Thanks for the clarification, Owen! I had mis-understood âinvestment-likeâ as simply having return compounding characteristics. To truly preserve optionality though, these grants would need to remain flexible (can change cause areas if necessary; so grants to a specific cause area like AI safety wouldnât necessarily count) and liquid (can be immediately called upon; so Founderâs Pledge future pledges wouldnât necessarily count). So yes, your example of grants that result âin more (expected) dollars held in a future year (say a decade from now) by careful thinking people who will be roughly aligned with our valuesâ certainly qualifies, but I suspect thatâs about it. Still, as long as such grants exist today, I now understand why you say that the optimal giving rate is implausibly (exactly) 0%.
Thanks for the clarification, Owen! I had mis-understood âinvestment-likeâ as simply having return compounding characteristics. To truly preserve optionality though, these grants would need to remain flexible (can change cause areas if necessary; so grants to a specific cause area like AI safety wouldnât necessarily count) and liquid (can be immediately called upon; so Founderâs Pledge future pledges wouldnât necessarily count). So yes, your example of grants that result âin more (expected) dollars held in a future year (say a decade from now) by careful thinking people who will be roughly aligned with our valuesâ certainly qualifies, but I suspect thatâs about it. Still, as long as such grants exist today, I now understand why you say that the optimal giving rate is implausibly (exactly) 0%.