I really like this idea! I’m particularly excited about having a new agency to do tech work for a fairly simple subset of the arguments you’ve mentioned:
The unmet demand for the work is there
There appears to be a lot of high-EV software work that is currently undone within EA.
There are probably many more software work that we haven’t identified because of not having the capacity to do them.
There are many talented software engineers within our movement, many of whom say they want to do direct work “someday.”
There appears to be a fair amount of money in our movement.
And yet the work is not done
Given that there’s a burning need in the market, it would be helpful to fill it.* An independent agency seems like a promising candidate to solve this “matching market” issue.
Personally, I find your arguments for having a independent tech agency and the advantages of an EA tech agency to be fairly compelling, and the argument for the agency to be primarily donor-funded rather than primarily consultant fee-funded or a hybrid system to be much weaker.
Like naively I’d have a picture of the initial tech agency to look like analogous to that of a VC funded startup where initial customers (EA orgs) are subsidized by VC (EA donor) money, until the tech agency “finds its feet” and can do a combination of being paid for services and funded for specific projects. (I gave more specific reasons for doubt in the relevant sections).
But nonetheless, don’t let my naysaying dissuade you! Given that the most likely route to making this tech agency a reality is through you (co)founding it, I think it’s much more important that the founder believes in the details of the product and the organization rather than a random Forum commentator does!
*A point that I’ve made privately a few times and should probably make into a full post is that a rational profit-maximizing firm should always increase investment until marginal cost equals marginal revenue, and the EA talent pipeline is nowhere near that.
Thanks! Much of the challenge of part 3 for me was trying to untangle my own strong intuition that working at a donor-funded agency would be so much more rewarding. If other developers find the low-bono idea more appealing, then I’m confident that such an agency would be enough of an improvement on the status quo that it would be worth setting one up; it’ll be interesting to see how developer preferences split.
I really like this idea! I’m particularly excited about having a new agency to do tech work for a fairly simple subset of the arguments you’ve mentioned:
The unmet demand for the work is there
There appears to be a lot of high-EV software work that is currently undone within EA.
There are probably many more software work that we haven’t identified because of not having the capacity to do them.
There are many talented software engineers within our movement, many of whom say they want to do direct work “someday.”
There appears to be a fair amount of money in our movement.
And yet the work is not done
Given that there’s a burning need in the market, it would be helpful to fill it.* An independent agency seems like a promising candidate to solve this “matching market” issue.
Personally, I find your arguments for having a independent tech agency and the advantages of an EA tech agency to be fairly compelling, and the argument for the agency to be primarily donor-funded rather than primarily consultant fee-funded or a hybrid system to be much weaker.
Like naively I’d have a picture of the initial tech agency to look like analogous to that of a VC funded startup where initial customers (EA orgs) are subsidized by VC (EA donor) money, until the tech agency “finds its feet” and can do a combination of being paid for services and funded for specific projects. (I gave more specific reasons for doubt in the relevant sections).
But nonetheless, don’t let my naysaying dissuade you! Given that the most likely route to making this tech agency a reality is through you (co)founding it, I think it’s much more important that the founder believes in the details of the product and the organization rather than a random Forum commentator does!
*A point that I’ve made privately a few times and should probably make into a full post is that a rational profit-maximizing firm should always increase investment until marginal cost equals marginal revenue, and the EA talent pipeline is nowhere near that.
Thanks! Much of the challenge of part 3 for me was trying to untangle my own strong intuition that working at a donor-funded agency would be so much more rewarding. If other developers find the low-bono idea more appealing, then I’m confident that such an agency would be enough of an improvement on the status quo that it would be worth setting one up; it’ll be interesting to see how developer preferences split.