I agree with the spirit of this post (and have upvoted it) but I think it kind of obscures the really simple thing going on: the (expected) impact of a project is by definition the cost-effectiveness (also called efficiency) times the cost (or resources). A 2-fold increase in one, while keeping the other fixed, is literally the same as having the roles reversed.
The question then is what projects we are able to execute, that is, both come up with an efficient idea, and have the resources to execute it. When resources are scarce, you really want to squeeze as much as you can from the efficiency part. Now that we have more resources, we should be more lax, and increase our total impact by pursuing less efficient ideas that still achieve high impact. Right now it starts to look like there’s much more resources ready to be deployed, than projects which are able to absorb them.
A 2-fold increase in one, while keeping the other fixed, is literally the same as having the roles reversed.
But doubling the cost also doubles the cost (in addition to impact), while doubling the cost-effectiveness doubles only the impact. That’s a pretty big difference!
Like if we could either make 80k twice as big in terms of quality-adjusted employees while keeping impact per quality-adjusted employee constant, or do the inverse, we should very likely prefer the inverse, since that leaves more talent available for other projects. (I say “very likely” because, as noted in the post, it can be valuable to practice running big things so we’re more able to run other big things.)
So I disagree that your simple summary of what’s going on is a sufficient and clear picture (though your equation itself is obviously correct).
Separately, I agree with your second paragraph with respect to money, but mildly disagree with the final sentence specifically with respect to talent, or at least “vetted and trained” talent—that’s less scarce than it used to be, but still scarce enough that it’s not simply like there’s a surplus relative to projects that can absorb it. (Though more project ideas or early stage projects would still help us more productively absorb certain specific people, and I’d also say there’s kind of a surplus of less vetted and trained talent.)
I simply disagree with your conclusion—it all boils down to what we have at hand. Doubling the cost-effectiveness also requires work, it doesn’t happen by magic. If you are not constrained by highly effective projects which can use your resources, sure, go for it. As it seems though, we have much more resources than current small scale projects are able to absorb, and there’s a lot of “left-over” resources. Thus, it makes sense to start allocating resources to some less effective stuff.
Doubling the cost effectiveness while maintaining cost absorbed, and doubling cost absorbed while maintaining cost effectiveness, would both take work (scaling without dilution/breaking is also hard). Probably one tends to be harder, but that’d vary a lot between cases. But if we could achieve either for free by magic, or alternatively if we assume an equal hardness for either, then doubling cost effectiveness would very likely be better, for the reason stated above. (And that’s sufficient for “literally the same” to have been an inaccurate claim.)
I think that’s just fairly obvious. Like if you really imagine you could press a button to have either effect on 80k for free or for the same cost either way, I think you really should want to press the “more cost effective” button, otherwise you’re basically spending extra talent for no reason. (With the caveat given above. Also a caveat that absorbing talent also helps build their career capital—should’ve mentioned that earlier. But still that’s probably less good than them doing some other option and 80k getting the extra impact without extra labour.)
As noted above, we’re still fairly constrained on some resources, esp. certain types of talent. We don’t have left overs of all types of resources. (E.g. I could very easily swap from my current job into any of several other high impact jobs, but won’t because there’s only 1 me and I think my current job is the best use of current me, and I know several other people in this position. With respect to such people, there are left over positions/project ideas, not left over resources-in-the-form-of-people.)
I agree with the spirit of this post (and have upvoted it) but I think it kind of obscures the really simple thing going on: the (expected) impact of a project is by definition the cost-effectiveness (also called efficiency) times the cost (or resources).
A 2-fold increase in one, while keeping the other fixed, is literally the same as having the roles reversed.
The question then is what projects we are able to execute, that is, both come up with an efficient idea, and have the resources to execute it. When resources are scarce, you really want to squeeze as much as you can from the efficiency part. Now that we have more resources, we should be more lax, and increase our total impact by pursuing less efficient ideas that still achieve high impact. Right now it starts to look like there’s much more resources ready to be deployed, than projects which are able to absorb them.
But doubling the cost also doubles the cost (in addition to impact), while doubling the cost-effectiveness doubles only the impact. That’s a pretty big difference!
Like if we could either make 80k twice as big in terms of quality-adjusted employees while keeping impact per quality-adjusted employee constant, or do the inverse, we should very likely prefer the inverse, since that leaves more talent available for other projects. (I say “very likely” because, as noted in the post, it can be valuable to practice running big things so we’re more able to run other big things.)
So I disagree that your simple summary of what’s going on is a sufficient and clear picture (though your equation itself is obviously correct).
Separately, I agree with your second paragraph with respect to money, but mildly disagree with the final sentence specifically with respect to talent, or at least “vetted and trained” talent—that’s less scarce than it used to be, but still scarce enough that it’s not simply like there’s a surplus relative to projects that can absorb it. (Though more project ideas or early stage projects would still help us more productively absorb certain specific people, and I’d also say there’s kind of a surplus of less vetted and trained talent.)
I simply disagree with your conclusion—it all boils down to what we have at hand. Doubling the cost-effectiveness also requires work, it doesn’t happen by magic. If you are not constrained by highly effective projects which can use your resources, sure, go for it. As it seems though, we have much more resources than current small scale projects are able to absorb, and there’s a lot of “left-over” resources. Thus, it makes sense to start allocating resources to some less effective stuff.
Doubling the cost effectiveness while maintaining cost absorbed, and doubling cost absorbed while maintaining cost effectiveness, would both take work (scaling without dilution/breaking is also hard). Probably one tends to be harder, but that’d vary a lot between cases. But if we could achieve either for free by magic, or alternatively if we assume an equal hardness for either, then doubling cost effectiveness would very likely be better, for the reason stated above. (And that’s sufficient for “literally the same” to have been an inaccurate claim.)
I think that’s just fairly obvious. Like if you really imagine you could press a button to have either effect on 80k for free or for the same cost either way, I think you really should want to press the “more cost effective” button, otherwise you’re basically spending extra talent for no reason. (With the caveat given above. Also a caveat that absorbing talent also helps build their career capital—should’ve mentioned that earlier. But still that’s probably less good than them doing some other option and 80k getting the extra impact without extra labour.)
As noted above, we’re still fairly constrained on some resources, esp. certain types of talent. We don’t have left overs of all types of resources. (E.g. I could very easily swap from my current job into any of several other high impact jobs, but won’t because there’s only 1 me and I think my current job is the best use of current me, and I know several other people in this position. With respect to such people, there are left over positions/project ideas, not left over resources-in-the-form-of-people.)