Hi! I work on the EA Global team and I post a lot of my thoughts on Twitter :)
frances_lorenz
Karma: 1,724
Typical anti-feedback-doomers making everyone scared to plug their ears, where does it end?
Thank you, I have no reply.
I think this is very brave.
This is a really good idea actually, but I have to be fundamentally opposed to this comment, sorry :(
Okay, Claude says, “telling someone “Do better” could technically be considered feedback, but it’s extremely limited and not very constructive,” which makes it feel like not-quite-feedback. To your first point, I fear I’ve been shadow banned by the forum for speaking out :(
That’s correct, thanks Toby :) Although, it’s really important for us to know if our advertising has been reaching people. We definitely want to know if this post is the first time someone’s hearing about EAG, especially if they would have attended had they heard about it earlier.
I’m definitely sympathetic to this point, yep. I think it would be very difficult to write a post of this nature if you felt that your participation in EA was being wrongly affected by CH.
At the same time, I think both the negative and positive experiences are difficult to talk about, due to their sensitive nature. I felt comfortable writing this because the incident is now four years old and I’m lucky to be in an incredibly supportive environment; many who have had positive experiences will not want to write about them. Thus, I am not confident there is a “large information asymmetry” in either direction, there are deterrents to information sharing on both sides.
I think the unfortunate reality is: Community Health is not infallible, I would be very keen to hear about mistakes they’ve made or genuine concerns, as would the team, I’m certain. I’m also acutely aware that a lot of people who exhibit poor behaviour, and are then prevented from taking certain actions within the community, will claim to have been slighted. People who cross clear boundaries and then face consequences do not often go, “this seems right and fair to me, thank you for taking these measures against me to protect others.” This is certainly not to say, “no one who says they’ve been blacklisted or slighted can be correct.” This is to say that, I am not sure how to update on claims that CH has damaged people’s lives without more information.
Bruce is completely correct, yep. We’ll definitely send out reminder emails. If you run into any confusion, you can always email hello@eaglobal.org.
Hello! Yep, that’s correct. After the application deadline passes for an upcoming event, you’re welcome to re-apply to EA Global. The bar does not change at all when you reapply. We don’t factor that in. You are very welcome to reuse old applications, the system should automatically auto-fill previous responses that you’ve used.
Hey! To your last point — yeah, our goal is to approve applications that we suspect meet the bar. In cases where we’re unsure and would benefit from more information, we’ll request that (for full context, our requests are always unspecific and default to a general ask for additional information).
Hey Jason! This is a cool idea. At the same time, we face capacity constraints and aren’t always able to implement changes that would increase application review time or add more moving parts. In general, I’m wary of the application review process becoming too convoluted—I want to save people time, and also, I think it’s okay to ask people to fill out the application. Applicants are very welcome to use bullet points, the application doesn’t need to be long or polished by any means. The system should also save your responses from previous years, to save some time.
Hey Scott, thanks for the comment!
I understand your argument as: allowing anyone to attend would mean the event includes all the people currently approved, plus those deterred by the admissions bar, plus some attendees who we would have previously rejected. If that latter group is small (e.g., 16%), that might not have much of an effect, and the event reaches more of our target audience.
Here’s why we’re not confident in this reasoning:
Our primary concern is that removing the bar would significantly increase the volume of applications from people we’d otherwise reject, beyond the current number of applicants who are not approved (since there is no longer a cost to applying).
It’s unclear if removing it would draw in a sufficient number of “deterred” people, to make up for the other costs.
Much of the event’s impact comes from the quality of connections attendees make, whether through Swapcard or impromptu networking (lunches, meet ups, etc.). If the average attendee’s fit drops, we worry this would significantly reduce the expected quality of those interactions, especially impromptu ones. That could, in turn, have a greater negative impact than I think you’re imagining and worsening spin-off effects over time (e.g. attendees mingle less, senior professionals are less keen to attend over time).
Hey there! I work on the EA Global team, thanks for the question :) At EAG London, each floor of the venue will have an all gender bathroom. For future reference, our team can always be reached by emailing hello@eaglobal.org (forum questions usually get flagged to us, but we don’t actively monitor the forum).
Hello :) I currently work as an Events Associate on the EA Global (EAG) team, a subset of the Events team. I joined in January 2023 (with no prior events experience). I’m incredibly excited for the team to expand, so I thought I might share a bit about my experience so far, for anyone who’s unsure whether to apply.
What I love about working on the team:
I think there’s an implicit motto of, “take the serious stuff seriously and otherwise have fun.” We use charitable funding to run events with the goal of helping others do good in the world, in alignment with effective altruism and its principles, and that’s something the team takes very seriously. But events are also fun!! My colleagues are low-ego, encouraging, supportive, relaxed, I genuinely adore spending time with them; the production room at an event is non-stop jokes. Amy (head of the team) usually brings her baby (Charley) and I get to hold him while monitoring Slack. During EAG, I might need to be on-site 14 hours a day, but the atmosphere is so nice that it doesn’t really feel like work.
I’m deeply motivated by how tangible the product is. You can see the result of your work so saliently before you, people are all around, often happy or excited and chatting, it’s energetic and lovely.
It can be difficult to find experienced mentors in EA — the team’s managers are experts in events, incredibly supportive, and very present / hands-on. At the same time, we’re still a smaller team, so everyone takes on significant responsibility and ownership. I’ve really thrived in this environment, developing skills rapidly.
What I find difficult:
There’s a “sprinty” nature to the work, the lead up to events are hectic. I expect this to improve with new hires. However, to some degree, this is probably unavoidable. Some tasks can’t be done beforehand, we have a lot of attendees to support, and the event’s timing is rigid, everything has to be ready. As a result, EA Global takes over most of my brain space in the few weeks before. It’s incredibly difficult not to constantly check Slack/email. At night I’m usually ticking through tasks in my head, there are tons of little things to track.
I live in the UK, I find it hard traveling to the US twice a year for EA Global (though it is also a huge privilege). Some roles on the team have more travel, there’s typically at least one additional US trip required per year for a company retreat. I struggle with insomnia; I’ve found that the jet lag throws me off for weeks or can trigger a full insomnia episode. I also find flying a bit scary. Flying with my team helps. I’m pretty sure my manager prefers to be alone on flights, but she lets me choose a seat next to her and yap for like 7 hours straight, which I really appreciate.
y’all really are experts :’)
Hey Patrick! My name is Frances and I work on the EA Global team :) About two weeks before the event, we’ll send an email inviting everyone to our conference app (Swapcard). Swapcard will have the event agenda and allow you to book meetings with other attendees. If you have any further questions, please email hello@eaglobal.org and we’ll be very happy to help.
Hey Vasco, thanks for the question! This is an idea we’ve looked into quite a bit. There are some unresolved considerations (e.g. whether it makes sense for CEA to run an event like this), but the idea is still on our radar.
80,000 Hours has a great 2018 article on Operations management roles, which includes a ‘How to assess your fit’ section (I’ll link to it at the bottom of this take). Having worked on the EA Global team for a year now, here are two important traits I would add for assessing fit:
1) Good at task-switching. I think it’s pretty crucial that task-switching isn’t super costly for you and you can do it relatively quickly. Otherwise, I imagine many Ops roles will be quite tiring / frustrating. It might be particularly emphasised in my role, but as an anecdote: in the lead up to an event, my days are working through maybe 10+ small-medium planned tasks with a ton of small, unplanned tasks in between (i.e. monitoring Slacks/emails and responding to them if they take priority). I once mentioned this to two friends and they instinctively said, “I’m really sorry,” so I suspect reactions to this are a useful fit heuristic.
2) Responsive. This one is from a conversation with my team, and I concur—it’s really standout if you can respond to people quickly. This goes hand-in-hand with task switching (i.e. when someone messages you, how costly is it for you to stop what you’re doing and respond). It also necessitates being calibrated on how long tasks take (I’ll explain) and not hating messaging people. The level of responsiveness necessary and how often you get pinged will vary by role. I’m guessing for most Ops roles, a day or two response time is great. For some, you’ll need to generally respond within the same working day(i.e. within minutes or hours). Whether necessary or not, I think achieving this is a huge asset to any team (assuming your other work doesn’t suffer and you’re prioritising well). It means you’re: 1) quickly unblocking others; and, 2) relieving the mental load on the message-sender of tracking their own request. As a note on mental load, over-communication is almost always best in Ops roles. You might open a message and think, “I can’t get to this until tomorrow”—it’s useful to train in the habit of saying that rather than just making a note to yourself. Your coworkers will then be relieved of tracking this (though crucially, it’s important to meet the timeline you set or communicate changes). In an ideal world, your co-workers are never tracking the tasks/requests they send because you’re handling that (i.e. responding quickly or providing timelines and updates automatically).
80,000 Hours article: https://80000hours.org/articles/operations-management/#how-to-assess-fit
I’ll commit to not commenting more now unless I’ve gotten something really wrong or it’s really necessary or something :’)
Hey Neel! This reply upset me so much that I’m now planning to make AGI and actively oppose AI safety :) Hope it was worth it!