Nice, it seems like you’re doing great work, and thanks for the writeup!
You talk about helping people working in finance to transition to high-impact careers, and I was wondering how you think about the (possible) opportunity cost of EAs leaving a career track leading towards an influential senior role in the finance industry.
I’m mostly asking because I recently read the book Crashed in which historian Adam Tooze covers the leadup to the 2008 financial crisis, and where he paints a picture of a financial institutions having massive influence over world affairs.
Though we might wish otherwise, the world economy is not run by medium-sized “Mittelstand” entrepreneurs but by a few thousand massive corporations, with interlocking shareholdings controlled by a tiny group of asset managers.
I think that’s an interesting question and it’s hard to weigh the options.
Due to the current talent gap in the EA movement, I think it would make sense to encourage people who have quantitative expertise to transition towards a high-impact career, as those skills are (and continue to be) in high demand within the EA community. People could become less EA-aligned over the course of time working in a non-EA-aligned environment. Furthermore, I’m unsure whether a single senior leader could unlock the same potential in the financial industry. Also, there are opportunities to transition into an EA-aligned career path within the financial sector, e.g., working for the crypto hedge fund Lantern Ventures.
Even though it could be impactful to have “EA allies” working at mainstream companies, I think transitioning into a more EA-aligned career option could be the better option.
I also want to mention that I’m not too familiar with the financial industry, maybe you want to reach out to Meg Tong who is running EA Finance. I’m sure she has thought this through more profoundly :)
Nice, it seems like you’re doing great work, and thanks for the writeup!
You talk about helping people working in finance to transition to high-impact careers, and I was wondering how you think about the (possible) opportunity cost of EAs leaving a career track leading towards an influential senior role in the finance industry.
I’m mostly asking because I recently read the book Crashed in which historian Adam Tooze covers the leadup to the 2008 financial crisis, and where he paints a picture of a financial institutions having massive influence over world affairs.
I think that’s an interesting question and it’s hard to weigh the options.
Due to the current talent gap in the EA movement, I think it would make sense to encourage people who have quantitative expertise to transition towards a high-impact career, as those skills are (and continue to be) in high demand within the EA community. People could become less EA-aligned over the course of time working in a non-EA-aligned environment. Furthermore, I’m unsure whether a single senior leader could unlock the same potential in the financial industry. Also, there are opportunities to transition into an EA-aligned career path within the financial sector, e.g., working for the crypto hedge fund Lantern Ventures.
Even though it could be impactful to have “EA allies” working at mainstream companies, I think transitioning into a more EA-aligned career option could be the better option.
I also want to mention that I’m not too familiar with the financial industry, maybe you want to reach out to Meg Tong who is running EA Finance. I’m sure she has thought this through more profoundly :)
That makes sense, thanks for the reply! :) And thanks, I’ll ping Meg, would be really interested in further thoughts on this.