I may be totally off base here because I’m a terrible capitalist in the sense of being a really bad one, but how does this reasoning sound:
It only seems reasonable to ask someone to work for you instead of giving you $1m if they are uniquely the best person for that job.
I am very, very sceptical of any hiring process, including my own, finding a uniquely good candidate.
Assuming no orgs currently pay $1m salaries, surely you should always take the money, add say $100k to the advertised salary, readvertise, hire the best person you get then and keep the change?
I guess another way of framing this is ‘how sure do you have to be that you found the best person available to turn down even $250k in cash plus the person you find once you readvertise?’
Outside some technical fields, where you may very genuinely be talking to the best programmer or mathematician in the world, surely you should always take the cash?
I think many orgs won’t pay such high salaries (and won’t “add $100k to the advertised salary”) - regardless of whether the org has the money or believes in the impact. This is because of other reasons
This post is mostly directed at potential candidates—hoping they will apply—and then your job post might indeed get uniquely good people who have hardly applied so far
“many orgs won’t pay such high salaries (and won’t “add $100k to the advertised salary”″
Why not create more organizations? (And coordinate between organizations). Charity A attracts certain donors and workers, and Charity B attracts different donors and workers, and the costs of coordinating and additional upkeep are probably at most fifty percent of total cost?
I didn’t understand how making more organizations is related to what you quoted, could you say it in other words?
To reply to “Why not create more organizations?”—I think it is a consensus that EA wants to create more organizations. I hope some very senior people (who this post is trying to target) could be the people who’d found those, maybe. I know of a founder who read this post, is going to talk to [a senior EA] about it, and perhaps, who knows, will decide to open a new org? I don’t know
I think that if existing organizations have some reason to not pay higher salaries, then a new organization can probably be different. For example, if current organizations have donors and workers who prefer lower salaries (a costly signal of commitment from workers), a new organization could try to use workers who have successfully signalled commitment in other ways and donors who are okay with paying those workers market rate.
Maybe the existing orgs have good reasons for not paying high salaries, I’d talk to the existing org you want to replace before opening a new one, probably
Either the high-earners or the people who want to hire them have management talent, probably at least some of them could be on an org leadership team. Depending on whether the reasons for not paying high salaries are universal or apply to just particular orgs, splintering could make sense.
For particular organizations, maybe the reasons are good, but we probably shouldn’t just look at specific orgs. Funding constrained orgs include definitely GiveDirectly and probably Malaria Consortium’s non-chemoprevention budget. Therefore, for a person who can earn $1mil but would be paid $250k at a talent-constrained charity, then if I’ve done the math right (doubtful), their marginal value over the unhired alternative candidate needs to be 3x more impact than the high-earner’s donations to global health. So then it comes down to how much more impact can be had at talent-constrained charities and how bad are the alternative candidates, which are hard to debate in generalities and is where I’m probably wrong.
One could calculate
A=”what value over replacement do I have in my earn-to-give job (could be negative) ”
plus B=”what is the value of my donated money to the best funding-constrained org”
minus C=”what is the value of my talent (over replacement) to the talent-constrained org)
(and if the result is negative then direct work makes sense)
These are both true but not quite addressing what I was asking.
I think this is better: ‘how sure do you have to be that you found the best person available to turn down the option of having the next best person, plus e.g. $250k in cash?’
I have priors like “getting a person with 10 more years of experience than anyone else on your team could be a really big deal, especially if nobody else like this applied”, but I don’t have skin in the game.
Would you maybe like to answer for any of the orgs you’re involved with?
I agree with your prior—but I would add that I think my chances of getting someone with 10 years more experience than anyone else on my team goes up if my first choice gives me $1m/year!
I’m happy to answer for One for the World that I would take the Earning to Give option and readvertise, unless for some reason I thought I had a uniquely good candidate. Happy for you to link this in your main post as well.
Also, to be clear, I 100% support your main point, which is that people should apply for jobs they think they would be good at. I also want to keep EtG as a serious EA pathway, though, as I think EA is going to need a lot more funding and/or ops funding to achieve what it wants to over time.
I may be totally off base here because I’m a terrible capitalist in the sense of being a really bad one, but how does this reasoning sound:
It only seems reasonable to ask someone to work for you instead of giving you $1m if they are uniquely the best person for that job.
I am very, very sceptical of any hiring process, including my own, finding a uniquely good candidate.
Assuming no orgs currently pay $1m salaries, surely you should always take the money, add say $100k to the advertised salary, readvertise, hire the best person you get then and keep the change?
I guess another way of framing this is ‘how sure do you have to be that you found the best person available to turn down even $250k in cash plus the person you find once you readvertise?’
Outside some technical fields, where you may very genuinely be talking to the best programmer or mathematician in the world, surely you should always take the cash?
I think many orgs won’t pay such high salaries (and won’t “add $100k to the advertised salary”) - regardless of whether the org has the money or believes in the impact. This is because of other reasons
This post is mostly directed at potential candidates—hoping they will apply—and then your job post might indeed get uniquely good people who have hardly applied so far
What do you think?
(Did this even answer your question)
“many orgs won’t pay such high salaries (and won’t “add $100k to the advertised salary”″
Why not create more organizations? (And coordinate between organizations). Charity A attracts certain donors and workers, and Charity B attracts different donors and workers, and the costs of coordinating and additional upkeep are probably at most fifty percent of total cost?
I didn’t understand how making more organizations is related to what you quoted, could you say it in other words?
To reply to “Why not create more organizations?”—I think it is a consensus that EA wants to create more organizations. I hope some very senior people (who this post is trying to target) could be the people who’d found those, maybe. I know of a founder who read this post, is going to talk to [a senior EA] about it, and perhaps, who knows, will decide to open a new org? I don’t know
I think that if existing organizations have some reason to not pay higher salaries, then a new organization can probably be different. For example, if current organizations have donors and workers who prefer lower salaries (a costly signal of commitment from workers), a new organization could try to use workers who have successfully signalled commitment in other ways and donors who are okay with paying those workers market rate.
Ah,
Where will you find the people to run these orgs?
Maybe the existing orgs have good reasons for not paying high salaries, I’d talk to the existing org you want to replace before opening a new one, probably
Either the high-earners or the people who want to hire them have management talent, probably at least some of them could be on an org leadership team. Depending on whether the reasons for not paying high salaries are universal or apply to just particular orgs, splintering could make sense.
For particular organizations, maybe the reasons are good, but we probably shouldn’t just look at specific orgs. Funding constrained orgs include definitely GiveDirectly and probably Malaria Consortium’s non-chemoprevention budget. Therefore, for a person who can earn $1mil but would be paid $250k at a talent-constrained charity, then if I’ve done the math right (doubtful), their marginal value over the unhired alternative candidate needs to be 3x more impact than the high-earner’s donations to global health. So then it comes down to how much more impact can be had at talent-constrained charities and how bad are the alternative candidates, which are hard to debate in generalities and is where I’m probably wrong.
One could calculate
A=”what value over replacement do I have in my earn-to-give job (could be negative) ”
plus B=”what is the value of my donated money to the best funding-constrained org”
minus C=”what is the value of my talent (over replacement) to the talent-constrained org)
(and if the result is negative then direct work makes sense)
These are both true but not quite addressing what I was asking.
I think this is better: ‘how sure do you have to be that you found the best person available to turn down the option of having the next best person, plus e.g. $250k in cash?’
I see.
This is a question for orgs hiring, not for me.
I have priors like “getting a person with 10 more years of experience than anyone else on your team could be a really big deal, especially if nobody else like this applied”, but I don’t have skin in the game.
Would you maybe like to answer for any of the orgs you’re involved with?
I agree with your prior—but I would add that I think my chances of getting someone with 10 years more experience than anyone else on my team goes up if my first choice gives me $1m/year!
I’m happy to answer for One for the World that I would take the Earning to Give option and readvertise, unless for some reason I thought I had a uniquely good candidate. Happy for you to link this in your main post as well.
Also, to be clear, I 100% support your main point, which is that people should apply for jobs they think they would be good at. I also want to keep EtG as a serious EA pathway, though, as I think EA is going to need a lot more funding and/or ops funding to achieve what it wants to over time.
At (roughly) what amount would you be undecided between the Earning to Give option and getting the first choice?
Thanks! I linked to this comment in the post