This sounds like a good project, but I’m curious why start an independent venture and not simply approach 80000 hours and suggest to them this area as a subproject of their work? Is there any specific importance to building a separate brand/organization?
To explain why I downvoted, I don’t like this general kind of response (i.e. “shouldn’t this be part of large organisation X?”):
It discourages people from actually doing things, for several reasons.
Dealing with a large organisation before starting the work takes time and is offputting, and many ideas will peter out or run into the ground if people are pressured to always do this.
It’s quite a negative response to give to someone trying to start something.
It can involve unhealthy deference to or hero worship of large organisations.
There are rarely strong reasons for a large organization to take over the projects that people suggest they do, and cross-linking often allows all the same benefits.
It encourages a ‘turf’ mentality.
Having many people experiment with many approaches is valuable, and lets us see which work.
I agree that this can be a problem. I’ve previously found myself demoralised after suggesting ideas for projects only to be immediately met with questions like ‘Why you, not someone else?’, ‘Wouldn’t x group do this better?’ I think having a cofounder helps greatly with handling this. It’s also something that founders just have to learn to deal with.
In this case though, I think Gleb_T’s question was good. We explicitly asked for feedback and we wanted to get questions like this so that we were forced to think through things we may not have properly considered. On a post like this, I’d rather have lots of feedback and criticism so that we know where the potential weaknesses of the project are.
I’d suggest the heuristic: If you’re friend is enthusiastically telling you about a new idea, hold off on criticism for a while whilst you help them develop it. If someone asks for feedback, or if you’ve been discussing the project for a bit longer, give the most useful feedback you can, even if it’s negative.
Thanks for your comments about the benefits of staying independent.
Thanks for explaining why you downvoted in such a full manner. Let me then explain the meta-reasons for why I asked the question.
As a nonprofit entrepreneur myself who followed the call for new EA charities and started his own EA-themed meta-charity, I’m quite aware of the benefits of starting a new project :-) My goal in asking this question was to provide the Good Technology founders with an opportunity to explain their reasoning about a question that I am sure exists in many people’s heads, but many choose not to ask.
As you can see, my question is phrased in a quite friendly manner. I express approval of the project, and then expressed curiosity about a specific issue I thought was insufficiently addressed in the original write-up. This is the sort of constructive critical feedback I would have loved to get when I started my own nonprofit venture :-)
Hope this explains my reasoning. We’re all in this together, and figuring out the best way to help the world. We may have different methods and paths, but share the same goal. Let’s try to assume that we all have the best intentions in helping each other out.
Thanks for asking this as it’s made me think more carefully about it.
Partly it’s separate just because of how we got started. It’s a project that Michael and I thought up because we needed it ourselves, and so we just got going with it. Given that we don’t work for 80,000 Hours, it wasn’t part of it.
But the more important question is ‘Should it become part of 80,000 Hours in the future?’ We talked to Ben Todd from 80,000 Hours and asked him what he thought of the potential for overlap. He thought it wasn’t an issue as 80,000 Hours doesn’t have time to go in depth into technology for good. I think if we became a subproject of 80,000 Hours, it would harm them because they’d have to spend management time on it and they should focus instead on their core priorities. It’s costly to build our own brand, but I think it’s better than disrupting an existing organization with an experimental project outside their own priorities. We can also find other ways of cooperating short of merging. I imagine 80,000 Hours will want to use our research if it becomes good enough, and we will want to talk to advisees of theirs who are interested in tech for good. We’ll also be looking for ways to collaborate with other EA orgs like .impact and the London Good Code meetup.
There are also advantages to being independent of an existing project. We can target our brand more precisely at technologists and prioritize building relationships with people and orgs in the tech community. There’s also value in thinking and researching independently of existing EA orgs because we might be able to come up with different ideas and ways of doing things.
I think there’s a good chance that we’ll look less and less like 80,000 Hours as we go on. I used to work for them, which means I’m prone to copy their way of doing things. As we go on, we might find that it’s better to have a strategy less like 80,000 Hours than it is now.
Do you think it would be better if we were part of 80,000 Hours? What would that look like?
No, all your thoughts seems very sensible. The benefits of different organisations sticking to their own distinct, clear focuses are often overlooked, to their cost.
Thanks for your explanation, it makes a lot of sense. Glad my question helped you think this through more deeply. I’d suggest the idea of a collaborative partnership with 80,000 Hours of some sort, for example where they can send potential technologists to you for additional consults.
On the meta-issue of starting a new organization, I’m an EA nonprofit entrepreneur myself who started his own EA-themed meta-charity, and I’d be glad to share my experience. I can connect you with .impact, etc. EA Action might be another good organization to get together with. You can email me at gleb@intentionalinsights.org to chat.
People can also get in touch with .impact directly, by posting to the whole community in its Facebook group (or, if preferred, Slack channel—or if they prefer to email someone privately, they can contact Ben Clifford on imbenclifford@gmail.com ).
80000 is overloaded with its own burdens and does not have optimal resourcefulness to effectively develop a new practical large-scale initiative. Announcing the Good Technology Project has to grow as a new grassroot movement and organization.
This sounds like a good project, but I’m curious why start an independent venture and not simply approach 80000 hours and suggest to them this area as a subproject of their work? Is there any specific importance to building a separate brand/organization?
To explain why I downvoted, I don’t like this general kind of response (i.e. “shouldn’t this be part of large organisation X?”):
It discourages people from actually doing things, for several reasons.
Dealing with a large organisation before starting the work takes time and is offputting, and many ideas will peter out or run into the ground if people are pressured to always do this.
It’s quite a negative response to give to someone trying to start something.
It can involve unhealthy deference to or hero worship of large organisations.
There are rarely strong reasons for a large organization to take over the projects that people suggest they do, and cross-linking often allows all the same benefits.
It encourages a ‘turf’ mentality.
Having many people experiment with many approaches is valuable, and lets us see which work.
I agree that this can be a problem. I’ve previously found myself demoralised after suggesting ideas for projects only to be immediately met with questions like ‘Why you, not someone else?’, ‘Wouldn’t x group do this better?’ I think having a cofounder helps greatly with handling this. It’s also something that founders just have to learn to deal with.
In this case though, I think Gleb_T’s question was good. We explicitly asked for feedback and we wanted to get questions like this so that we were forced to think through things we may not have properly considered. On a post like this, I’d rather have lots of feedback and criticism so that we know where the potential weaknesses of the project are.
I’d suggest the heuristic: If you’re friend is enthusiastically telling you about a new idea, hold off on criticism for a while whilst you help them develop it. If someone asks for feedback, or if you’ve been discussing the project for a bit longer, give the most useful feedback you can, even if it’s negative.
Thanks for your comments about the benefits of staying independent.
Thanks for explaining why you downvoted in such a full manner. Let me then explain the meta-reasons for why I asked the question.
As a nonprofit entrepreneur myself who followed the call for new EA charities and started his own EA-themed meta-charity, I’m quite aware of the benefits of starting a new project :-) My goal in asking this question was to provide the Good Technology founders with an opportunity to explain their reasoning about a question that I am sure exists in many people’s heads, but many choose not to ask.
As you can see, my question is phrased in a quite friendly manner. I express approval of the project, and then expressed curiosity about a specific issue I thought was insufficiently addressed in the original write-up. This is the sort of constructive critical feedback I would have loved to get when I started my own nonprofit venture :-)
Hope this explains my reasoning. We’re all in this together, and figuring out the best way to help the world. We may have different methods and paths, but share the same goal. Let’s try to assume that we all have the best intentions in helping each other out.
Thanks for asking this as it’s made me think more carefully about it.
Partly it’s separate just because of how we got started. It’s a project that Michael and I thought up because we needed it ourselves, and so we just got going with it. Given that we don’t work for 80,000 Hours, it wasn’t part of it.
But the more important question is ‘Should it become part of 80,000 Hours in the future?’ We talked to Ben Todd from 80,000 Hours and asked him what he thought of the potential for overlap. He thought it wasn’t an issue as 80,000 Hours doesn’t have time to go in depth into technology for good. I think if we became a subproject of 80,000 Hours, it would harm them because they’d have to spend management time on it and they should focus instead on their core priorities. It’s costly to build our own brand, but I think it’s better than disrupting an existing organization with an experimental project outside their own priorities. We can also find other ways of cooperating short of merging. I imagine 80,000 Hours will want to use our research if it becomes good enough, and we will want to talk to advisees of theirs who are interested in tech for good. We’ll also be looking for ways to collaborate with other EA orgs like .impact and the London Good Code meetup.
There are also advantages to being independent of an existing project. We can target our brand more precisely at technologists and prioritize building relationships with people and orgs in the tech community. There’s also value in thinking and researching independently of existing EA orgs because we might be able to come up with different ideas and ways of doing things.
I think there’s a good chance that we’ll look less and less like 80,000 Hours as we go on. I used to work for them, which means I’m prone to copy their way of doing things. As we go on, we might find that it’s better to have a strategy less like 80,000 Hours than it is now.
Do you think it would be better if we were part of 80,000 Hours? What would that look like?
No, all your thoughts seems very sensible. The benefits of different organisations sticking to their own distinct, clear focuses are often overlooked, to their cost.
Thanks for your explanation, it makes a lot of sense. Glad my question helped you think this through more deeply. I’d suggest the idea of a collaborative partnership with 80,000 Hours of some sort, for example where they can send potential technologists to you for additional consults.
On the meta-issue of starting a new organization, I’m an EA nonprofit entrepreneur myself who started his own EA-themed meta-charity, and I’d be glad to share my experience. I can connect you with .impact, etc. EA Action might be another good organization to get together with. You can email me at gleb@intentionalinsights.org to chat.
People can also get in touch with .impact directly, by posting to the whole community in its Facebook group (or, if preferred, Slack channel—or if they prefer to email someone privately, they can contact Ben Clifford on imbenclifford@gmail.com ).
80000 is overloaded with its own burdens and does not have optimal resourcefulness to effectively develop a new practical large-scale initiative. Announcing the Good Technology Project has to grow as a new grassroot movement and organization.
Good point, updated toward the benefit of the GTP.