stands for expected value. , or the expected value of the resident relative to a hire. In the first formula you refer to there is also the equivalent for the counterfactual resident () and the counterfactual hire ().
Greg_Colbourn
Karma: 984
The trick to not making it require continuous willpower is to not think of the stuff you’re not meant to be eating as an option. Pre-committing to not considering it as food means you don’t have to exercise willpower at every meal (this is similar to not agonising over every purchase once you’ve set a donation budget, although admittedly that is easier given the auto-payment thingy).
Also, If you’re not fussy about food, being vegan is, in a way, simpler and easier when eating out, as often you only have one option to choose from (although this is less true now).
My response (edited from my email to Habryka)
I think I would be in favor of giving a grant that covers the runway of the hotel for the next year.
Wow this is awesome, thanks!
# Thoughts on the EA Hotel:
Thanks for your detailed response.
First, the reasons why I am excited about the EA Hotel:
Providing a safety net …
Acting on historical interest …
Building high-dedication cultures …
All good reasons, eloquently put!
1. I think the people behind the EA Hotel where initially overeager to publicize the EA Hotel via broad media outreach in things like newspapers and others media outlets with broad reach.
I think this is based on an unfortunate misconception. The whole thing with the media interest has been quite surprising to us. We have never courted the media—quite the opposite in fact. It started with The Economist approaching us. This was whilst I was on holiday and out of communication. The first I heard about it was 3 days before they went to press (the piece appeared in print whilst I was still away). The journalist was told not to come to Blackpool. I spoke to them on the phone and said I wanted more time to think about it and discuss it with people. They went ahead anyway and were told “no comment” by a resident when they knocked on the door. They picked up the story from Slate Star Codex originally and decided — whether we liked it or not — to run a piece on it. I don’t think there was anything we could’ve done to prevent it.
After that, The Times (and many other media outlets) picked it up. The Times journalist booked a call with me via my Calendly. At the exact time I was expecting the call, there was a knock on the door instead and she was there with a photographer—we got doorstepped! I had a panicked 5 minute talk “off the record” with her outside, where she explained that they were going to write about us anyway (whether we liked it or not) so I might as well let her in to interview some people so we could have at least some control over the narrative (we had none with the Economist piece).
I thought it went pretty well, and the piece could’ve been worse. However, they printed some errors, despite me sending clarifications—see the “For the record” here—which made me lose more faith in the journalistic process. It seems that even when you send corrections/clarifications they don’t factor them in if it doesn’t fit their narrative. And of course you have no right of reply (or at least no right of reply at the same level of visibility).
After The Times we had another national newspaper showing up at the door unannounced the next day. Gave them nothing despite them being very persistent.
In the next couple of weeks we were inundated with media requests. We discussed the issue with many people in EA and at CEA and 80k and decided against embracing the media (we could’ve been on prime-time TV and radio with millions of viewers/listeners). The decision was largely based around considerations encapsulated by the fidelity model of spreading ideas and the Awareness/Inclination Model of movement growth. We have turned down something like 20 media requests since The Times. Most were in October following the initial media interest. But we still get some every now and again. The outside view from my friends and family is that I’m completely crazy not to accept any of these offers. I think it’s probably the right call for the EA movement, but I’m still not 100% sure given that there is basically no data on the impact of mass media appearances on movement growth/talent discovery for EA—as far as I can tell, there hasn’t been any since the launch of GWWC and 80k (I’m talking appearances in national/international media with millions of viewers/readers here).
To try and avoid this misconception being perpetuated, I have added a disclaimer to the media page on our website saying that we have never courted the media. Also, journalistic ethics are such that requesting the media cover you is not something you can easily do or be successful with. You can write a press release and send it out, but they don’t generally do requests (note we definitely did not post a press release, nor do anything to publicise the project really, apart from me posting my initial EA Forum piece and sharing it on a couple of EA Facebook groups).
because it communicates the presence of free resources that are for the taking of anyone vaguely associated with the community
I’ve actually been surprised at how few applicants from outside the movement we’ve had, even after the media.
2. I expect the EA Hotel to attract a kind of person who is pretty young, highly dedicated and looking for some guidance on what to do with their life. I think this makes them a particularly easy and promising target for people who tend to abuse that kind of trust relationship and who are looking for social influence.
Yes, one thing I’m wary of is anyone looking to gain too much social influence at the hotel. Note that the average age is actually reasonably high at around 28 though (range 20-40) (i.e. there are a fair few people changing the trajectory of their careers).
the EA Hotel could form a geographically and memetically isolated group that is predisposed for conflict with the rest of the EA community in a way that could result in a lot of negative-sum conflict.
I don’t think we are especially memetically isolated—most of us keep up with the EA Forum and EA Facebook groups etc. There is generally a high level of shared memetic culture/jargon etc that is general to the broader movement. Geographically, many guests have travelled to EA events in continental Europe, and have visited other UK EA hubs like London and Oxford.
3. I don’t have a sense that Greg wants to really take charge on the logistics of running the hotel, and don’t have a great candidate for someone else to run it. Though it seems pretty plausible that we could find someone to run it if we invest some time into finding someone.
Yes, it’s not something that I want to do long term (although I have been doing a lot). And it’s taking a lot longer than I initially thought it would take to get things fully set up (especially setting up a charity and fundraising). There are two main aspects to the job really—logistics and guest mentoring/vetting. Currently one of the guests is taking on most of the cooking/dishes/food monitor work, and we have a rota for weekends (this could potentially be outsourced with more funds available). And we have a cleaner doing the cleaning/room changes. (Interim Manager) Toon has been doing checkins with guests to discuss their work. He’s only been working on the hotel part time though (he also runs RAISE) and is leaving in a couple of months. We haven’t been able to start the process for hiring a full time manager to take over due to funding insecurity. Would be great if you could help us find someone, thanks!
Charity Law—Perhaps one EA in each of the 5 countries with the highest numbers of EAs. It would be useful to have people who are familiar with EA who can offer their professional services to help incorporate new projects as charities (even better if they can offer reduced rates or pro bono advice). This is another thing we’ve struggled with with the EA Hotel. Our situation is complicated by the fact that it doesn’t neatly fit in with the UK Charity Commission’s charitable purposes. We’ve been recommended a few law firms, but haven’t yet been able to hire anyone or get any pro bono advice (not least because we aren’t already a charity!)
I think that’s kind of the point: that it should be thought of as apples-to-apples—there are these huge arbitrage opportunities when it comes to non-profit investing (or EA) that aren’t available with a direct for-profit incentive (if you make some basic assumptions like human lives being of equal value regardless of nationality).
Imagine if you could buy 200kg of gold for $3,500 in Malawi!
Humans in general often don’t take critical feedback nearly as seriously as they should, and often don’t adjust their thinking/actions due to sunk costs, wanting to save face in their peer group, grandiose personality, etc. This also applies to EAs (maybe somewhat but not vastly less so).
Agree that this can be tough (from experience). I would add that it can be emotionally draining, especially if the feedback is uncharitable or has some basis of misunderstanding or factual error. Also, it can be further complicated if after reflection one still doesn’t fully agree with the feedback and there is a genuine philosophical disagreement. (NB I’m happy to have received feedback from Jonas Vollmer and think it has/will make the EA Hotel project stronger; “uncharitable or has some basis of misunderstanding or factual error” does not apply to his feedback).
Aaron Gertler’s approach of “looking at the Hotel’s guest list, picking the best-sounding project, and offering money directly to the person behind it.”
This does require the hotel to exist though (or something like it). See my comment here.
I have also shared some thoughts for how to design the admission process with EA Hotel staff.
Based on some initial ideas from Jonas, we are working on a rating system for applicants and ongoing hosted projects. Tentatively it might be something like a logarithmic scale of EV, {-5,+5} with +1 = giving the money to GiveDirectly*. Trustees/Manager in one anonymous pool, Advisors in another. Bayesian priors stated in words. 95% confidence intervals given. Another round of scoring after seeing others’ input and discussion (special care taken to discuss when ratings <=-1 are given). Final scores aggregated. Guests accepted if clearing a bar of +1 (to increase with diminishing capacity). If falling below, guests have 3 months to pivot/improve.
*Would be interested in comparing with any numerical schemes other EA grantmakers are using.
We applied. Judging by the email I received, I think we are also part of the small group of ~7 mentioned here. Awaiting the follow up email.
I haven’t yet, but fundraising is proving to be a lot more stressful than I expected :)
To avoid people becoming overly dependent, we do have a hard limit of 2 years for stays at the hotel (most people seem to be going for somewhere in the range of 3-12 months).
I’m guessing it was probably this comment.
In answer to your first point, see my reply to Moses here.
--
Regarding your second point—comparing with other Meta opportunities—one might also want to consider that many Meta projects have goals of bringing more people into the community. We need to then cater for these people. The EA Hotel can help do that, and fill an important gap.
Perhaps it would have been better to have started with a smaller scale experiment such as a group house
I don’t think a small group house would’ve generated community (or interest) on the same level. What we have seems more valuable on account of its scale than, say, 4 separate group houses with the same number of total residents.
too costly a way of learning about the potential of such projects
In the scheme of things, I don’t think it’s been that costly (~£60k spent to date by donors).
achieve sufficient expected return
Depends on what your counterfactual is. My initial thoughts were on the lines of “is the EV of funding this person’s work likely to be greater than that of donating the money to a GiveWell top charity?”. We are currently working on implementing a rating system for projects. I have suggested that, space-permitting, we set the bar to clear as “equivalent to donating the money to Give Directly”. The bar would be raised proportionally to how little free capacity the hotel has, although in principle the hotel has the potential to expand given available buildings on our street. Obviously making such judgements comes with large error bars and a heavy weighting of priors. Also, given this is Hits-based Giving, I’m hopeful that the long-term mean value of projects will be significantly above the entry bar.
people might not want to donate because they don’t believe that other people will donate
We have considered that perhaps a Kickstarter-like mechanism is needed here. However, given the recent interest of a few people in donating at the 4-figure level, I’m more optimistic that we can get by without it (although it might be useful for other new projects in the EA space that require a significant initial outlay, the added bonus being the social proof).
For more on our residents to date, and how the hotel has helped them, here are some case studies. See also: outputs.
funders now are looking at the first “lowest quality” residents and not finding them attractive
I think this is unfair. I have not had any potential funders specifically say this. I actually think that the quality of residents is already pretty high (and this is under-appreciated from the outside). I also disagree with the notion of the first residents necessarily being of low quality just by way of not having strong competition to be accepted; there might even be a “debut album effect” in that there is a glut of good people (“songs”) ready for the initial release. I know I’ve personally been pleasantly surprised more than once with guests who I were a bit unsure of originally but was happy to take a chance on. There is also the consideration that it takes a certain amount of pioneer spirit to join a new project and community early in its life, and that this is positively correlated with agency and via that, value creation.
selecting good funding opportunities… no evidence has been given as to why the hotel staff are likely to be good at that role
See our pitch doc (that we’ve recently circulated to interested people) for more detail on our Staff/Trustees. Ultimately, most of the grant makers in charge of the EA Funds have gained their experience through being actively involved in EA and making funding decisions (donations) over many years. We are not that different. See my record of EA donations here*. Also, as Vipul says, we have skin in the game here.
*”EA Hotel” is the money I’ve put in as of 29th March 2019, not including purchasing the building. Meta note: would be good if it was possible to make pages on app.effectivealtruism.org/dashboard/pledge/donations publicly viewable. Is this feature planned?
I think this view as presented has an overly narrow focus. In terms of thinking of the expected value of the hotel and whether it’s worth funding on the margin, it’s useful to also consider:
The benefits of the in-person community in terms of support, feedback, motivation, productivity, collaboration, networking.
All the potential future value from future guests and iterating, expanding and franchising the model.
The effect it failing from a lack of funding would have on the likelihood of similar initiatives being started in future.
The notion of Hits-based Giving.
Also note that the counterfactuals—EA Grants and EA Meta Fund—have not had assessments of their outputs performed, or at least made public (apart from the larger more established projects they have funded). Indeed—someone correct me if I’m wrong—we don’t even know who the recipients are of any of the EA Grants made after Fall 2017 (but then again, EA Grants in and of itself does not publicly accept donations, so does not need to be so transparent). Also: our costs per person are significantly lower than those of the average EA Grants or Meta Fund grantee. You need to factor this multiplier in when judging the relative merits of them vs. the EA Hotel.
In terms of picking and choosing people to fund, this is not readily possible without some kind of aggregation of applicants. Such aggregation projects have been proposed here and here, but not without controversy (see comments on those posts). The hotel has the effect of aggregating a selection of people and projects starting out in EA, and in principle would-be funders can offer to pay for the costs of individual people or projects hosted at the hotel (or even offer to further fund them at higher rates to expand their projects elsewhere). But this does require the hotel to continue to exist (or some other kind of aggregator to take its place). Another way of looking at it would be by way of analogy to venture capital. By funding the EA hotel you are buying the portfolio of a VC firm (that is taking a hits-based giving approach); by picking individual projects you are doing the work of an Angel Investor. The latter takes significantly more time and work. (NB this is different to ordinary investing in that we need to be concerned about anti-unicorns whilst on the look out for unicorns).
The controversy around aggregators revolves around increasing the risk from considerations relating to the “unilateralists curse” i.e. potentially net negative projects would have more of a chance of being funded if given a wider audience of potential funders. I think this is one reason why EA Grants don’t widely share their applications. The hotel guards against this somewhat by having a committee of trustees (and soon to add—external advisors) involved with overseeing the vetting process. Also there is the filter for commitment that is having people physically move to Blackpool, rather than just taking the money. And the on hand in-person community to get advice and feedback from.
We now also have a PayPal MoneyPool.
1. The same work, yes, but at a much slower rate (factoring in the need to work outside jobs to support themselves; the haste consideration might also come into play), or burning runway at a faster rate than the EA Hotel is spending on them (if you take the view that conserving EA money in general is a plus, then this is a win). Regarding your point (3) as stated in the original blog post, we are open to funding people’s living expenses in other places if they are comparable to what they are for hotel guests. No one has yet taken us up on this though. And it also requires a high level of trust that people won’t just spend more money somewhere else and so therefore work for a shorter amount of time for the cost.
As you mention, the additional community benefits are likely to be considerable. Co-working out of REACH might give some of them, but is also likely to be a lot more expensive, and there isn’t that much space at REACH for people to do this. Also living together generally allows for a much greater degree of social interaction and a more close-knit supportive community.
2. This cost saving for all involved (EA Grants, EA Grantees) requires the hotel to exist though. And it won’t if it doesn’t bring in enough early stage funding to become more established. Also, it’s worth considering that fact that it’s unlikely the hotel would’ve got off the ground at all had we charged everyone from the outset.
Note that we request people who have salaries or >2 years of runway to pay cost price.
3. What project expenses are you imagining that don’t include salary? (I say this as a salary is usually spent on living costs and if living costs are provided the need for it is a lot lower). The hotel allows for the cheap granting—and purchasing—of runway for EA projects.
4. See here and here for a start.
The EV post might look like a lot of scary maths on the face of it, but it’s really not that complicated. It’s just an attempt to explicitly factor out the different considerations that go into estimating the EV of the EA Hotel. However, I understand that gut feelings tend to dominate such estimates. It can be useful to sanity check your gut instincts by doing such an explicit calculation, but equally it’s the mathematical model that often needs adjusting (or throwing out) if it doesn’t give you an answer close to your intuitive estimate.
Here’s the list of outputs. At the time of the first fundraising post, we’d only been at capacity for a couple of months, and not many people had stayed longer than that (with only approx. half the total person-days spent at the hotel). Back then, I was hoping the appeal of “Hits-based Giving”, and “EA community hub” would be stronger than they have been.
Thanks so much Vipul! :)
With this model of spending, I can concretely think of my donation of 3200 GBP as having added about 13 days to the hotel’s runway.
Note that costs have been lower recently (due to relying more on volunteer labour, and an increase in contributions from guests) - for an average over January-March your donation covers 20 days of costs, and for March alone it covers 27 days (and will likely be similar for April).
Or hover-over/click-to-pop-up footnotes.