As someone who (briefly) worked in VC and cofounded nonprofits, I’m not sure that’s a good signal.
”VC for charity” makes more sense when you consider that VC focus on high upside, diversification, lower information and higher uncertainty, which reflects the current stage of the EA movement. EA is still discovering new effective interventions, launching new experimental projects, building capacity of new founders and discovering new ways of doing good on a systemic level. Even today, there’s an acknowledgement that we might not know what the most cost-effective ways of doing good are.
If anything, I would argue that EA initially tried to go with “hedge fund for charity” for the first few years and this was not clearly better.
As for free spending, I’m not sure that has to do with “VC for charity”. A few of the projects I saw coming out of Future Fund were quite lean with low overhead due to everyone working remote without paying for stuff associated with normal movement building (retreats, events, office spaces etc.). The one I work at regularly debates expenses.
As someone who (briefly) worked in VC and cofounded nonprofits, I’m not sure that’s a good signal.
”VC for charity” makes more sense when you consider that VC focus on high upside, diversification, lower information and higher uncertainty, which reflects the current stage of the EA movement. EA is still discovering new effective interventions, launching new experimental projects, building capacity of new founders and discovering new ways of doing good on a systemic level. Even today, there’s an acknowledgement that we might not know what the most cost-effective ways of doing good are.
If anything, I would argue that EA initially tried to go with “hedge fund for charity” for the first few years and this was not clearly better.
As for free spending, I’m not sure that has to do with “VC for charity”. A few of the projects I saw coming out of Future Fund were quite lean with low overhead due to everyone working remote without paying for stuff associated with normal movement building (retreats, events, office spaces etc.). The one I work at regularly debates expenses.