A semi-cynical take: Could Open Phil have decided to fund an otherwise weak grant proposal because (a) there is a good chance that Elkus will receive a lot of money for philantrophy from his father; and (b) there is a reasonable chance that funding this grant would influence Elkus toward spending significantly more of that outside-of-EA money on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness work rather than on quasi-academic sociology experiments?
I’m not judging that possible rationale—it feels uncomfortable, but uncomfortable doesn’t mean wrong. I think this is illustrative of a potential challenge with transparency—this rationale would be undermined by its disclosure. If you’re trying to influence a grantee, releasing a statement that says “yeah, we thought their work was weak, but we funded because the CEO’s father is loaded and we were aiming for influence over how future money was spent” isn’t going to help your influence campaign.
A less cynical possibility would be that the CEO’s father is funding most of Helena, but requires it to raise a fraction of the costs of each project (say 20%). If that were the case, the project doesn’t need to clear Open Phil’s bar to justify funding. If we assume that the alternative project Helena would pursue would be essentially worthless, this project would only need to be 21% as effective as the bar to justify funding it.
I also want to specifically address the elephant in the room: Open Phil has significantly raised its bar for funding, and a lot of people are doubtless anxious about that. To the extent that Elkus’ father was a positive factor in evaluating the grant—under an influence theory, a matching-funds theory, or anything else—that is not fair to everyone else who wasn’t born with a silver spoon. Particularly under the current circumstances, it would be completely valid to experience negative emotions at the possibility that parental megawealth could factor into grantmaking decisions.
I agree with your sentiment here, but it might be skipping a few steps ahead in questioning the grant’s development. This is why (while many parts can be considered subjective critique) I have tried to avoid being prescriptive about what might have happened ‘behind the scenes’. Open Phil’s new bar does make this a more present/pressing issue.
That’s fair. I felt that the conversation was starting to veer toward evaluating the justification for the grant solely on a comparison of the marginal benefit of what Helena was going to accomplish with that $500K to Open Phil’s then-current bar. Thus, I felt it was worthwhile to point out that there could be rational (albeit at least somewhat uncomfortable) reasons for awarding a grant even if the proposal were on the weak side.
That probably came across as more aggressive than I meant to be. More to say that I agree with your sentiment but wanted to leave space in my post for me to be wrong and for Open Phil to provide a response
A semi-cynical take: Could Open Phil have decided to fund an otherwise weak grant proposal because (a) there is a good chance that Elkus will receive a lot of money for philantrophy from his father; and (b) there is a reasonable chance that funding this grant would influence Elkus toward spending significantly more of that outside-of-EA money on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness work rather than on quasi-academic sociology experiments?
I’m not judging that possible rationale—it feels uncomfortable, but uncomfortable doesn’t mean wrong. I think this is illustrative of a potential challenge with transparency—this rationale would be undermined by its disclosure. If you’re trying to influence a grantee, releasing a statement that says “yeah, we thought their work was weak, but we funded because the CEO’s father is loaded and we were aiming for influence over how future money was spent” isn’t going to help your influence campaign.
A less cynical possibility would be that the CEO’s father is funding most of Helena, but requires it to raise a fraction of the costs of each project (say 20%). If that were the case, the project doesn’t need to clear Open Phil’s bar to justify funding. If we assume that the alternative project Helena would pursue would be essentially worthless, this project would only need to be 21% as effective as the bar to justify funding it.
I also want to specifically address the elephant in the room: Open Phil has significantly raised its bar for funding, and a lot of people are doubtless anxious about that. To the extent that Elkus’ father was a positive factor in evaluating the grant—under an influence theory, a matching-funds theory, or anything else—that is not fair to everyone else who wasn’t born with a silver spoon. Particularly under the current circumstances, it would be completely valid to experience negative emotions at the possibility that parental megawealth could factor into grantmaking decisions.
I agree with your sentiment here, but it might be skipping a few steps ahead in questioning the grant’s development. This is why (while many parts can be considered subjective critique) I have tried to avoid being prescriptive about what might have happened ‘behind the scenes’. Open Phil’s new bar does make this a more present/pressing issue.
That’s fair. I felt that the conversation was starting to veer toward evaluating the justification for the grant solely on a comparison of the marginal benefit of what Helena was going to accomplish with that $500K to Open Phil’s then-current bar. Thus, I felt it was worthwhile to point out that there could be rational (albeit at least somewhat uncomfortable) reasons for awarding a grant even if the proposal were on the weak side.
That probably came across as more aggressive than I meant to be. More to say that I agree with your sentiment but wanted to leave space in my post for me to be wrong and for Open Phil to provide a response