My impression is that as an organisation CEA has undergone substantial change over time. How might working at CEA today be different compared to working there, say, 3/5/7 years ago?
Five years ago CEA was only had a couple of staff members and was more of an “umbrella organization” to incubate other projects. My ops role was with “CEA core” and my events role was with EA Outreach (one of the projects we supported, which no longer exists as a separate org). Julia was on the EA outreach team at that time along with a handful of teammates—I don’t think anyone else on the current team worked with us at the time. During my first 6 months or so at CEA, EAO merged with CEA core.
In terms of culture, five years ago it felt much more like CEA was a startup. I think teammates were much more stretched then: I worked two roles at once (Director of US Operations and Head of Events), and the people I managed were working on different projects. And many of the EAO teammates were part time. That meant I worked lots of hours and still couldn’t always execute at the level I would have liked.
Now I have a team of people helping with events (see our post, we are hiring!). And a whole different team manages Operations. This helps us improve our execution. CEA has also shifted to a culture that emphasizes self care more. I feel more able to take time off now because I have a team around me, which helps because I have two very young kids (2 yo and 4 months old). Julia managed this back in the old days but I don’t think I could have at the time.
Three years ago I think there was a lot of internal disagreement about the strategy. It doesn’t feel that way now. I have some disagreements with teammates now and then, but it feels like we basically agree on the direction of the company.
We also had significant teammate turnover 5 years ago and 3 years ago. I now expect teammates to stick around longer and expect leadership to stay in place for longer. This means I have more confidence that our strategy will stay the same, rather than the frequent strategy changes we saw when leadership changed so many times.
I have a similar impression to Amy—when I came on almost 6 years ago and for several years after, things were much looser. There was not a particularly consistent strategy, hiring was sometimes very informal, and we were running a lot of projects without always having adequate staffing to do a good job.
Now things are more settled, more formalized (e.g. annual performance reviews, standard hiring process, clearer communication about who is responsible for what). We’re less likely to take on big new projects, and we’re focused on better performance on our existing projects.
I agree with a lot of Amy/Julia’s impressions. Some other thoughts:
7 years ago (I was an intern over the summer, so I’m probably missing some things). I think “CEA” was really just a legal entity for a wide variety of other projects. There was a bit more research being done in-house (e.g Global Priorities Project), and I think basically everything was happening in Oxford.
Compared to then: more cohesive, less research, people more distributed across the world.
5 years ago: things were beginning to get a bit more integrated. Different teams were coming together and trying to figure out what the internal culture was. I think CEA was also really figuring out what to focus on: there were research projects, projects promoting effective giving, EA community building etc.
Compared to then: Narrower focus and more established/consistent team culture.
2 years ago: I think there was a lot of uncertainty: we were searching for new leadership, and didn’t have a solid long-term strategy. However, I think we were beginning to integrate a bunch of cool hires that we made in 2018, and we had a supportive culture. We were focused on making sure we followed through on existing commitments (rather than ambitious goals/new things). We had an office in Berkeley as well as in Oxford.
Compared to then: Clearer goals/leadership, more focus on expansion, no Berkeley office and more focus on remote work.
I think I listed mostly good or neutral things. When I reflect on what I miss from previous eras, the main thing is the in-person office culture (though I hope we’ll get this back as we move into our new Oxford office).
My impression is that as an organisation CEA has undergone substantial change over time. How might working at CEA today be different compared to working there, say, 3/5/7 years ago?
I agree that a lot has changed!
Five years ago CEA was only had a couple of staff members and was more of an “umbrella organization” to incubate other projects. My ops role was with “CEA core” and my events role was with EA Outreach (one of the projects we supported, which no longer exists as a separate org). Julia was on the EA outreach team at that time along with a handful of teammates—I don’t think anyone else on the current team worked with us at the time. During my first 6 months or so at CEA, EAO merged with CEA core.
In terms of culture, five years ago it felt much more like CEA was a startup. I think teammates were much more stretched then: I worked two roles at once (Director of US Operations and Head of Events), and the people I managed were working on different projects. And many of the EAO teammates were part time. That meant I worked lots of hours and still couldn’t always execute at the level I would have liked.
Now I have a team of people helping with events (see our post, we are hiring!). And a whole different team manages Operations. This helps us improve our execution. CEA has also shifted to a culture that emphasizes self care more. I feel more able to take time off now because I have a team around me, which helps because I have two very young kids (2 yo and 4 months old). Julia managed this back in the old days but I don’t think I could have at the time.
Three years ago I think there was a lot of internal disagreement about the strategy. It doesn’t feel that way now. I have some disagreements with teammates now and then, but it feels like we basically agree on the direction of the company.
We also had significant teammate turnover 5 years ago and 3 years ago. I now expect teammates to stick around longer and expect leadership to stay in place for longer. This means I have more confidence that our strategy will stay the same, rather than the frequent strategy changes we saw when leadership changed so many times.
I have a similar impression to Amy—when I came on almost 6 years ago and for several years after, things were much looser. There was not a particularly consistent strategy, hiring was sometimes very informal, and we were running a lot of projects without always having adequate staffing to do a good job.
Now things are more settled, more formalized (e.g. annual performance reviews, standard hiring process, clearer communication about who is responsible for what). We’re less likely to take on big new projects, and we’re focused on better performance on our existing projects.
I agree with a lot of Amy/Julia’s impressions. Some other thoughts:
7 years ago (I was an intern over the summer, so I’m probably missing some things). I think “CEA” was really just a legal entity for a wide variety of other projects. There was a bit more research being done in-house (e.g Global Priorities Project), and I think basically everything was happening in Oxford.
Compared to then: more cohesive, less research, people more distributed across the world.
5 years ago: things were beginning to get a bit more integrated. Different teams were coming together and trying to figure out what the internal culture was. I think CEA was also really figuring out what to focus on: there were research projects, projects promoting effective giving, EA community building etc.
Compared to then: Narrower focus and more established/consistent team culture.
2 years ago: I think there was a lot of uncertainty: we were searching for new leadership, and didn’t have a solid long-term strategy. However, I think we were beginning to integrate a bunch of cool hires that we made in 2018, and we had a supportive culture. We were focused on making sure we followed through on existing commitments (rather than ambitious goals/new things). We had an office in Berkeley as well as in Oxford.
Compared to then: Clearer goals/leadership, more focus on expansion, no Berkeley office and more focus on remote work.
I think I listed mostly good or neutral things. When I reflect on what I miss from previous eras, the main thing is the in-person office culture (though I hope we’ll get this back as we move into our new Oxford office).