It’s hard to know – most valuations of the human capital are bound up with the available financial capital.
Agreed. Though I think I believe this much less now than I used to. To be more specific, I used to believe that the primary reason direct work is valuable is because we have a lot of money to donate, so cause or intervention prioritization is incredibly valuable because of the leveraged gains. But I no longer think that’s the but-for factor, and as a related update think there are many options at similar levels of compellingness as prioritization work.
One way to frame the question is to consider how much the community could earn if everyone tried to earn to give
I like and agree with this operationalization. Though I’d maybe say “if everybody tried to earn to give or fundraise” instead.
I agree it’s plausible that would be higher than the current income on the capital, but I think could also be a lot less.
I agree it could also be a lot less, but I feel like that’s the more surprising outcome? Some loose thoughts in this direction:
Are we even trying? Most of our best and brightest aren’t trying to make lots of money. Like I’d be surprised if among the 500 EAs most capable of making lots of money, even 30% are trying to make lots of money.
And honestly it feels less, more like 15-20%?
Maybe you think SBF is unusually good at making money, more than the remaining 400-425 or so EAs combined?
This at least seems a little plausible to me, but not overwhelmingly so.
I feel even more strongly about this for fundraising. We have HNW fundraisers, but people are very much not going full steam on this
Of the 500 EAs with the strongest absolute advantage for fundraising from non-EA donors, I doubt even 25 of them are working full-time on this.
Retrodiction issues. Believing that we had more capital than human capital at any point in EAs past would have been a mistake, and I don’t see why now is different.
We had considerably less than ~50B in your post a few years ago, and most of the gains appears to be in revenue, not capital appreciation
(H/T AGB) Age curves and wealth. If the income/wealth-over-time of EAs look anything like that of normal people (including normal 1%-ers), highest earnings would be in ages >40, highest wealth in ages >60. Our movement’s members have a median age of 27 and a mean age of 30. We are still gaining new members, and most of our new recruits are younger than our current median. So why think we’re over the middle point in lifetime earnings or donations?
Maybe you think crypto + early FB is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and that is strong enough to explain the lifetime wealth effect?
I don’t believe that. I think of crypto as a once-in-a-decade thing.
Maybe your AI timelines are short enough that once-in-a-decade is the equivalent to a once-in-a-lifetime belief for you?
If so, I find this at least plausible, but I think this conjunction is a pretty unusual belief, whether in EA or the world at large, so it needs a bit more justification.
I’m not sure I even buy that SBF specifically is past >50% of his earning potential, and would tentatively bet against.
Macabre thought-experiment: if an evil genie forced you to choose between a) all EAs except one (say a good grantmaker like Holden or Nick Beckstead) die painlessly with their inheritance sent to the grantmaker vs b) all of our wealth magically evaporate, which would you choose?
For me it’d be b), and not even close
another factor is that ~half of our wealth is directly tied to specific people in EA. If SBF + cofounders disappeared, FTX’s valuation will plummet.
Agreed. Though I think I believe this much less now than I used to. To be more specific, I used to believe that the primary reason direct work is valuable is because we have a lot of money to donate, so cause or intervention prioritization is incredibly valuable because of the leveraged gains. But I no longer think that’s the but-for factor, and as a related update think there are many options at similar levels of compellingness as prioritization work.
I like and agree with this operationalization. Though I’d maybe say “if everybody tried to earn to give or fundraise” instead.
I agree it could also be a lot less, but I feel like that’s the more surprising outcome? Some loose thoughts in this direction:
Are we even trying? Most of our best and brightest aren’t trying to make lots of money. Like I’d be surprised if among the 500 EAs most capable of making lots of money, even 30% are trying to make lots of money.
And honestly it feels less, more like 15-20%?
Maybe you think SBF is unusually good at making money, more than the remaining 400-425 or so EAs combined?
This at least seems a little plausible to me, but not overwhelmingly so.
I feel even more strongly about this for fundraising. We have HNW fundraisers, but people are very much not going full steam on this
Of the 500 EAs with the strongest absolute advantage for fundraising from non-EA donors, I doubt even 25 of them are working full-time on this.
Retrodiction issues. Believing that we had more capital than human capital at any point in EAs past would have been a mistake, and I don’t see why now is different.
We had considerably less than ~50B in your post a few years ago, and most of the gains appears to be in revenue, not capital appreciation
(H/T AGB) Age curves and wealth. If the income/wealth-over-time of EAs look anything like that of normal people (including normal 1%-ers), highest earnings would be in ages >40, highest wealth in ages >60. Our movement’s members have a median age of 27 and a mean age of 30. We are still gaining new members, and most of our new recruits are younger than our current median. So why think we’re over the middle point in lifetime earnings or donations?
Maybe you think crypto + early FB is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and that is strong enough to explain the lifetime wealth effect?
I don’t believe that. I think of crypto as a once-in-a-decade thing.
Maybe your AI timelines are short enough that once-in-a-decade is the equivalent to a once-in-a-lifetime belief for you?
If so, I find this at least plausible, but I think this conjunction is a pretty unusual belief, whether in EA or the world at large, so it needs a bit more justification.
I’m not sure I even buy that SBF specifically is past >50% of his earning potential, and would tentatively bet against.
Macabre thought-experiment: if an evil genie forced you to choose between a) all EAs except one (say a good grantmaker like Holden or Nick Beckstead) die painlessly with their inheritance sent to the grantmaker vs b) all of our wealth magically evaporate, which would you choose?
For me it’d be b), and not even close
another factor is that ~half of our wealth is directly tied to specific people in EA. If SBF + cofounders disappeared, FTX’s valuation will plummet.