Regranting is intended as a way to let people with local knowledge apply it to directing funds. This is different from just deputizing grantmakers.
If you made the list public I’d expect the regranters to be overwhelmed by people seeking grants, and generally find it pretty frustrating. For example, would your next step be to send emails to each of those addresses? ;)
This explanation makes sense to me, but I wonder if there is better middle ground where regrantors benefit from a degree of publicity.
This comes from personal experience. I received an FTX regrant for upskilling in technical AI safety research, as did several other students in similar positions as me. I did not know my regrantor personally, but rather messaged them on the EA Forum and hopped on a call to discuss careers in AI safety. They saw that I fit the profile of “potential AI safety technical researcher” and very quickly funded me without an extended vetting process. I would not have received my grant if (a) I didn’t often message people on the EA Forum or (b) I didn’t get on a call with a stranger without a clear goal in mind, both of which seem like poor screening criteria.
Perhaps it was an effective screen for “entrepreneurial” candidates, but I expect that an EA Forum post requesting applications could have produced several more grants of similar quality without overwhelming my regrantor. Regranting via personal connections reduces the pool of potential grantees to people who have thoroughly networked themselves within EA, which privileges paths like “move to the Bay” at the expense of paths like “go to your cheap state school with no EA group and study hard”. It’s a difficult line to walk and I’m not a grantmaker, but I think more public access might improve both the equity and quality of FTX regrants.
Edited to add: Given LTFF’s history of funding similar people and the drawbacks of regrantor publicity, FTX’s anonymity policy does seem reasonable to me. Appreciate the pushback.
People in that position (or know people who are): Please consider applying to the Long-term Future Fund*. LTFF is excited to receive upskilling applications from people who are potentially great at technical AI safety research and/or other longtermist priority areas, and they have more institutional capacity (including a network of advisors) to evaluate such proposals across the board than many regrantors individually have.
* For newer onlookers, please note that LTFF is under EA Funds and is not directly affiliated with the FTX Future Fund, despite the (perhaps confusingly) similar names.
Besides the huge downsides Ryan mentioned (imagine someone reading your whole blog to better craft the perfect adversarially fundable project), publicity would have some toxic effects for the regrantor.
For instance, all new social interactions would have an ulterior interpretation (“they’re sucking up for cash”). In a personal/professional soup like EA that could be maddening. One former grantmaker told me that the degree of sucking-up they got was part of why they moved on. I’m unusually sensitive to such things; I would probably decline to be a public grantmaker.
Privacy also has risks (nepotism, the excess zero-sum social investment in the bloody Bay you mention, insufficient accountability), but those seem smaller to me. But private regrantors were previously balanced out by the open call channel, so it’d be good to hear from FF about how they intend to seek new or peripheral applicants.
Software makes compromise pretty easy though. I quite like the idea of a regrantor publishing an anon post explaining what they’re looking for, with a form attached.
I share this fear but I don’t know if this is clearly stronger than other dynamics in EA when one party has something the other wants (e.g. prestige, network, advice, employment).
Also don’t know but I guess worse here, since it’s your explicit job to listen to applicants, where the usual requests for introductions and attention are rarely part of anyone’s job description.
and generally find it pretty frustrating. For example, would your next step be to send emails to each of those addresses? ;)
I guess it’s not realistic to litmus test individuals about their cold-emailing practices and their seriousness about the problem area they claim to be working in, before giving them access to the list.
I would expect the cold emailing advice given by Y Combinator to result in emails that do not frustrate regrantors.
My guesses:
Regranting is intended as a way to let people with local knowledge apply it to directing funds. This is different from just deputizing grantmakers.
If you made the list public I’d expect the regranters to be overwhelmed by people seeking grants, and generally find it pretty frustrating. For example, would your next step be to send emails to each of those addresses? ;)
A public list of regranters makes the system very gameable and vulnerable to individual granters unilaterally funding negative value projects.
This explanation makes sense to me, but I wonder if there is better middle ground where regrantors benefit from a degree of publicity.
This comes from personal experience. I received an FTX regrant for upskilling in technical AI safety research, as did several other students in similar positions as me. I did not know my regrantor personally, but rather messaged them on the EA Forum and hopped on a call to discuss careers in AI safety. They saw that I fit the profile of “potential AI safety technical researcher” and very quickly funded me without an extended vetting process. I would not have received my grant if (a) I didn’t often message people on the EA Forum or (b) I didn’t get on a call with a stranger without a clear goal in mind, both of which seem like poor screening criteria.
Perhaps it was an effective screen for “entrepreneurial” candidates, but I expect that an EA Forum post requesting applications could have produced several more grants of similar quality without overwhelming my regrantor. Regranting via personal connections reduces the pool of potential grantees to people who have thoroughly networked themselves within EA, which privileges paths like “move to the Bay” at the expense of paths like “go to your cheap state school with no EA group and study hard”. It’s a difficult line to walk and I’m not a grantmaker, but I think more public access might improve both the equity and quality of FTX regrants.
Edited to add: Given LTFF’s history of funding similar people and the drawbacks of regrantor publicity, FTX’s anonymity policy does seem reasonable to me. Appreciate the pushback.
People in that position (or know people who are): Please consider applying to the Long-term Future Fund*. LTFF is excited to receive upskilling applications from people who are potentially great at technical AI safety research and/or other longtermist priority areas, and they have more institutional capacity (including a network of advisors) to evaluate such proposals across the board than many regrantors individually have.
* For newer onlookers, please note that LTFF is under EA Funds and is not directly affiliated with the FTX Future Fund, despite the (perhaps confusingly) similar names.
Besides the huge downsides Ryan mentioned (imagine someone reading your whole blog to better craft the perfect adversarially fundable project), publicity would have some toxic effects for the regrantor.
For instance, all new social interactions would have an ulterior interpretation (“they’re sucking up for cash”). In a personal/professional soup like EA that could be maddening. One former grantmaker told me that the degree of sucking-up they got was part of why they moved on. I’m unusually sensitive to such things; I would probably decline to be a public grantmaker.
Privacy also has risks (nepotism, the excess zero-sum social investment in the bloody Bay you mention, insufficient accountability), but those seem smaller to me. But private regrantors were previously balanced out by the open call channel, so it’d be good to hear from FF about how they intend to seek new or peripheral applicants.
Software makes compromise pretty easy though. I quite like the idea of a regrantor publishing an anon post explaining what they’re looking for, with a form attached.
I share this fear but I don’t know if this is clearly stronger than other dynamics in EA when one party has something the other wants (e.g. prestige, network, advice, employment).
Also don’t know but I guess worse here, since it’s your explicit job to listen to applicants, where the usual requests for introductions and attention are rarely part of anyone’s job description.
I guess it’s not realistic to litmus test individuals about their cold-emailing practices and their seriousness about the problem area they claim to be working in, before giving them access to the list.
I would expect the cold emailing advice given by Y Combinator to result in emails that do not frustrate regrantors.