Thank you for publishing this! As you mentioned, I encouraged you to write this post. Still, I wouldnāt recommend your company to people in the EA community, and I think giving SageWealth a stage at three EAG(x) conferences was wrong.
For the background: After meeting a team member and seeing that you were presenting at EAGx Berlin and had attended EAG career fairs, I tried to find out more about SageWealth. What I found made me concerned about values, transparency, and your targeting of members of the EA community as potential customers and employers. We spoke at EAGx Berlin (this was before I was offered the position as Co-Director EA Germany) and initially wrote a draft forum post about my concerns that I shelved when you shared the draft of this post.
I think itās great that youāre building up a business and plan to donate. Being an entrepreneur myself, I very much appreciate this. Encouraging people to invest in globally diversified investment products is something I also do, and having an easy-to-use product can make the difference between someone thinking about investing and not doing it.
However, promoting your commercial product or job opportunities within the EA community mixes your intent of donating and the product you sell. The product is similar to others in the market that are less expensive. If someone asks me for advice, I would point them to competitors or would recommend investing in ETFs directly.
Iām much more excited about people that donāt sell products but educate people to invest. For example, Rebecca Herbst teaches financial literacy and donates all proceeds to The Life You Can Save with her service Yield & Spread.
I wonāt go into details concerning your product. But I do want to point (as I did in the draft you shared with me) out that I find it concerning that your view on nuclear energy and GMOs differ from this post where you say they shouldnāt be excluded and your website, where you describe them as part of āthe worst offendersā. Perhaps you have to conceal the truth to sell your product, but then your target market shouldnāt be truth-seeking people in the EA community.
Thank you sharing your thoughts here. We appreciate your feedback on SageWealth and how we can relate to the EA community. Some thoughts on your points:
Regarding your sentiment that āit was wrongā for us to attend EAG(x). We would like to clarify that we did not initially build SageWealth with EAs in mind. However, gradually over time, we noticed a lot of interest coming from EAs in our circleāmany who were booking advisory calls and opening accounts. This eventually led to the realization that EAs could really benefit from a platform like ours, and we decided to participate in EA events. We are 100% supportive of educational platforms like āYield & Spreadā, but also noticed that most people itās not enough to just learn about investing, and they need more guidance and a platform that helps put things into action. We understand the āskepticismā that kicks-in because we are a for-profit. But the truth is that we are better able to solve peopleās core problem by building a technical platform that makes the investment process easier!
Taking a step back, I think the main issue here is that there are no guidelines on how a for-profit can engage with the EA community. We simply applied and got accepted. We would be excited to be part of this conversation. Iām sensing an implicit assumption that simply by being a āfor-profitā that we are a corrupting force, when in reality the world is filled with businesses that are serving peoplesā needs and solving problems. We believe that we can be a positive force in the community, by helping EAs better retire and grow their wealth for donations, and donāt think our for-profit positioning runs counter to these benefits.
And lastly, we appreciate your point on nuclear energy and GMOs. This feedback is helpful, and we have now amended our sustainability article for consistency.
[Writing this in my personal capacity]
Thank you for publishing this! As you mentioned, I encouraged you to write this post. Still, I wouldnāt recommend your company to people in the EA community, and I think giving SageWealth a stage at three EAG(x) conferences was wrong.
For the background: After meeting a team member and seeing that you were presenting at EAGx Berlin and had attended EAG career fairs, I tried to find out more about SageWealth. What I found made me concerned about values, transparency, and your targeting of members of the EA community as potential customers and employers. We spoke at EAGx Berlin (this was before I was offered the position as Co-Director EA Germany) and initially wrote a draft forum post about my concerns that I shelved when you shared the draft of this post.
I think itās great that youāre building up a business and plan to donate. Being an entrepreneur myself, I very much appreciate this. Encouraging people to invest in globally diversified investment products is something I also do, and having an easy-to-use product can make the difference between someone thinking about investing and not doing it.
However, promoting your commercial product or job opportunities within the EA community mixes your intent of donating and the product you sell. The product is similar to others in the market that are less expensive. If someone asks me for advice, I would point them to competitors or would recommend investing in ETFs directly.
Iām much more excited about people that donāt sell products but educate people to invest. For example, Rebecca Herbst teaches financial literacy and donates all proceeds to The Life You Can Save with her service Yield & Spread.
I wonāt go into details concerning your product. But I do want to point (as I did in the draft you shared with me) out that I find it concerning that your view on nuclear energy and GMOs differ from this post where you say they shouldnāt be excluded and your website, where you describe them as part of āthe worst offendersā. Perhaps you have to conceal the truth to sell your product, but then your target market shouldnāt be truth-seeking people in the EA community.
Hi Patrick,
Thank you sharing your thoughts here. We appreciate your feedback on SageWealth and how we can relate to the EA community. Some thoughts on your points:
Regarding your sentiment that āit was wrongā for us to attend EAG(x). We would like to clarify that we did not initially build SageWealth with EAs in mind. However, gradually over time, we noticed a lot of interest coming from EAs in our circleāmany who were booking advisory calls and opening accounts. This eventually led to the realization that EAs could really benefit from a platform like ours, and we decided to participate in EA events. We are 100% supportive of educational platforms like āYield & Spreadā, but also noticed that most people itās not enough to just learn about investing, and they need more guidance and a platform that helps put things into action. We understand the āskepticismā that kicks-in because we are a for-profit. But the truth is that we are better able to solve peopleās core problem by building a technical platform that makes the investment process easier!
Taking a step back, I think the main issue here is that there are no guidelines on how a for-profit can engage with the EA community. We simply applied and got accepted. We would be excited to be part of this conversation. Iām sensing an implicit assumption that simply by being a āfor-profitā that we are a corrupting force, when in reality the world is filled with businesses that are serving peoplesā needs and solving problems. We believe that we can be a positive force in the community, by helping EAs better retire and grow their wealth for donations, and donāt think our for-profit positioning runs counter to these benefits.
And lastly, we appreciate your point on nuclear energy and GMOs. This feedback is helpful, and we have now amended our sustainability article for consistency.