Hi folks, someone pointed me to this thread a while back. Coming back to it because I came on the site to apply for EA Global, which I’m looking forward to attending. Briefly:
- Running for mayor was a VERY interesting experience that updated me against conventional political efforts to address large scale problems. The short answer to this is that there are far too many institutional obstacles within conventional politics.
- My view on disrupting EAG was not, from what I recall, based on non-collaborative principles but rather with the idea that a disruption might actually be good for all relevant stakeholders (including the speaker disrupted, Elon Musk). I think that’s probably still the case, but I appreciate that’s probably a minority view.
- Re: DxE and cult-like behavior, hard to respond because there are no specific allegations, but I would say that the Berkeleyside article was sadly not done in a high-integrity way. Contrary sources I suggested the writer talk to were not even interviewed, including the then-current lead organizer (executive director equivalent) Almira Tanner. And clear factual errors were not addressed. I posted about some of them here: https://whhsiung.medium.com/factual-errors-in-berkeleysides-reporting-on-our-mayoral-campaign-eaf0e2d52b04
More generally, while I have not been in leadership for nearly 3 years (and did not have nearly the control folks sometimes suggest even when I was in leadership, e.g., I was opposed to most of the political disruptions performed by DxE), I try to be pretty open about my mistakes, and receptive to feedback. Always open to others’ thoughts. For example, Jonas, I don’t know you personally but certainly know you through mutual friends/acquaintances via your (important) animal welfare work, and I definitely would be interested in hearing what you think I could have done better. There are lots of hard choices one has to make when leading hundreds of people. Inevitably, one will make mistakes. (Some of mine include: pushing for a work culture that was probably unsustainable; not devoting enough time to personal relationships and communication when painful decisions were made.) The best way to respond to those mistakes, though, is to learn from them. Always eager to hear what I can learn from mine!
Hi folks, someone pointed me to this thread a while back. Coming back to it because I came on the site to apply for EA Global, which I’m looking forward to attending. Briefly:
- Running for mayor was a VERY interesting experience that updated me against conventional political efforts to address large scale problems. The short answer to this is that there are far too many institutional obstacles within conventional politics.
- My view on disrupting EAG was not, from what I recall, based on non-collaborative principles but rather with the idea that a disruption might actually be good for all relevant stakeholders (including the speaker disrupted, Elon Musk). I think that’s probably still the case, but I appreciate that’s probably a minority view.
- Re: DxE and cult-like behavior, hard to respond because there are no specific allegations, but I would say that the Berkeleyside article was sadly not done in a high-integrity way. Contrary sources I suggested the writer talk to were not even interviewed, including the then-current lead organizer (executive director equivalent) Almira Tanner. And clear factual errors were not addressed. I posted about some of them here: https://whhsiung.medium.com/factual-errors-in-berkeleysides-reporting-on-our-mayoral-campaign-eaf0e2d52b04
More generally, while I have not been in leadership for nearly 3 years (and did not have nearly the control folks sometimes suggest even when I was in leadership, e.g., I was opposed to most of the political disruptions performed by DxE), I try to be pretty open about my mistakes, and receptive to feedback. Always open to others’ thoughts. For example, Jonas, I don’t know you personally but certainly know you through mutual friends/acquaintances via your (important) animal welfare work, and I definitely would be interested in hearing what you think I could have done better. There are lots of hard choices one has to make when leading hundreds of people. Inevitably, one will make mistakes. (Some of mine include: pushing for a work culture that was probably unsustainable; not devoting enough time to personal relationships and communication when painful decisions were made.) The best way to respond to those mistakes, though, is to learn from them. Always eager to hear what I can learn from mine!