The claim that large EA donors are likely to return ≥15% annually, and plausibly 30%-100%, is incredibly optimistic. Why would we expect large EA donors to get so much higher returns on investment than everyone else, and why would such profitable opportunities still be funding-constrained? This is not a case where EA is aiming for something different from others; everyone is trying to maximize their monetary ROI with their investments.
Markets are made efficient by really smart people with deep expertise. Many EAs fit that description, and have historically achieved such returns doing trades/investments with a solid argument and without taking crazy risks.
Examples include: crypto arbitrage opportunities like these (without exposure to crypto markets), the Covid short, early crypto investments (high-risk, but returns were often >100x, implying very favorable risk-adjusted returns), prediction markets, meat alternatives.
Overall, most EA funders outperformed the market over the last 10 years, and they typically had pretty good arguments for their trades.
But I get your skepticism and also find it hard to believe (and would also be skeptical of such claims without further justification).
Also note that returns will get a lot lower once more capital is allocated in this way. It’s easy to make such returns on $100 million, but really
The claim that large EA donors are likely to return ≥15% annually, and plausibly 30%-100%, is incredibly optimistic. Why would we expect large EA donors to get so much higher returns on investment than everyone else, and why would such profitable opportunities still be funding-constrained? This is not a case where EA is aiming for something different from others; everyone is trying to maximize their monetary ROI with their investments.
Markets are made efficient by really smart people with deep expertise. Many EAs fit that description, and have historically achieved such returns doing trades/investments with a solid argument and without taking crazy risks.
Examples include: crypto arbitrage opportunities like these (without exposure to crypto markets), the Covid short, early crypto investments (high-risk, but returns were often >100x, implying very favorable risk-adjusted returns), prediction markets, meat alternatives.
Overall, most EA funders outperformed the market over the last 10 years, and they typically had pretty good arguments for their trades.
But I get your skepticism and also find it hard to believe (and would also be skeptical of such claims without further justification).
Also note that returns will get a lot lower once more capital is allocated in this way. It’s easy to make such returns on $100 million, but really
(Made some edits)