Thanks Dwarkesh for a fascinating, compelling, and insightful essay.
I share your hope that EA philanthropy will become more of a Schelling point for billionaires.
One key issue is that about 88% of billionaires are men. The percentage of self-made billionaires who are male seems even higher. So understanding the motivational psychology of men may be especially important in understanding how to nudge billionaires into EA.
Likewise, although young tech billionaires get a lot of media attention, out of the world’s 2,700+ billionaires, almost all are middle-aged or older, and the average one only became a billionaire in their 60s. So, understanding the motivational psychology of older men may also be especially important.
As you point out, the motivations for thymos, prestige, money, and direct impact, are important. True, but I think this is somewhat of a young man’s take on the psychology of older men. Old rich guys have typically been married once or twice, have a few kids, have some grand-kids, and are often quite focused on dynasty-building, succession issues, and legacy. What will keep their family safe, thriving, and prosperous? Who will run their businesses after they’re gone? What will be the main threats to their family, community, and nation in the future? What kind of world will their grand-kids grow up in?
This last question may be the most compelling entry point for introducing older male billionaires to EA considerations such as long-termism.
In my opinion, EA needs to think about communication tactics for expressing EA ideals, values, and strategies that are more compelling to rich older guys concerned about their reputational and dynastic legacy and their grand-kids’ well-being. Those communication tactics might not resemble those that are best for persuading 22-year-old, elite, hyper-rational college students to join EA groups or forums. Older rich guys may not be persuaded by the usual moral-philosophical appeals to maximizing net total sentient utility in the future light-cone. But they may be persuaded that EA is one of the best ways they can create (1) an ethical, honorable, and impressive legacy, and (2) a better future world for their family dynasty to enjoy.
This is really interesting and insightful set of ideas! I’m drafting an essay in response to your points, stay tuned! And thanks for reading and providing such a thoughtful set of comments!
I think the thesis is plausible here, but it would be more credible and easier to discuss and act upon if you gave more precise predictions or confidence intervals (e.g. “I think with X% confidence there will be Y billionaires with an aggregate net worth of >Z, excluding Dustin Moskovitz and the FTX/ Alameda crew, in EA by 2027”).
That seems like quite the bold prediction, depending on the operationalization of “new” and “effective altruist”.
I would give you 4-1 odds on this if we took “new” to mean folks not currently giving at scale using an EA framework and not deriving their wealth from FTX/Alameda or Dustin Moskovitz, and require the donors to be (i) billionaires per Bloomberg/Forbes and (ii) giving >50m each to Effective Altruist aligned causes in the year 2027.
Really sorry man, unfortunately I forgot about it. I’m happy to accept that bet in public. How do you propose we make it official? Let’s do $10 to $40 dollars?
No, I don’t want to bet at this point—I’m not interested in betting such a small amount, and don’t want to take the credit risk inherent in betting a larger amount given the limited evidence I’ve got about your reliability.
Good q! Honestly it’s something I may seriously pursue in the relative short to medium term. I’m 21 and 6 months out of college so I don’t think there’s a huge cost to the odds I become a billionaire by waiting a bit longer. And I’m learning a lot and building connections/platform that will be helpful if and when I do pursue becoming a billionaire.
I found your discussion of institutional morality as a factor in employee retention and motivation to be compelling.
Although the focus in my work on Guided Consumption has been more on how companies explicitly working for charities instead of traditional shareholders might gain favorable treatment among consumers, this could definitely true for employees as well.
Ownership or right to profit by charities would also provide a degree of a Ulysses pact regarding commitment to charitable purpose. I don’t believe that there is much risk of this happening, but, theoretically, Sam Bankman-Fried could wake up tomorrow and abandon his commitment to EA principles, thus drastically reducing, or eliminating, the utility of money in his hands. A more realistic issue would be that founders/owners may have difficulty credibly signaling their own commitment to virtuous principles. If a founder/owner committed equity interests irrevocably to worthy charitable causes much fewer questions would be reasonable. Even if said actor was insincere in his/her virtuous commitment and/or changed beliefs or motivations in the future, the equity of his/her business would still be benefiting the same purposes. Furthermore, it may be that different actors within our economy, such as consumers, feel differently about their activity benefiting a cause area directly rather than their activity benefiting another entity who will predictably relay that benefit for good.
One obvious disadvantage to profit accumulation through Guided Consumption rather than profit accumulation to an individual EA agent is the lack of flexibility. A Guiding Producer is committed to accruing profits to charities and/or nonprofits according to how it advertises. Often what is the most cost-effective organization to assist will vary across time, and thus, under a very basic profit destination model, a Guiding Producer/Company would not be able to exploit the highest value charitable opportunities. One possible solution to this would be profit destinations that are themselves flexible to conditions, such as Open Philanthropy. Of course, consumers, employees, and other economic actors may be less likely to discriminate in favor of flexible charitable profit destinations.
I’m really happy to hear that! Would be curious if the stuff about incentive alignment and adverse selection has actually helped Wave given how altruistic and impactful your mission is!
Thanks Dwarkesh for a fascinating, compelling, and insightful essay.
I share your hope that EA philanthropy will become more of a Schelling point for billionaires.
One key issue is that about 88% of billionaires are men. The percentage of self-made billionaires who are male seems even higher. So understanding the motivational psychology of men may be especially important in understanding how to nudge billionaires into EA.
Likewise, although young tech billionaires get a lot of media attention, out of the world’s 2,700+ billionaires, almost all are middle-aged or older, and the average one only became a billionaire in their 60s. So, understanding the motivational psychology of older men may also be especially important.
As you point out, the motivations for thymos, prestige, money, and direct impact, are important. True, but I think this is somewhat of a young man’s take on the psychology of older men. Old rich guys have typically been married once or twice, have a few kids, have some grand-kids, and are often quite focused on dynasty-building, succession issues, and legacy. What will keep their family safe, thriving, and prosperous? Who will run their businesses after they’re gone? What will be the main threats to their family, community, and nation in the future? What kind of world will their grand-kids grow up in?
This last question may be the most compelling entry point for introducing older male billionaires to EA considerations such as long-termism.
In my opinion, EA needs to think about communication tactics for expressing EA ideals, values, and strategies that are more compelling to rich older guys concerned about their reputational and dynastic legacy and their grand-kids’ well-being. Those communication tactics might not resemble those that are best for persuading 22-year-old, elite, hyper-rational college students to join EA groups or forums. Older rich guys may not be persuaded by the usual moral-philosophical appeals to maximizing net total sentient utility in the future light-cone. But they may be persuaded that EA is one of the best ways they can create (1) an ethical, honorable, and impressive legacy, and (2) a better future world for their family dynasty to enjoy.
This is really interesting and insightful set of ideas! I’m drafting an essay in response to your points, stay tuned! And thanks for reading and providing such a thoughtful set of comments!
I think the thesis is plausible here, but it would be more credible and easier to discuss and act upon if you gave more precise predictions or confidence intervals (e.g. “I think with X% confidence there will be Y billionaires with an aggregate net worth of >Z, excluding Dustin Moskovitz and the FTX/ Alameda crew, in EA by 2027”).
I made a bet with a fellow blogger!
$250, even odds: 10 new EA billionaires in 5 years
https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp/status/1543368543009390592
Also, I made a manifold market on this:
That seems like quite the bold prediction, depending on the operationalization of “new” and “effective altruist”.
I would give you 4-1 odds on this if we took “new” to mean folks not currently giving at scale using an EA framework and not deriving their wealth from FTX/Alameda or Dustin Moskovitz, and require the donors to be (i) billionaires per Bloomberg/Forbes and (ii) giving >50m each to Effective Altruist aligned causes in the year 2027.
I would be happy to take it at those odds! I’ll DM you later about the bet!
This DM never occurred, FWIW, as of t+8.
Really sorry man, unfortunately I forgot about it. I’m happy to accept that bet in public. How do you propose we make it official? Let’s do $10 to $40 dollars?
No, I don’t want to bet at this point—I’m not interested in betting such a small amount, and don’t want to take the credit risk inherent in betting a larger amount given the limited evidence I’ve got about your reliability.
Alright.
And maybe even more if you open Metaculus questions on those events.
I wrote some similar questions mid last year, prior to FTX scaling up their giving, they could be used as a template:
https://www.metaculus.com/questions/7340/new-megadonor-in-ea-in-2026/
https://www.metaculus.com/questions/7862/sam-bankman-fried-to-donate-1bn-before-2031/
If it’s so easy for a driven EA to become a billionaire then why do you spend your days podcasting (seriously)?
Good q! Honestly it’s something I may seriously pursue in the relative short to medium term. I’m 21 and 6 months out of college so I don’t think there’s a huge cost to the odds I become a billionaire by waiting a bit longer. And I’m learning a lot and building connections/platform that will be helpful if and when I do pursue becoming a billionaire.
I found your discussion of institutional morality as a factor in employee retention and motivation to be compelling.
Although the focus in my work on Guided Consumption has been more on how companies explicitly working for charities instead of traditional shareholders might gain favorable treatment among consumers, this could definitely true for employees as well.
Ownership or right to profit by charities would also provide a degree of a Ulysses pact regarding commitment to charitable purpose. I don’t believe that there is much risk of this happening, but, theoretically, Sam Bankman-Fried could wake up tomorrow and abandon his commitment to EA principles, thus drastically reducing, or eliminating, the utility of money in his hands. A more realistic issue would be that founders/owners may have difficulty credibly signaling their own commitment to virtuous principles. If a founder/owner committed equity interests irrevocably to worthy charitable causes much fewer questions would be reasonable. Even if said actor was insincere in his/her virtuous commitment and/or changed beliefs or motivations in the future, the equity of his/her business would still be benefiting the same purposes. Furthermore, it may be that different actors within our economy, such as consumers, feel differently about their activity benefiting a cause area directly rather than their activity benefiting another entity who will predictably relay that benefit for good.
One obvious disadvantage to profit accumulation through Guided Consumption rather than profit accumulation to an individual EA agent is the lack of flexibility. A Guiding Producer is committed to accruing profits to charities and/or nonprofits according to how it advertises. Often what is the most cost-effective organization to assist will vary across time, and thus, under a very basic profit destination model, a Guiding Producer/Company would not be able to exploit the highest value charitable opportunities. One possible solution to this would be profit destinations that are themselves flexible to conditions, such as Open Philanthropy. Of course, consumers, employees, and other economic actors may be less likely to discriminate in favor of flexible charitable profit destinations.
I really like this post! It is well aligned with things I believe about the trends in EA.
I’m really happy to hear that! Would be curious if the stuff about incentive alignment and adverse selection has actually helped Wave given how altruistic and impactful your mission is!