In fact, the team most likely to be growing EA, the Effective Altruism Outreach team was cautioning against growth. It seems reasonably clear that EA is growing virally and organically—exactly what you want in the early days of a project.
Why do you want a project to grow virally and organically in the early days of a project? That seems like the opposite of what I’d guess; when a project is young you want to steer it thoughtfully and deliberately and encourage it to grow slowly, so that it doesn’t get off track or hijacked, and so you have time to onboard and build capacity in the new members. Has the EAO team come to think that fast growth is good?
Fair point. I’ve deleted that section as a result.
The idea in my head is that it’s better to be getting growth because people really value and want to share your product than it is to only be able to get growth through direct marketing.
My view on growth is that as our tools to onboard new people improve we’ll want to grow faster. The tools aren’t excellent now, but I’m optimistic that we will develop some better material soon.
Why do you want a project to grow virally and organically in the early days of a project? That seems like the opposite of what I’d guess; when a project is young you want to steer it thoughtfully and deliberately and encourage it to grow slowly, so that it doesn’t get off track or hijacked, and so you have time to onboard and build capacity in the new members. Has the EAO team come to think that fast growth is good?
Fair point. I’ve deleted that section as a result.
The idea in my head is that it’s better to be getting growth because people really value and want to share your product than it is to only be able to get growth through direct marketing.
My view on growth is that as our tools to onboard new people improve we’ll want to grow faster. The tools aren’t excellent now, but I’m optimistic that we will develop some better material soon.