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 ).
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 ).