What kind of conformity are you asking about? Certainly, some degree of alignment with our mission and values is important to us, and so is talent and “fit” for the work. Our team members are encouraged to focus on optimizing for Open Phil’s mission, even when it means pushing back on their manager.
Thanks for the response, yes I was wondering about conformity in the sense of prevailing thinking within a particular cause area. Is there an expectation for talent to conform to prevailing thinking to a certain degree and would this then reinforce that idea of being talented, or could talent be more related to a set of core values or principles?
I think some cause areas seem to have fairly high expectations of conformity toward in-group / out-group identity, so if this is the case then talented people may conform or not (given the assumption that not all talented people would necessarily be in-group thinkers), but it seems to confer various advantages on those that do.
How does Open Philanthropy weigh conformity against talent?
What kind of conformity are you asking about? Certainly, some degree of alignment with our mission and values is important to us, and so is talent and “fit” for the work. Our team members are encouraged to focus on optimizing for Open Phil’s mission, even when it means pushing back on their manager.
Thanks for the response, yes I was wondering about conformity in the sense of prevailing thinking within a particular cause area. Is there an expectation for talent to conform to prevailing thinking to a certain degree and would this then reinforce that idea of being talented, or could talent be more related to a set of core values or principles?
I think some cause areas seem to have fairly high expectations of conformity toward in-group / out-group identity, so if this is the case then talented people may conform or not (given the assumption that not all talented people would necessarily be in-group thinkers), but it seems to confer various advantages on those that do.