I think you’re selling yourself short by saying that EA Ventures is in a crowded area, and by saying that it does not deserve funding—to me, given the kinds of funds you could expect to move, it seems non-crazy to spend funds on EAV directly. And presumably this is already happening, with people like yourself and Tyler working for CEA while spending time on this project—something that should be supported and perhaps upscaled.
To be clear, I think it’s entirely possible that it will make sense to ask for funds for EAV in the future. Right now, I think a) the evidence isn’t strong enough and b) we can gain the evidence we need without spending donor money.
Does this mean that you wouldn’t recommend funding another project at a similar stage to EA Ventures, with a similarly robust case? It seems to me that it would be appropriate to fund it a small amount, in a similar way that you are in effect funding EA Ventures a small amount (with your time) to learn more. Are you planning to avoid funding at that scale?
I agree. If it didn’t seem that EA Ventures could gather the evidence it needed absent money then I would probably be in favor of a small amount of funding to launch the project and gather data. Since the members of the founding team have funding elsewhere this wasn’t necessary and no further funding seemed necessary.
I think you’re selling yourself short by saying that EA Ventures is in a crowded area, and by saying that it does not deserve funding—to me, given the kinds of funds you could expect to move, it seems non-crazy to spend funds on EAV directly. And presumably this is already happening, with people like yourself and Tyler working for CEA while spending time on this project—something that should be supported and perhaps upscaled.
Thanks for the vote of confidence :-)
To be clear, I think it’s entirely possible that it will make sense to ask for funds for EAV in the future. Right now, I think a) the evidence isn’t strong enough and b) we can gain the evidence we need without spending donor money.
Does this mean that you wouldn’t recommend funding another project at a similar stage to EA Ventures, with a similarly robust case? It seems to me that it would be appropriate to fund it a small amount, in a similar way that you are in effect funding EA Ventures a small amount (with your time) to learn more. Are you planning to avoid funding at that scale?
I agree. If it didn’t seem that EA Ventures could gather the evidence it needed absent money then I would probably be in favor of a small amount of funding to launch the project and gather data. Since the members of the founding team have funding elsewhere this wasn’t necessary and no further funding seemed necessary.
Still, I wonder if funds could speed up EAV’s growth and learning.
This may be the case if the number of applications we get exceeds our expectation and we need to pay people to help us evaluate them.