Could you explain how this works structurally? My understanding is he is currently CEO of EV US. Will he be continuing in this role also, or will EV US have been wound down by February? Is CEA going to be one single international organization, or will there be separate CEA US and CEA UK, and he will be CEA of both?
edit: upon further review of previous EV statements it appears there is another hiring round for an EV US CEO replacement, which answers part of the above.
Also, a tougher question: how over-determined was this hiring? As an outsider it seems like he (as currently one of the direct supervisors of CEA’s CEO, and someone whose current role will soon be going away) would probably be one of the first names you’d consider. The reason I ask is because I feel like I spent too much time interviewing candidates for a hiring round when I could have narrowed the field much more quickly.
Also, a tougher question: how over-determined was this hiring?
[Just speaking for myself based on being a member of the hiring committee, without running this take past anyone else.]
I do think that Zach was in our top 5-10 most promising people at the start of the process. So I think that directionally the update is that we spent too much time/energy on this process, since the outcome wasn’t that surprising.
However, I’m not sure if we should have spent that much less time/energy:
In general I think that this is a really crucial hire, and finding someone marginally better or avoiding making a hiring mistake is really valuable, and worth significant delays.
Some of our other top candidates were unknown to the hiring committee at the point where we started the process. So I think that there’s a nearby-ish world where the broader/more-in-depth search led to a different outcome.
I think that the more in-depth process can help the board, staff, and community to be more confident in the decision, and that’s useful for the new CEO’s future in the role. If we had appointed Zach with no process at all then in some sense that would be the same outcome, but I think it would leave Zach in a weaker position to lead CEA.
Even if we’d appointed Zach sooner, I think that he might have only been able to start in mid-February anyway, because of his commitment to EV. Making the appointment sooner would still have been valuable in that it would have resolved some uncertainty sooner, but not as valuable as if Zach could have started several months sooner.
I think that some aspects of the process could have gone more quickly, as I noted in my last post on this topic. But there were some important aspects that the hiring committee couldn’t have altered much, and some things that mean that the actual hiring process was shorter than it seems (e.g. it took us 3 weeks or so after Zach said yes to get this post together, partly because CEA staff were on team retreat).
I don’t want to overupdate on one datapoint.
Outside view, I think that this is a fairly standard length of time for an exec search process.
So yeah, overall I think you’re right that we spent too much time on this, and I’m still confused how much we should have compressed the process.
Good question! That was my interpretation of this, since if all the projects are offboarded I do not see what is left:
… we are planning to take significant steps to decentralize the effective altruism ecosystem by offboarding the projects which currently sit under the Effective Ventures umbrella. This means CEA, 80,000 Hours, Giving What We Can and other EV-sponsored projects will transition to being independent legal entities, with their own leadership, operational staff, and governance structures. We anticipate the details of the offboarding process will vary by project, and we expect the overall process to take some time – likely 1-2 years until all projects have finished. [emphasis added]
but I agree it is unclear, and EV did not clarify it when asked despite this being the most popular question.
Thanks for sharing this and good luck to Zach.
Could you explain how this works structurally? My understanding is he is currently CEO of EV US. Will he be continuing in this role also, or will EV US have been wound down by February? Is CEA going to be one single international organization, or will there be separate CEA US and CEA UK, and he will be CEA of both?
edit: upon further review of previous EV statements it appears there is another hiring round for an EV US CEO replacement, which answers part of the above.
Also, a tougher question: how over-determined was this hiring? As an outsider it seems like he (as currently one of the direct supervisors of CEA’s CEO, and someone whose current role will soon be going away) would probably be one of the first names you’d consider. The reason I ask is because I feel like I spent too much time interviewing candidates for a hiring round when I could have narrowed the field much more quickly.
[Just speaking for myself based on being a member of the hiring committee, without running this take past anyone else.]
I do think that Zach was in our top 5-10 most promising people at the start of the process. So I think that directionally the update is that we spent too much time/energy on this process, since the outcome wasn’t that surprising.
However, I’m not sure if we should have spent that much less time/energy:
In general I think that this is a really crucial hire, and finding someone marginally better or avoiding making a hiring mistake is really valuable, and worth significant delays.
Some of our other top candidates were unknown to the hiring committee at the point where we started the process. So I think that there’s a nearby-ish world where the broader/more-in-depth search led to a different outcome.
I think that the more in-depth process can help the board, staff, and community to be more confident in the decision, and that’s useful for the new CEO’s future in the role. If we had appointed Zach with no process at all then in some sense that would be the same outcome, but I think it would leave Zach in a weaker position to lead CEA.
Even if we’d appointed Zach sooner, I think that he might have only been able to start in mid-February anyway, because of his commitment to EV. Making the appointment sooner would still have been valuable in that it would have resolved some uncertainty sooner, but not as valuable as if Zach could have started several months sooner.
I think that some aspects of the process could have gone more quickly, as I noted in my last post on this topic. But there were some important aspects that the hiring committee couldn’t have altered much, and some things that mean that the actual hiring process was shorter than it seems (e.g. it took us 3 weeks or so after Zach said yes to get this post together, partly because CEA staff were on team retreat).
I don’t want to overupdate on one datapoint.
Outside view, I think that this is a fairly standard length of time for an exec search process.
So yeah, overall I think you’re right that we spent too much time on this, and I’m still confused how much we should have compressed the process.
Is the plan for Effective Ventures to cease to exist?
Good question! That was my interpretation of this, since if all the projects are offboarded I do not see what is left:
but I agree it is unclear, and EV did not clarify it when asked despite this being the most popular question.