Great post! I’ve had many thoughts in the same space for a while now.
With how hard a time many EA’s have had finding direct EA work your post is particularly relevant. Direct EA work is the only place I’ve ever encountered where an (made up example) Oxford graduate who worked at Goldman Sachs is not met with immediate lucrative offers. It should be abundantly clear that looking elsewhere is a solid option. A charity like red cross moves around an obscene amount of money. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest someone could have an extremely large impact by attaining influence and power in such an organisation, applying EA principles to make the organisation more effective. Exposing effective charities to the masses through heavy patos advertising is another way to increase total impact.
There are many great ways to have a large impact in places that aren’t directly related to EA. Take advantage of the unique opportunities you are presented, and evaluate the options you haven’t heard others discuss. With this much talent fighting so hard for the same few roles, the total increase in impact by having one more person spending their time applying, compared to going from zero to one EA aligned person in an important role elsewhere doesn’t seem great to me.
Great post! I’ve had many thoughts in the same space for a while now.
With how hard a time many EA’s have had finding direct EA work your post is particularly relevant. Direct EA work is the only place I’ve ever encountered where an (made up example) Oxford graduate who worked at Goldman Sachs is not met with immediate lucrative offers. It should be abundantly clear that looking elsewhere is a solid option. A charity like red cross moves around an obscene amount of money. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest someone could have an extremely large impact by attaining influence and power in such an organisation, applying EA principles to make the organisation more effective. Exposing effective charities to the masses through heavy patos advertising is another way to increase total impact.
There are many great ways to have a large impact in places that aren’t directly related to EA. Take advantage of the unique opportunities you are presented, and evaluate the options you haven’t heard others discuss. With this much talent fighting so hard for the same few roles, the total increase in impact by having one more person spending their time applying, compared to going from zero to one EA aligned person in an important role elsewhere doesn’t seem great to me.