A few months ago I would have easily agreed with “the view that EA employers are so fragile as to deny job opportunities based on EA Forum hot takes is hopefully greatly exaggerated and very disturbing if not.”
However, then I read about the hiring practices at FTX, and significantly updated on this. It’s now hard for me to believe that at least some EA employers would not deny job opportunities based on EA forum hot takes!
Where is there info on hiring practices at FTX? I don’t remember seeing this and would be interested.
More generally, I would be really interested in hearing about particular examples of people being denied job opportunities in EA roles because of opinions they share on the EA Forum (this would worry me a lot).
The only rumor I’ve heard is that someone was once denied an opportunity because they were deemed not a longtermist and the only way the org could’ve known the person was not a longtermist was from their public writing, and I personally wasn’t sold that strongly holding longtermist values was a key requirement for the position. That being said, I’ve only heard it from the person who didn’t get hired and possible that I may be substantially misunderstanding the situation.
I definitely would like to hear other people’s views on this, from burner accounts if need be.
Huh, I feel mixed about this. I want there to be ways and places to just talk and not have an all things considered opinions and not be too strongly judged for it (and I know some people hold to a “what’s the best thing this person has done/said” standard rather than “what’s the quality of the average thing they said”), for epistemics and probably because it’s sensible in a bunch of ways, but it would also be confusing to me if people’s behavior on the public internet didn’t give evidence of the kind of employee they are or their views in ways that might matter? Maybe we’re just litigating how much of a grace buffer there should be (where maybe we agree it should be pretty big).
Good god I certainly hope any practices at FTX are not common at other EA orgs.
FTX seems to have been a trash fire in many different respects at once, but the above sentence seems super hyperbolic (you hope zero practices at FTX are common at EA orgs??), and I don’t know what the non-hyperbolic version of it in your mind is.
I’m somewhat wary of revisionist history to make it sound like FTX was more wildly disjoint from EA culture or social networks than it in fact was, at least in the absence of concrete details about what it was actually like to work there.
Yes, my statement was intentionally hyperbolic. I definitely did not mean to say that there are absolutely zero practices at FTX that I like, nor did I mean to suggest that FTX is disjoint from EA culture (though I know so little about what FTX was like or what EA culture is like outside of RP that it is hard for me to say).
The base rate I have in mind is that FTX had access to a gusher of easy money, run by young energetic people with minimal oversight and a limited usage of formalized hiring systems. That produced a situation where top management’s opinion was the critical factor in who got promoted or hired into influential positions. The more that other EA organizations resemble FTX, the stronger I would think this.
I suspect “easy money” is an important risk factor for “top management’s opinion [is] the critical factor in who got promoted or hired into influential positions” but it certainly doesn’t have to be the case!
A few months ago I would have easily agreed with “the view that EA employers are so fragile as to deny job opportunities based on EA Forum hot takes is hopefully greatly exaggerated and very disturbing if not.”
However, then I read about the hiring practices at FTX, and significantly updated on this. It’s now hard for me to believe that at least some EA employers would not deny job opportunities based on EA forum hot takes!
Where is there info on hiring practices at FTX? I don’t remember seeing this and would be interested.
More generally, I would be really interested in hearing about particular examples of people being denied job opportunities in EA roles because of opinions they share on the EA Forum (this would worry me a lot).
The only rumor I’ve heard is that someone was once denied an opportunity because they were deemed not a longtermist and the only way the org could’ve known the person was not a longtermist was from their public writing, and I personally wasn’t sold that strongly holding longtermist values was a key requirement for the position. That being said, I’ve only heard it from the person who didn’t get hired and possible that I may be substantially misunderstanding the situation.
I definitely would like to hear other people’s views on this, from burner accounts if need be.
Huh, I feel mixed about this. I want there to be ways and places to just talk and not have an all things considered opinions and not be too strongly judged for it (and I know some people hold to a “what’s the best thing this person has done/said” standard rather than “what’s the quality of the average thing they said”), for epistemics and probably because it’s sensible in a bunch of ways, but it would also be confusing to me if people’s behavior on the public internet didn’t give evidence of the kind of employee they are or their views in ways that might matter? Maybe we’re just litigating how much of a grace buffer there should be (where maybe we agree it should be pretty big).
Good god I certainly hope any
practices(EDIT: meaning specifically the obvious trash fire practices) at FTX are not common at other EA orgs.To be clear, I only really know how Rethink Priorities operates and I have minimal insight into the operations of other groups.
FTX seems to have been a trash fire in many different respects at once, but the above sentence seems super hyperbolic (you hope zero practices at FTX are common at EA orgs??), and I don’t know what the non-hyperbolic version of it in your mind is.
I’m somewhat wary of revisionist history to make it sound like FTX was more wildly disjoint from EA culture or social networks than it in fact was, at least in the absence of concrete details about what it was actually like to work there.
Yes, my statement was intentionally hyperbolic. I definitely did not mean to say that there are absolutely zero practices at FTX that I like, nor did I mean to suggest that FTX is disjoint from EA culture (though I know so little about what FTX was like or what EA culture is like outside of RP that it is hard for me to say).
The base rate I have in mind is that FTX had access to a gusher of easy money, run by young energetic people with minimal oversight and a limited usage of formalized hiring systems. That produced a situation where top management’s opinion was the critical factor in who got promoted or hired into influential positions. The more that other EA organizations resemble FTX, the stronger I would think this.
I suspect “easy money” is an important risk factor for “top management’s opinion [is] the critical factor in who got promoted or hired into influential positions” but it certainly doesn’t have to be the case!
do you mean ftx the exchange or ftx the future fund?