He then spent like half a year technically being CEO but spending all of his time being on book tours and talking to lots of high net-worth and high-status people.
he (and some of the rest of the leadership) decided to refocus all of their efforts on building EA funds
He also doesn’t participate in any discourse with really anyone else in the community. He never comments on the EA Forum, he doesn’t do panel discussions
Very uncertain here, but I’m concerned by a dynamic where it’s simply too cheap and easy to comment on how others spend their time, or what projects they prioritise, or how they write books—without trying to empathise or steelman their perspective.
I agree with this in-general, though I still think sharing this kind of information can be quite valuable, as long as people appropriately discount it.
For my time at CEA, he was my boss. I agree with you that stuff like this can be pretty annoying coming from random outsiders, but I think if someone worked under someone (though to be clear with a layer of management between) this gives them enough context to at least say informative things about how someone spends their time.
I also think disgruntled ex-employees are not super uncommon, and I think it makes sense to adjust for that.
For the discourse part I do feel differently. Like, I don’t care that much about how Will spends his time in-detail, but de-facto I think he doesn’t really engage in debates or discourse with almost anyone else in EA, and I do think there are just straightforwardly bad consequences as a result of that, and I feel more confident in judging the negative consequences than whether the details of his time allocation are off.
I just want to say I really appreciated you providing this first-hand experience, and for discussing what others in the EA community feel about Will’s leadership from what you have witnessed in the Bay area. I was just talking to someone about this the other day, and I was really unsure about how people in EA actually felt about Will, since, as you said, he rarely comments on the forum and doesn’t seem very engaged with people in the community from what I can see.
Very uncertain here, but I’m concerned by a dynamic where it’s simply too cheap and easy to comment on how others spend their time, or what projects they prioritise, or how they write books—without trying to empathise or steelman their perspective.
I agree with this in-general, though I still think sharing this kind of information can be quite valuable, as long as people appropriately discount it.
For my time at CEA, he was my boss. I agree with you that stuff like this can be pretty annoying coming from random outsiders, but I think if someone worked under someone (though to be clear with a layer of management between) this gives them enough context to at least say informative things about how someone spends their time.
I also think disgruntled ex-employees are not super uncommon, and I think it makes sense to adjust for that.
For the discourse part I do feel differently. Like, I don’t care that much about how Will spends his time in-detail, but de-facto I think he doesn’t really engage in debates or discourse with almost anyone else in EA, and I do think there are just straightforwardly bad consequences as a result of that, and I feel more confident in judging the negative consequences than whether the details of his time allocation are off.
I just want to say I really appreciated you providing this first-hand experience, and for discussing what others in the EA community feel about Will’s leadership from what you have witnessed in the Bay area. I was just talking to someone about this the other day, and I was really unsure about how people in EA actually felt about Will, since, as you said, he rarely comments on the forum and doesn’t seem very engaged with people in the community from what I can see.
I realised while reading your comment that I didn’t actually know what Habryka meant by “not very respected”—he adds color here.