It manifests as paying CEO-grade salaries for entry level positions in charities.
I’m pretty concerned about the cultural effects of all the money pouring into EA (especially with regard to grifters/vultures), but this is a point I’ve seen made a couple of times that I think is (currently) misguided.
Most nonprofit workers are absurdly underpaid, in ways that pretty clearly bottleneck the effectiveness of those organisations. That doesn’t make for a very good reference class.
While they pay better than other nonprofits, most EA nonprofits still pay significantly below market rate. Their employees are still generally taking a financial hit to work for them, albeit a smaller one than they would working for a traditional nonprofit (or going to grad school).
When lots of prominent EA nonprofits start paying at or above market rates for talent, then I think we should consider worrying about harmfully inflated salaries. Until then, I’m quite happy for EA orgs to reduce the financial cost of doing the most good with one’s career.
What I’d like to hear is an account of how social movements scale, why money is an unalloyed good and why it doesn’t, as it has continually done throughout history, lead to problems arising in these movements. I’d also like to understand how Effective Altruism might be uniquely prepared for these issues.
I suspect people can convincingly disagree with you (and indeed, you, the OP, might end up changing your mind) without having evidence as strong as the ones you’re positing.
I’m pretty concerned about the cultural effects of all the money pouring into EA (especially with regard to grifters/vultures), but this is a point I’ve seen made a couple of times that I think is (currently) misguided.
Most nonprofit workers are absurdly underpaid, in ways that pretty clearly bottleneck the effectiveness of those organisations. That doesn’t make for a very good reference class.
While they pay better than other nonprofits, most EA nonprofits still pay significantly below market rate. Their employees are still generally taking a financial hit to work for them, albeit a smaller one than they would working for a traditional nonprofit (or going to grad school).
When lots of prominent EA nonprofits start paying at or above market rates for talent, then I think we should consider worrying about harmfully inflated salaries. Until then, I’m quite happy for EA orgs to reduce the financial cost of doing the most good with one’s career.
I suspect people can convincingly disagree with you (and indeed, you, the OP, might end up changing your mind) without having evidence as strong as the ones you’re positing.