This looks like a straightforward arbitrage anyway, since Ben says he values his time at $800K/year
nit: I don’t know what Ben values his times at, though my guess is it’s generally not $800k/yr. Ben just said that he would consider doing this kind of work for $800k/year. This kind of work is really quite stressful, so it likely comes a premium compared to other kinds of work, and might be more expensive than how much Ben otherwise values his time, I am confident it would for the great majority of people.
My guess is most people would charge substantially more money to take on a dangerous job, or one they really don’t enjoy, or one that involves a lot of pain and stress than they would usually.
(Separately, I don’t currently know of investigative journalists you can hire this way. Hiring an investigative journalist for a bunch of EA stuff was one of the primary things I was arguing for at the most recent EA Coordination Forum. I think it’s a great idea, but it’s not a great stopgap norm because it’s genuinely quite hard to hire for, or at least I don’t super feel capable of doing it. Financially I would be willing to contribute quite a lot of money from a mixture of Lightcone, grantmaking, and personal funds)
Great journalists are getting laid off all the time these days. You could find any number of professional and highly accomplished journalists for a tiny fraction of $800k per year.
If you have any references for good ones, please send them to me! I think this kind of job is quite hard and many (my guess is most) journalists would not live up to a standard that I think would be acceptable in this kind of job, but I do think there are some, and I would love to talk to them about this.
I don’t have personal references, but a ton of great journalists have gotten laid off in 2023, and they never were paid that much in the first place (not being TV or celebrity journalists).
nit: I don’t know what Ben values his times at, though my guess is it’s generally not $800k/yr. Ben just said that he would consider doing this kind of work for $800k/year. This kind of work is really quite stressful, so it likely comes a premium compared to other kinds of work, and might be more expensive than how much Ben otherwise values his time, I am confident it would for the great majority of people.
My guess is most people would charge substantially more money to take on a dangerous job, or one they really don’t enjoy, or one that involves a lot of pain and stress than they would usually.
(Separately, I don’t currently know of investigative journalists you can hire this way. Hiring an investigative journalist for a bunch of EA stuff was one of the primary things I was arguing for at the most recent EA Coordination Forum. I think it’s a great idea, but it’s not a great stopgap norm because it’s genuinely quite hard to hire for, or at least I don’t super feel capable of doing it. Financially I would be willing to contribute quite a lot of money from a mixture of Lightcone, grantmaking, and personal funds)
Great journalists are getting laid off all the time these days. You could find any number of professional and highly accomplished journalists for a tiny fraction of $800k per year.
If you have any references for good ones, please send them to me! I think this kind of job is quite hard and many (my guess is most) journalists would not live up to a standard that I think would be acceptable in this kind of job, but I do think there are some, and I would love to talk to them about this.
I don’t have personal references, but a ton of great journalists have gotten laid off in 2023, and they never were paid that much in the first place (not being TV or celebrity journalists).
https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2023/buzzfeed-news-closed-180-staffers-laid-off/
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/wired-layoffs-conde-nast-magazine-18550381.php
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2023/10/10/washington-post-staff-buyouts/