My numbers are a little different to yours at around 25-50%. I think the reason is that I envision many EAs going into ‘influence’ areas like foundations, other NGOs, politics, academia, journalism, and policy. Those that do probably won’t earn large sums but neither will they be drawing substantial funding from the EA community; they are sort of excluded from both sides the earning-to-givers vs. direct-workers analysis you do above. When I do a similar analysis, I get a similar conclusion of wanting very roughly 1 ETG person for each 1 direct EA org person, but then I envisage 0 − 50% of EAs doing the orthgonal ‘influence’ options, hence 25-50% in both ETG and ‘direct’ work.
Part of the disagreement here is also surely how narrowly you define ‘Earning to Give’; I think 80k probably meant something much stronger than “>=$60K annual income and >=10% donations”; more like >$100k gross annual income and >=50% donations. I think both definitions have merit, it’s just worth clarifying from the outset what you are talking about.
Edit: I would also add that my experience of funding things this year is that we are indeed a few years away from the projected (and I think reasonable to expect) Earning-to-Give explosion. I can’t think of a major cause area that doesn’t currently have both a meta-charity and direct charity constrained by funds. Obviously this is subject to potentially rapid change, but this was a significant update for me so I wanted to share.
My numbers are a little different to yours at around 25-50%. I think the reason is that I envision many EAs going into ‘influence’ areas like foundations, other NGOs, politics, academia, journalism, and policy. Those that do probably won’t earn large sums but neither will they be drawing substantial funding from the EA community; they are sort of excluded from both sides the earning-to-givers vs. direct-workers analysis you do above. When I do a similar analysis, I get a similar conclusion of wanting very roughly 1 ETG person for each 1 direct EA org person, but then I envisage 0 − 50% of EAs doing the orthgonal ‘influence’ options, hence 25-50% in both ETG and ‘direct’ work.
That’s really interesting analysis! I hadn’t considered that. But I agree.
This was a significant factor for us. I could easily see a future where it’s best for the majority of EAs go to work in research, international orgs, policy etc.; which already drives the percentage under 50.
I agree with your numbers more than the OP, as well, AGB.
would also add that my experience of funding things this year is that we are indeed a few years away from the projected (and I think reasonable to expect) Earning-to-Give explosion. I can’t think of a major cause area that doesn’t currently have both a meta-charity and direct charity constrained by funds. Obviously this is subject to potentially rapid change, but this was a significant update for me so I wanted to share.
What do you think is the best strategy to account for this possibility? How much should we prepare? I figure plenty of people going into earning to give is fine anyway, since I expect these careers are indeed more likely to build career capital allowing a solid transition out of earning to give and into another career approach in the future if need be. Also, it seems 80,000 Hours now seems to recommend someone enter a career with additional potential for direct impact and/or outsized opportunity for career capital whenever they recommend earning to give anyway.
EA Ventures is a good start as far as preparation goes. I’m not going to make the argument ‘Likely expansion of EtG means many fewer people should do it’ because I think it’s quite weak for the reasons you gave. But I do think that people with the ability to create funding opportunities (which I think is actually a relatively small number of people) should be trying to do so. We could do with more founders and a more diverse/complete set of organisations.
Thanks for this; I agree with much that is said.
My numbers are a little different to yours at around 25-50%. I think the reason is that I envision many EAs going into ‘influence’ areas like foundations, other NGOs, politics, academia, journalism, and policy. Those that do probably won’t earn large sums but neither will they be drawing substantial funding from the EA community; they are sort of excluded from both sides the earning-to-givers vs. direct-workers analysis you do above. When I do a similar analysis, I get a similar conclusion of wanting very roughly 1 ETG person for each 1 direct EA org person, but then I envisage 0 − 50% of EAs doing the orthgonal ‘influence’ options, hence 25-50% in both ETG and ‘direct’ work.
Part of the disagreement here is also surely how narrowly you define ‘Earning to Give’; I think 80k probably meant something much stronger than “>=$60K annual income and >=10% donations”; more like >$100k gross annual income and >=50% donations. I think both definitions have merit, it’s just worth clarifying from the outset what you are talking about.
Edit: I would also add that my experience of funding things this year is that we are indeed a few years away from the projected (and I think reasonable to expect) Earning-to-Give explosion. I can’t think of a major cause area that doesn’t currently have both a meta-charity and direct charity constrained by funds. Obviously this is subject to potentially rapid change, but this was a significant update for me so I wanted to share.
That’s really interesting analysis! I hadn’t considered that. But I agree.
This was a significant factor for us. I could easily see a future where it’s best for the majority of EAs go to work in research, international orgs, policy etc.; which already drives the percentage under 50.
I agree with your numbers more than the OP, as well, AGB.
What do you think is the best strategy to account for this possibility? How much should we prepare? I figure plenty of people going into earning to give is fine anyway, since I expect these careers are indeed more likely to build career capital allowing a solid transition out of earning to give and into another career approach in the future if need be. Also, it seems 80,000 Hours now seems to recommend someone enter a career with additional potential for direct impact and/or outsized opportunity for career capital whenever they recommend earning to give anyway.
EA Ventures is a good start as far as preparation goes. I’m not going to make the argument ‘Likely expansion of EtG means many fewer people should do it’ because I think it’s quite weak for the reasons you gave. But I do think that people with the ability to create funding opportunities (which I think is actually a relatively small number of people) should be trying to do so. We could do with more founders and a more diverse/complete set of organisations.