I think it would be good to taboo “OP is funding X” at least when talking about present day Open Phil.
Historically, OP would have used the phrase “OP is funding X” to mean “referred a grant to X to GV” (which approximately was never rejected). One was also able to generally safely assume that if OP decides to not recommend a grant to GV, that most OP staff do not think that grant would be more cost-effective than other grants referred to GV (and as such, the word people used to describe OP not referring a grant to GV was “rejecting X” or “defunding X”).
Of course, now that the relationship between OP and GV has substantially changed, and the trust has broken down somewhat, the term “OP is funding X” is confusing (including IMO in your comment, where in your last few bullet points you talk about “OP has given far more to global health than AI” when I think to not confuse people here, it would be good to say “OP has recommended far more grants to global health”, since OP itself has not actually given away any money directly).
I think the key thing for people to understand is why it no longer makes sense to talk about “OP funding X”, and where it makes sense to model OP grant-referrals to GV as still closely matching OPs internal cost-effectiveness estimates.[1]
For organizations and funders trying to orient towards the funding ecosystem, the most important thing that matters is understanding what GV is likely to fund on behalf of an OP recommendation. So when people talk about “OP funding X” or “OP not funding X” that is what they usually refer to (and that is also again how OP has historically used those words, and how you have used those words in your comment). I expect this usage to change over time, but it will take a while (and would ask for you to be gracious and charitable when trying to understand what people mean when they conflate OP and GV in discussions).[2]
Now having gotten that clarification out of the way, my sense is most of the critiques that you have seen about OP funding are much less inaccurate when interpreted through this lens. As Jason says in another comment, it does look like GV has a very limited appetite for grants to right-of-center organizations, and since (as you say yourself) the external funders that you sometimes refer grants to reject the majority of grants you refer to them, this de-facto leads to a large reduction of funding, and a large negative incentive for founders and organizations who are considering working more with the political right.
I think the above is useful, and I think helps people understand some of how OP is trying to counteract the ways GV’s withdrawal from many crucial funding areas has affected things. I do also think your comment has far too much of the vibe of “nothing has changed in the last year” and “you shouldn’t worry too much about which areas GV wants or want to not fund”. De-facto GV was and is likely to continue to be 95%+ of the giving that OP is influencing, and the dynamics between OP and non-GV funders are drastically different than the dynamics historically between OP and GV.
I think a better intutition pump for people trying to understand the funding ecosystem would be a comment that is scope-sensitive in the relevant ways. I think it would start with saying:
Yes, over the last 1-2 years our relationship to GV has changed, and I think it no longer really makes sense to think about OP ‘funding X’. These days, especially in the catastrophic risk space, it makes more sense to think of OP as a middleman between grantees and other foundations and large donors. This is a large shift, and I think understanding how that shift has changed funding allocation is of crucial importance to understand which projects in this space are likely underfunded, and if you are considering starting new organizations or projects, which of those organizations or projects might be able to receive the funding they need to exist.
95%+ of recommendations we make are to GV. When GV does not want to fund something, it is usually up to the degree to which external funders can evaluate those grants mostly on their own, which depends heavily on their more idiosyncratic interests and preferences. My best guess is most grants that we do not refer to GV, but would like to see funded, do not ultimately get funded by other funders.
[Add the rest of your comment, ideally explaining how GV might differ from OP here[3]]
And another dimension to track is “where OPs cost-effectiveness estimates are likely to be wrong”. I think due to the tricky nature of the OP/GV relationship, I expect OP to systematically be worse at making accurate cost-effectiveness estimates where GV has strong reputation-adjacent opinions, because of course it is of crucial importance for OP to stay “in-sync” with GV, and repeated prolonged disagreements are the kind of thing that tend to cause people and organizations to get out of sync.
Of course, people might also care about the opinions of OP staff, as people who have been thinking about grantmaking for a long time, but my sense is that in as much as those opinions do not translate into funding, that is of lesser importance when trying to identify neglected niches and funding approaches (but still important).
For example, you say that OP is happy to work with people who are highly critical of OP. That does seem true! However, my honest best guess is that it’s much less true of GV, and being publicly critical of GV and Dustin is the kind of thing that could very much influence whether OP ends up successfully referring a grant to GV, and to some degree being critical of OP also makes receiving funding from GV less likely, though much less so. That is of crucial importance to know for people when trying to decide how open and transparent to be about their opinions.
I think it would be good to taboo “OP is funding X” at least when talking about present day Open Phil.
Historically, OP would have used the phrase “OP is funding X” to mean “referred a grant to X to GV” (which approximately was never rejected). One was also able to generally safely assume that if OP decides to not recommend a grant to GV, that most OP staff do not think that grant would be more cost-effective than other grants referred to GV (and as such, the word people used to describe OP not referring a grant to GV was “rejecting X” or “defunding X”).
Of course, now that the relationship between OP and GV has substantially changed, and the trust has broken down somewhat, the term “OP is funding X” is confusing (including IMO in your comment, where in your last few bullet points you talk about “OP has given far more to global health than AI” when I think to not confuse people here, it would be good to say “OP has recommended far more grants to global health”, since OP itself has not actually given away any money directly).
I think the key thing for people to understand is why it no longer makes sense to talk about “OP funding X”, and where it makes sense to model OP grant-referrals to GV as still closely matching OPs internal cost-effectiveness estimates.[1]
For organizations and funders trying to orient towards the funding ecosystem, the most important thing that matters is understanding what GV is likely to fund on behalf of an OP recommendation. So when people talk about “OP funding X” or “OP not funding X” that is what they usually refer to (and that is also again how OP has historically used those words, and how you have used those words in your comment). I expect this usage to change over time, but it will take a while (and would ask for you to be gracious and charitable when trying to understand what people mean when they conflate OP and GV in discussions).[2]
Now having gotten that clarification out of the way, my sense is most of the critiques that you have seen about OP funding are much less inaccurate when interpreted through this lens. As Jason says in another comment, it does look like GV has a very limited appetite for grants to right-of-center organizations, and since (as you say yourself) the external funders that you sometimes refer grants to reject the majority of grants you refer to them, this de-facto leads to a large reduction of funding, and a large negative incentive for founders and organizations who are considering working more with the political right.
I think the above is useful, and I think helps people understand some of how OP is trying to counteract the ways GV’s withdrawal from many crucial funding areas has affected things. I do also think your comment has far too much of the vibe of “nothing has changed in the last year” and “you shouldn’t worry too much about which areas GV wants or want to not fund”. De-facto GV was and is likely to continue to be 95%+ of the giving that OP is influencing, and the dynamics between OP and non-GV funders are drastically different than the dynamics historically between OP and GV.
I think a better intutition pump for people trying to understand the funding ecosystem would be a comment that is scope-sensitive in the relevant ways. I think it would start with saying:
And another dimension to track is “where OPs cost-effectiveness estimates are likely to be wrong”. I think due to the tricky nature of the OP/GV relationship, I expect OP to systematically be worse at making accurate cost-effectiveness estimates where GV has strong reputation-adjacent opinions, because of course it is of crucial importance for OP to stay “in-sync” with GV, and repeated prolonged disagreements are the kind of thing that tend to cause people and organizations to get out of sync.
Of course, people might also care about the opinions of OP staff, as people who have been thinking about grantmaking for a long time, but my sense is that in as much as those opinions do not translate into funding, that is of lesser importance when trying to identify neglected niches and funding approaches (but still important).
For example, you say that OP is happy to work with people who are highly critical of OP. That does seem true! However, my honest best guess is that it’s much less true of GV, and being publicly critical of GV and Dustin is the kind of thing that could very much influence whether OP ends up successfully referring a grant to GV, and to some degree being critical of OP also makes receiving funding from GV less likely, though much less so. That is of crucial importance to know for people when trying to decide how open and transparent to be about their opinions.