Could we have predicted Samasource’s success ahead of time and helped it scale faster? If so, how? Overall, job/skills-training programs haven’t had much success, and since only GiveWell was doing much charity research when Samasource was young (2008), it’s understandable that they’d focus on areas that were more promising overall.
That’s assuming that 100% of jobs/skills training programs are doomed to failure… kind of like assuming 100% of charities are doomed to be ineffective.
There are many probabilities between 0 and 1.