Thanks for publishing this take, it was interesting to read! What do you think are the main differences from the EA community to your work environment in Bristol? Can’t be the level of education, EA rates pretty high on that. And do you have any ideas what single groups could do to tackle this issue? So not necessarily “the community” at large, but a group that wants to change the way they act?
Thanks Milena! I am not sure what aspects of either environment might drive this difference. I am not sure what other PoC or women had in terms of experience at the company in Bristol. What I do know is that they did not really do anything on the DEI front. So maybe it was some sort of selection effect that hiring managers implicitly applied in their hiring?
I think in terms of EA, maybe I will walk a bit back on my suggestion to look at Deloitte or others—maybe we are unique enough in terms of not being a company, being pretty unusual overall etc. that the easiest way forward is just to try something that seems like it could be effective, checking in with the people we want to try to make EA more welcoming for, and seeing if we can learn from that? But I might also be a bit biased towards the move-fast-and-break things mentality, perhaps we should deliberate more before doing something. I don’t know, sorry! I am looking at doing something small here in Sweden and hopefully we can learn something from it that is of use to others. If it works out well I am sure it will be communicated (might be more than a year though!). I guess I would generally encourage people to step up and collaborate on trying to do something.
Maybe some of it comes down to differences in the broader environment. The UK has larger (visible) proportion of People of Colour compared to, I guess, Sweden and in my case, Germany. So while that doesnt mean that all people in the UK are anti-racist or so, having more interactions with a diverse range of people might make it more likely that you’ll learn a thing about not offending. Plus, it might not be that interesting for someone to ask the “Where do you come from?”-question if they’ve heard the same answer a hundred times: “From Bristol”.
I think it’s good idea not to move fast and break more things with this stuff. I’ve made that experience, and will likely make that experience a few times more. But trying small, collaborative experiments sounds good!
Thanks for publishing this take, it was interesting to read!
What do you think are the main differences from the EA community to your work environment in Bristol? Can’t be the level of education, EA rates pretty high on that.
And do you have any ideas what single groups could do to tackle this issue? So not necessarily “the community” at large, but a group that wants to change the way they act?
Thanks Milena! I am not sure what aspects of either environment might drive this difference. I am not sure what other PoC or women had in terms of experience at the company in Bristol. What I do know is that they did not really do anything on the DEI front. So maybe it was some sort of selection effect that hiring managers implicitly applied in their hiring?
I think in terms of EA, maybe I will walk a bit back on my suggestion to look at Deloitte or others—maybe we are unique enough in terms of not being a company, being pretty unusual overall etc. that the easiest way forward is just to try something that seems like it could be effective, checking in with the people we want to try to make EA more welcoming for, and seeing if we can learn from that? But I might also be a bit biased towards the move-fast-and-break things mentality, perhaps we should deliberate more before doing something. I don’t know, sorry! I am looking at doing something small here in Sweden and hopefully we can learn something from it that is of use to others. If it works out well I am sure it will be communicated (might be more than a year though!). I guess I would generally encourage people to step up and collaborate on trying to do something.
Maybe some of it comes down to differences in the broader environment. The UK has larger (visible) proportion of People of Colour compared to, I guess, Sweden and in my case, Germany. So while that doesnt mean that all people in the UK are anti-racist or so, having more interactions with a diverse range of people might make it more likely that you’ll learn a thing about not offending. Plus, it might not be that interesting for someone to ask the “Where do you come from?”-question if they’ve heard the same answer a hundred times: “From Bristol”.
I think it’s good idea not to move fast and break more things with this stuff. I’ve made that experience, and will likely make that experience a few times more. But trying small, collaborative experiments sounds good!