits greatly reduce the downsides of, and allow integration of talent at very high compensation.
With more uncertainty, I think another consideration is that the source of funding at that institution is more proximate than to most grantees. As a consequence of upstream conditions related to this proximity, the deployment of money is more disciplined and systemic consequences of high salaries are lower. (I guess the crude way of saying this is that the incentives are more aligned, but this isn’t quite right.)
I think a key issue that shouldn’t be ignored are conditions, like culture, management capacity, and the ability to buy and absorb high value talent.
There’s a lot going on in the preceding sentence, but I think there’s a huge point here related to funding debates going on now:
The conditions for the deployment of money and use of funds or capacity can be hard to attain, and people without these faculties may never see this. I’ll be even more direct: a lot of funding issues right now have nothing to do with cause area but competence and composition.
This can be true, and can be the overwhelming consideration for impact, even if the funding situation is as unbalanced as some describe.
(I don’t disagree with you, or at least I suspect there could be very little actual disagreement if we drilled down to the root issues).
Assuming the comp for the general counsel was at market rates, which might not be true, here are some key points:
That institution you mention has a culture, management/faculties and reputation that is strong, even among good EA organizations. I think these traits greatly reduce the downsides of, and allow integration of talent at very high compensation.
With more uncertainty, I think another consideration is that the source of funding at that institution is more proximate than to most grantees. As a consequence of upstream conditions related to this proximity, the deployment of money is more disciplined and systemic consequences of high salaries are lower. (I guess the crude way of saying this is that the incentives are more aligned, but this isn’t quite right.)
I think a key issue that shouldn’t be ignored are conditions, like culture, management capacity, and the ability to buy and absorb high value talent.
There’s a lot going on in the preceding sentence, but I think there’s a huge point here related to funding debates going on now:
The conditions for the deployment of money and use of funds or capacity can be hard to attain, and people without these faculties may never see this. I’ll be even more direct: a lot of funding issues right now have nothing to do with cause area but competence and composition.
This can be true, and can be the overwhelming consideration for impact, even if the funding situation is as unbalanced as some describe.