what I’m suggesting is more competition in the ‘larger’ orgs category
I still strongly disagree if, as it seems from the OP, you mean ‘we want more larger orgs’ rather than ‘we want to make large orgs smaller’. The larger the org, the less fidelity you get from any competition.
If Org 1 and Org 2 each do only one activity, they can compete perfectly, in that funders can express an unambiguous preference between those two activities by donating a marginal $ to one or other of them.
But for each further activity an org does, ignoring restricted donations (which on my understanding are counterfactually not very effective), they approximately multiply the number of preference-orderings consistent with donating to either org by the total number of activities. If I’m thinking about this correctly, the number of preference orderings consistent with a donation to one of two orgs is (mn)! - m!n! where m and n are the number of activities each org does.
For example, if Org 1 does activities A, B, and and Org 2 does C and D, then giving to Org 1 is consistent with any combination of preferences such that at least one activity at Org 1 is preferred to at least one activity at Org 2. This gives 4! − 2!*2! = 20 consistent orderings:
A > B > C > D A > B > D > C A > C > B > D A > C > D > B A > D > B > C A > D > C > B
B > A > C > D B > A > D > C B > C > A > D B > C > D > A B > D > A > C B > D > C > A
C > B > A > D C > B > D > A C > A > B > D C > A > D > B C > D > B > A C > D > A > B
D > B > C > A D > B > A > C D > C > B > A D > C > A > B D > A > B > C D > A > C > B
Obviously this is a bit abstract/oversimplified, but if we think it’s a reasonable approximation of reality, it implies that the difference in fidelity of competition between small and large organisations is colossal. Depending on how you think about CEA (the sub-org, not EVF) alone, their activities might include
Arguably software development and any other in-house services they provide. Even by comparison to a hypothetical org who was only doing one of those things, that would mean a donation to either org would be consistent with 8! preference orderings (or 9! if you include software): that’s 40320 or 362880, respectively. Obviously take these numbers with a large grain of salt in the real world, but I think the picture isn’t totally unreasonable, and the numbers are large enough that they could outweigh a very great number of inside view considerations, to make any organisation provided an alternative to have close to zero value in the sense of incentivising either org to perform better.
This is before you’re even looking at the umbrella orgs, where the picture gets even murkier—in theory their sub-orgs seem to be expected to arrange their own funding independently, but in principle their sources of funding seem to be extremely correlated.
Do orgs get cut off? Are there examples of OP being like “you just aren’t efficient enough”
I guess there are benefits to scale when do these take off?
When should an org split into two?
I guess I like that GiveWell is it’s own org and theoretically it could get less funding from OpenPhil if something else filled that space. I hope that would happen and maybe 50% that it would.
I still strongly disagree if, as it seems from the OP, you mean ‘we want more larger orgs’ rather than ‘we want to make large orgs smaller’. The larger the org, the less fidelity you get from any competition.
If Org 1 and Org 2 each do only one activity, they can compete perfectly, in that funders can express an unambiguous preference between those two activities by donating a marginal $ to one or other of them.
But for each further activity an org does, ignoring restricted donations (which on my understanding are counterfactually not very effective), they approximately multiply the number of preference-orderings consistent with donating to either org by the total number of activities. If I’m thinking about this correctly, the number of preference orderings consistent with a donation to one of two orgs is (mn)! - m!n! where m and n are the number of activities each org does.
For example, if Org 1 does activities A, B, and and Org 2 does C and D, then giving to Org 1 is consistent with any combination of preferences such that at least one activity at Org 1 is preferred to at least one activity at Org 2. This gives 4! − 2!*2! = 20 consistent orderings:
A > B > C > D
A > B > D > C
A > C > B > D
A > C > D > B
A > D > B > C
A > D > C > B
B > A > C > D
B > A > D > C
B > C > A > D
B > C > D > A
B > D > A > C
B > D > C > A
C > B > A > D
C > B > D > A
C > A > B > D
C > A > D > B
C > D > B > AC > D > A > BD > B > C > A
D > B > A > C
D > C > B > AD > C > A > BD > A > B > C
D > A > C > B
Obviously this is a bit abstract/oversimplified, but if we think it’s a reasonable approximation of reality, it implies that the difference in fidelity of competition between small and large organisations is colossal. Depending on how you think about CEA (the sub-org, not EVF) alone, their activities might include
Community building grants
Group support
The EA forum
Other EA websites
Running events
Supporting EAGx events
Community health
Media training, in some capacity
Arguably software development and any other in-house services they provide. Even by comparison to a hypothetical org who was only doing one of those things, that would mean a donation to either org would be consistent with 8! preference orderings (or 9! if you include software): that’s 40320 or 362880, respectively. Obviously take these numbers with a large grain of salt in the real world, but I think the picture isn’t totally unreasonable, and the numbers are large enough that they could outweigh a very great number of inside view considerations, to make any organisation provided an alternative to have close to zero value in the sense of incentivising either org to perform better.
This is before you’re even looking at the umbrella orgs, where the picture gets even murkier—in theory their sub-orgs seem to be expected to arrange their own funding independently, but in principle their sources of funding seem to be extremely correlated.
My thoughts here are something like:
Do orgs get cut off? Are there examples of OP being like “you just aren’t efficient enough”
I guess there are benefits to scale when do these take off?
When should an org split into two?
I guess I like that GiveWell is it’s own org and theoretically it could get less funding from OpenPhil if something else filled that space. I hope that would happen and maybe 50% that it would.