This is a post with praise for Good Ventures.[1] I don’t expect anything I’ve written here to be novel, but I think it’s worth saying all the same. [2] (The draft of this was prompted by Dustin M leaving the Forum.)
Over time, I’ve done a lot of outreach to high-net-worth individuals. Almost none of those conversations have led anywhere, even when they say they’re very excited to give, and use words like “impact” and “maximising” a lot.
Instead, people almost always do some combination of:
Not giving at all, or giving only a tiny fraction of their net worth
(I remember in the early days of 80,000 Hours, we spent a whole day hosting an UHNW. He ultimately gave £5000. The week afterwards, a one-hour call with Julia Wise—a social worker at the time—resulted in a larger donation.)
Give to less important causes, often because they have quite quickly decided on some set of causes, with very little in the way of deep reflection or investigation into that choice.
Give in lower-value ways, because they value their own hot takes rather than giving expert grantmakers enough freedom to make the best grants within causes.
From this perspective, EA is incredibly lucky that Cari and Dustin came along in the early days. In the seriousness of their giving, and their willingness to follow the recommendations of domain experts, even in unusual areas, they are way out on the tail of the distribution.
I say this even though they’ve narrowed their cause area focus, even though I probably disagree with that decision (although I feel humble about my ability, as an outsider, to know what trade-offs I’d think would be best if I were in their position), and even though because of that narrowing of focus my own work (and Forethought more generally) is unlikely to receive Good Ventures funding, at least for the time being.
My attitude to someone who is giving a lot, but giving fairly ineffectively, is, “Wow, that’s so awesome you’re giving! Do you know how you could do even more good!?...” When I disagree with Good Ventures, my attitude feels the same.
***
[1] Disclaimer: Good Ventures is the major funder of projects I’ve cofounded (80k, CEA, GWWC, GPI). They haven’t funded Forethought. I don’t know Dustin or Cari well at all.
[2] I feel like the just ratio of praise to criticism for Good Ventures should be something like 99:1. In reality—given the nature of highly online communities in general, and the nature of EA and EA-adjacent communities in particular—that ratio is probably inverted. So this post is trying to correct that, at least a bit; to fill in a missing mood.
(I remember in the early days of 80,000 Hours, we spent a whole day hosting an UHNW. He ultimately gave £5000. The week afterwards, a one-hour call with Julia Wise—a social worker at the time—resulted in a larger donation.)
I learn about new ways that Julia had a significant impact on this community every few months, and it never ceases to give me a sense of awe and appreciation for her selflessness. EA would not be what it is today without Julia.
To be painfully accurate (hey, it’s the Forum), I think my first donation was actually a bit under this. Jeff donated a larger amount that was probably part of the same transaction.
I think this leaves an important open question, which is, what should the norm be if someone thinks someone else is not merely being less-than-maximally effective, but actually doing harm.
I only learned from this post that Moskowitz left the forum, and it makes me somewhat sad. On the one hand, I’m barely on the forum myself and I might have made the same decision in his position. On the other hand, I thought it very important that he was participating in the discourse about the projects he was funding, and now the two avenues of talking with him (through DEAM and the forum) are gone. I’m not sure these were the right platforms to begin with, but it’d be nice if there were some other public platform like that.
I wonder if part of the issue with giving away lots of money is that to do it well, you really need to spend significant time and energy, not just money. It seems easy to procrastinate on such a task, especially since it will eventually lead to your bank account becoming smaller.
I wonder how things would go if you start from the assumption that prospective donors are suffering from “akrasia”, discuss this problem with them, and experiment with various anti-akrasia tactics such as “suggest signing a legally binding document which imposes a deadline of some sort”.
If what you’re saying is true, thinking up creative experiments around this issue could be astonishingly high-impact.
This is a post with praise for Good Ventures.[1] I don’t expect anything I’ve written here to be novel, but I think it’s worth saying all the same. [2] (The draft of this was prompted by Dustin M leaving the Forum.)
Over time, I’ve done a lot of outreach to high-net-worth individuals. Almost none of those conversations have led anywhere, even when they say they’re very excited to give, and use words like “impact” and “maximising” a lot.
Instead, people almost always do some combination of:
Not giving at all, or giving only a tiny fraction of their net worth
(I remember in the early days of 80,000 Hours, we spent a whole day hosting an UHNW. He ultimately gave £5000. The week afterwards, a one-hour call with Julia Wise—a social worker at the time—resulted in a larger donation.)
Give to less important causes, often because they have quite quickly decided on some set of causes, with very little in the way of deep reflection or investigation into that choice.
Give in lower-value ways, because they value their own hot takes rather than giving expert grantmakers enough freedom to make the best grants within causes.
(The story here doesn’t surprise me.)
From this perspective, EA is incredibly lucky that Cari and Dustin came along in the early days. In the seriousness of their giving, and their willingness to follow the recommendations of domain experts, even in unusual areas, they are way out on the tail of the distribution.
I say this even though they’ve narrowed their cause area focus, even though I probably disagree with that decision (although I feel humble about my ability, as an outsider, to know what trade-offs I’d think would be best if I were in their position), and even though because of that narrowing of focus my own work (and Forethought more generally) is unlikely to receive Good Ventures funding, at least for the time being.
My attitude to someone who is giving a lot, but giving fairly ineffectively, is, “Wow, that’s so awesome you’re giving! Do you know how you could do even more good!?...” When I disagree with Good Ventures, my attitude feels the same.
***
[1] Disclaimer: Good Ventures is the major funder of projects I’ve cofounded (80k, CEA, GWWC, GPI). They haven’t funded Forethought. I don’t know Dustin or Cari well at all.
[2] I feel like the just ratio of praise to criticism for Good Ventures should be something like 99:1. In reality—given the nature of highly online communities in general, and the nature of EA and EA-adjacent communities in particular—that ratio is probably inverted. So this post is trying to correct that, at least a bit; to fill in a missing mood.
I learn about new ways that Julia had a significant impact on this community every few months, and it never ceases to give me a sense of awe and appreciation for her selflessness. EA would not be what it is today without Julia.
To be painfully accurate (hey, it’s the Forum), I think my first donation was actually a bit under this. Jeff donated a larger amount that was probably part of the same transaction.
Yes—I once sent a email of appreciation to them since, well, it’s so good they are donating so much! That’s truly altruistic :D
Their willingness to mostly defer to expert really is praiseworthy !
They are among the most impactful people in the world—so I really am grateful that they do what they do !
I think this leaves an important open question, which is, what should the norm be if someone thinks someone else is not merely being less-than-maximally effective, but actually doing harm.
I only learned from this post that Moskowitz left the forum, and it makes me somewhat sad. On the one hand, I’m barely on the forum myself and I might have made the same decision in his position. On the other hand, I thought it very important that he was participating in the discourse about the projects he was funding, and now the two avenues of talking with him (through DEAM and the forum) are gone. I’m not sure these were the right platforms to begin with, but it’d be nice if there were some other public platform like that.
What’s DEAM?
Dank EA Memes. I think it was a facebook group.
Yep, he occasionally shared memes in that group but left it a while ago.
I wonder if part of the issue with giving away lots of money is that to do it well, you really need to spend significant time and energy, not just money. It seems easy to procrastinate on such a task, especially since it will eventually lead to your bank account becoming smaller.
I wonder how things would go if you start from the assumption that prospective donors are suffering from “akrasia”, discuss this problem with them, and experiment with various anti-akrasia tactics such as “suggest signing a legally binding document which imposes a deadline of some sort”.
If what you’re saying is true, thinking up creative experiments around this issue could be astonishingly high-impact.