AMA: 10 years of Earning To Give
Next week the Effective Altruism Forum is doing a Pledge Highlight week, and they asked if I could post an Ask Me Anything (AMA) about my experiences.
Most of the helpful background on me is in my post from last year, 10 years of Earning To Give. To highlight some potential prompts for questions:
I work as a quantitative trader in London.
I took the Giving What We Can pledge in 2013 upon leaving university, with a pledged percentage of 20%.
My household has donated £1.5m over the last decade, or just under 50% of our household income.
I’ve had a relatively high level of involvement in the EA community during much of that time period, though less in the past few years.
My wife and I have 4 kids (14, 7, 3, 0).
I plan to answer questions on Tuesday 17th December, likely during the London afternoon.
Hi Alex. It’s a great idea to have this AMA! Hopefully it helps raise more awareness of earning to give as a potential path to impact for more people.
Two questions that I’d be keen to get your views on, and which may be of interest to the community:
(1) How do you balance your earning to give/​effective giving commitments with your family commitments? (e.g. in my own experience, one’s partner may disapprove of or be stressed out by you giving >=10%, and of course with a mortgage/​kids things get even tougher)
(2) Would you say currently, the median EA should consider trying some E2G (or at least non-EA work while giving significantly) early on in their career?
The main considerations, as far as I see, relate to: (a) the EA labour market (where currently, demand for jobs outstrip supply—so chances of landing a job are low & counterfactual impact relative to next best hire is small); (b) whether money is the bottleneck for EA (it does seem so, at least for GHD/​AW—and importantly, you can’t always choose to work at the most effective charities but can choose to donate to them); and (c) miscellaneous issues like financial stability, building career capital, and ability to switch career paths (traditional work in finance/​consulting/​tech for 1-3 years of E2G seem to be stronger on all three counts, relative to the marginal EA job that a fresh grad is likely to land)
Cheers,
Joel
You’ve decided to give mostly to established institutions (GWWC, 80k, AMF, GW) – why those over more hits-based approaches (including things that wouldn’t be a burden on your time like giving to AIM or deputizing someone else to make risky grants to promising individuals/​small orgs on your behalf)?
How do you think about opportunity costs when it comes to earning to give? Are there roles at other firms or in the US where you would expect to make substantially more (including downside risks), but pass on those for personal reasons?
Same for roles where you might make less but pass on those for ETG reasons.
Which donations do you think had the highest EV in retrospect?
Not a question as much as a comment and a thank you! I always appreciate learning about donors and what motivates them to give.
We hear a lot about organisational needs—and how money will be spent—so it’s good to hear about why money is donated.
All the best,
Rick
Thanks, Alex. For roles in organisations supported by impact-focussed funders like Open Philanthropy or EA Funds, do you have guesses for the difference between hired and best rejected candidates in $/​year donated to the organisation hiring? I understand this depends on the organisation and role, but any thoughts are welcome.
Abraham Rowe said:
Joey Savoi said:
How much time do you spend on deciding where to donate? Or do you mostly have enough trust to delegate to e.g. GiveWell in your decisions?
Relatedly, do you spend much time evaluating the donations from previous years for impact?
(As a smaller scale EtGer myself I often struggle with how much time I should be spending on these things, which are plausibly extremely important)