Thank you for this write-up, Claire! I will put this in my “posts in which the author does a great job explaining their reasoning” folder.
I noticed that you focused on mistakes. I appreciate this, and I’m also curious about the opposite:
What are some of the things that went especially well over the last few years? What decisions, accomplishments, or projects are you most proud of?
If you look back in a year, and you feel really excited/proud of the work that your team has done, what are some things that come to mind? What would a 95th+ percentile outcome look like? (Maybe the answer is just “we did everything in the Looking Forward” section, but I’m curious if some other things come to mind).
Thanks Akash. I think you’re right that we can learn as much from successes and well-chosen actions as mistakes, and also it’s just good to celebrate victories. A few things I feel really pleased about (on vacation so mostly saying what comes to mind, not doing a deep dive):
My sense is that our (published and unpublished) research has been useful for clarifying my picture of the meta space, and helpful to other organizations (and led to some changes I think are pretty promising, like increased focus on engaging high schoolers who are interested in longtermist-related ideas, and some orgs raising salaries), though I think some of that is still TBD and I wish I had a more comprehensive picture.
We’ve funded just a bunch of new initiatives I’m quite excited about, and I’m happy we were there to find worthy projects with funding needs and encourage founding new projects in the space, and to support their growth. My best guess is that projects we fund will lead to a substantial increase in the EA/longtermist community.
When I look back at both my portfolio of grants made, and anti-portfolio (grants explicitly considered but not made), I mostly feel very satisfied. As far as I can tell were far more false positives (grants we made that had meh results) than negatives (grants I think we should have made but didn’t), but roughly similar false-negatives-that-seem-like-big-misses to false-positives-that-were-actively-meaningfully-harmful (the sample size in both of those categories is pretty small).
I like and respect everyone on my team, they are all sincerely aimed at the real goals we share, and I think they all bring different important focuses and strengths to the table.
If you look back in a year, and you feel really excited/proud of the work that your team has done, what are some things that come to mind? What would a 95th+ percentile outcome look like? (Maybe the answer is just “we did everything in the Looking Forward” section, but I’m curious if some other things come to mind.)
A mixture of “not totally sure” and “don’t want to do a full reveal” but the “Looking Forward” section above lists a bunch of components. In addition:
We or other funders seize most of the remaining the remaining obvious-and-important-seeming opportunities for impactful giving (that I currently know of in our space) that are lying fallow.
We complete a few pieces of research/analysis I think could give us a better sense of how overall-effective EA/LT “recruiting” work has been over the last few years and how it compares to more object-level work (and we do indeed get a better sense and disseminate it to people who will find it useful).
We gather and vet more resources for giving grantees that want it more non-financial support (e.g. referrals for support for various kinds of legal advice, executive and management coaching.)
Thank you for this write-up, Claire! I will put this in my “posts in which the author does a great job explaining their reasoning” folder.
I noticed that you focused on mistakes. I appreciate this, and I’m also curious about the opposite:
What are some of the things that went especially well over the last few years? What decisions, accomplishments, or projects are you most proud of?
If you look back in a year, and you feel really excited/proud of the work that your team has done, what are some things that come to mind? What would a 95th+ percentile outcome look like? (Maybe the answer is just “we did everything in the Looking Forward” section, but I’m curious if some other things come to mind).
Thanks Akash. I think you’re right that we can learn as much from successes and well-chosen actions as mistakes, and also it’s just good to celebrate victories. A few things I feel really pleased about (on vacation so mostly saying what comes to mind, not doing a deep dive):
My sense is that our (published and unpublished) research has been useful for clarifying my picture of the meta space, and helpful to other organizations (and led to some changes I think are pretty promising, like increased focus on engaging high schoolers who are interested in longtermist-related ideas, and some orgs raising salaries), though I think some of that is still TBD and I wish I had a more comprehensive picture.
We’ve funded just a bunch of new initiatives I’m quite excited about, and I’m happy we were there to find worthy projects with funding needs and encourage founding new projects in the space, and to support their growth. My best guess is that projects we fund will lead to a substantial increase in the EA/longtermist community.
When I look back at both my portfolio of grants made, and anti-portfolio (grants explicitly considered but not made), I mostly feel very satisfied. As far as I can tell were far more false positives (grants we made that had meh results) than negatives (grants I think we should have made but didn’t), but roughly similar false-negatives-that-seem-like-big-misses to false-positives-that-were-actively-meaningfully-harmful (the sample size in both of those categories is pretty small).
I like and respect everyone on my team, they are all sincerely aimed at the real goals we share, and I think they all bring different important focuses and strengths to the table.
A mixture of “not totally sure” and “don’t want to do a full reveal” but the “Looking Forward” section above lists a bunch of components. In addition:
We or other funders seize most of the remaining the remaining obvious-and-important-seeming opportunities for impactful giving (that I currently know of in our space) that are lying fallow.
We complete a few pieces of research/analysis I think could give us a better sense of how overall-effective EA/LT “recruiting” work has been over the last few years and how it compares to more object-level work (and we do indeed get a better sense and disseminate it to people who will find it useful).
We gather and vet more resources for giving grantees that want it more non-financial support (e.g. referrals for support for various kinds of legal advice, executive and management coaching.)