Luke Eure

• Luke Eure 18 Sep 2023 14:55 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Mis­takes, flukes, and good calls I made in my mul­ti­ple ca­reers

  There are definitely different levels of sacrifice. I certainly wouldn’t compare any sacrifice I’ve made to what Mandela, or King, or Jesus did.

  But I don’t think sacrifice is an inappropriate word in this context. We say that athletes make sacrifices to achieve their goals—in terms of time, physical pain, dietary restrictions, giving up socialization to get enough sleep. I think the sorts of tradeoffs an EA might be confronted with are comparable to that notion of sacrifice—giving up certain luxuries to donate more, or working on an important project for two hours on a weeknight when you’d rather watch a movie. For both the athlete and the EA, in the end they get more satisfaction for doing the disciplined thing. They think their goal is worth sacrificing for.

  But maybe you’re hinting that a lot of us need to emphasize more the “peace, satisfaction, and deep meaning” when talking about why we do what we do. I do agree with that. Less “woe is me” and more “look how rich my life is because I’m working on something I think is important.”

  I don’t think that’s incompatible with the idea of sacrifice—maybe just a matter of giving the right emphasis in the right context.

  (the above sounds a bit sanctimonious haha—I’m really not that sacrificing a person, and I’m talking more about the ideals I strive for than what I actually achieve)

• Luke Eure 18 Sep 2023 4:15 UTC

  8 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Mis­takes, flukes, and good calls I made in my mul­ti­ple ca­reers

  Thank you so much Catherine! Very inspiring post. I appreciate the details of how you were feeling at each point in time, and how you now feel looking back.

  I know you say you don’t really endorse this thought: “oh these young EA whippersnappers, expecting so much! They don’t know how good they got it...”.

  But at least in my case, I have noticed recently that I have been <inserting financial or personal sacrifice> and expecting something back in return. So you sharing your instinctive reaction was exactly what I needed to hear to remind me there are other (often better) ways to think about sacrifice.

• Luke Eure 17 Sep 2023 12:56 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: emmannaemeka’s comment on: Win­ners of the Afri­can EA Fo­rum Com­pe­ti­tion!

  Hi Emmanuel, I’m sorry to hear that you feel that rules were unexplained and changing in the process.

  I see that you have emailed me on the same, and will respond there.

Win­ners of the Afri­can EA Fo­rum Com­pe­ti­tion!

• Luke Eure 13 Sep 2023 19:19 UTC

  3 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Writ­ing about my job: Growth lead at a startup in Kenya

  I too am finding it hard to articulate. Maybe it’s just captured in the impact I talked about in the original post about creating jobs, helping the startup ecosystem, giving me money I can then donate, etc. So I shouldn’t pretend that in addition to all that there is some other nebulous “benefit of a company vs nonprofit” just to increase the warm fuzzies I feel.

  But there’s also a mathematical sense in which a shilling saved (the way Kapu has impact) is better than a shilling earned.

  • Imagine someone makes and eans exactly 500 shillings per day. You can either cut their cost of living to 250, or give them 250.

  • It’s better to cut their costs to 250. That way now they earn 200% of their cost or living! If instead you give them 250, they only have 150% of their cost or living

  The other benefit compared to giving cash is you avoid the sense of unfairness from people who don’t get given money. I think the new documentary in Givedirectly—Free Money—illustrates this downside well (though I don’t share the overall tone of the documentary which I feel is unnecessarily down on GiveDirectly).

  I also have an intuition that it just feels better psychologically for a person to save a shilling vs to be given a shilling for free at random. Maybe mistaken.

• Luke Eure 13 Sep 2023 17:43 UTC

  5 points

  3 ∶ 2

  on: Writ­ing about my job: Co-founder of a new char­ity (early stage)

  Thanks a lot for sharing, and thanks for working so hard to make the world a better place!

• Luke Eure 12 Sep 2023 18:16 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Yonatan Cale’s comment on: Writ­ing about my job: Growth lead at a startup in Kenya

  Hi Yonatan, thank you so much for the super kind words! I had not thought at all about posting on the 80k hours board—I will talk with our HR person about if she thinks that makes sense. I’d love to talk with you—I’ll DM you

• Luke Eure 12 Sep 2023 18:15 UTC

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Writ­ing about my job: Growth lead at a startup in Kenya

  Wow, that means a lot because sometimes I feel quite unthoughtful and uncurious when I read your excellent tweets!

  Haven’t had any EA non-profits ask me about that. I still don’t have that much experience (only 1.5 years) in the grand scheme of things but would me more than happy to try to help anyone who thinks they could benefit from talking to me.

  Overall I’ve become a lot more brave since working here. Just saying “look I’m 60% sure this will work, but we need to make a decision rather than waiting on this for 2 more weeks so let’s just go.” It doesn’t always work, but oftentimes acting and then learning and iterating if needed is better than waiting for the perfect decision. I’m lucky that my company environment is really good for that sort of approach—our CEO talks a lot about how we need to “be brave” and “be thoughtful but impatient”

• Luke Eure 12 Sep 2023 18:09 UTC

  3 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Writ­ing about my job: Growth lead at a startup in Kenya

  Thanks a lot! I also always love seeing your perspective on the forum as someone else in East Africa.

  I actually did a back of the enveleope calculation like that (several months after joining Kapu - so I definitely had an incenteive to rationalize my own choice) and ended up with something like “this looks better than working at an impactful US company, and comprable to earning to give but I am really excited by the work here and not at all by earning to give so I have rationalized my decision to work here”. Happy to DM on some of the startups I was less impressed with too.

  On funding, Kapu had good timing in that 2021 was a big year for startups in Africa generally. Investors excited by the success of companies like Wave and Jumia (which has gone downhill a bit since), a lot of hype from impact investors about Africa having untapped potential. This year has been a lot harder, like everywhere.

  The other top two “finalists” in terms of companies I looked at were Farmworks and Powergen. Powergen I ended up downgrading based on deciding that working at an earlier-stage, faster-moving company was important to me. And Farmworks is a company I have a lot of admiration for—I was just a bit more excited by Kapu (again, a big factor being the sense when I joined Kapu that it had tons of momentum and was going to go fast).

  It’s a good point—on average our customers are richer than rural poor so direct comparison to givedirectly isn’t quite fair. shooting from the hip though I don’t think the impact of giving a dollar to a poor Nairobian is much less than half of the impact of giving a dollar to a poor person in a village (note: probably about half of our customers actually don’t have smartphones—you can order without one). And I think there are strong systemic benefits from that dollar coming from an economically sustainable business rather than from donations.

Writ­ing about my job: Growth lead at a startup in Kenya

• Luke Eure 10 Sep 2023 11:09 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Notes on nukes, IR, and AI from “Arse­nals of Folly” (and other books)

  Thanks a lot for the great post!

  I’ve also been learning a lot lately about nuclear safety, deterrence, the cold war, etc. mostly inspired by the Oppenheimer movie. I’ve been looking for people to talk through these issues with.

  If anybody reading this is looking to talk more about these kinds of issues DM me—I’d love to share what I’ve learned, see what other people have learned, and just talk about the fascinating history and ethics surrounding atomic weapons use.

• Luke Eure 23 Aug 2023 11:45 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Yellow’s comment on: Why does an AI have to have speci­fied goals?

  Thanks a lot! Very clear and helpful

[Question] Why does an AI have to have speci­fied goals?

• Luke Eure 18 Aug 2023 9:28 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Simon Riezebos’s comment on: What do you do with your sav­ings?

  I just invest in s and p 500, and in vanguards recommended retirement account. I don’t try to take into account hoe much good or bad they do, partially out of skepticism of the counterfactual impact of impact investing, and partly out of inertia. If anyone knows of ea-principled work on this I’d be happy to change my approach

• Luke Eure 8 Aug 2023 9:03 UTC

  8 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: What do you do with your sav­ings?

  Good questions! Curious how other EAs do this too

  I donate 20% post tax. I also set a spending limit for myself ot 2k USD per month. Besides that I save everything.

  With that savings I max out my retirement account savings each year (5500 USD in the US). That all goes into an index fund Rest of my savings mostly goes into index funds unless I have one off exciting investment opportunities (eg if my startup is raising a round. They were last year and I invested 10k)

  The savings is basically earmarked for “giving me financial security and doing some good in the world later in life”. I don’t know if I will donate a large portion of it later, invest in a company I think will do good or give me a great return, finance any ventures I start myself. Maybe I would use it to pay for a house or something, but I would have to think very hard about that. My 2k per month spending cap is to prevent myself from having lifestyle creep so if I was to make a big purchase I would need to make sure I wasn’t just indulging in luxury because I have money lying around.

• Luke Eure 20 Jul 2023 13:18 UTC

  1 point

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Ubuntu Ethics and EA: Bridg­ing Worldviews

  “Ubuntu stresses empathy and compassion, enabling people to sympathize with the difficulties and goals of others.” I really like this thread throughout the post. When I wear my EA hat I often start thinking very individualistically like “how can I optimize my impact” rather than thinking collectively. I think I would be better off thinking from more of an Ubuntu perspective. Thank you!

• Luke Eure 12 Jul 2023 10:01 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Aden’s comment on: Em­pow­er­ing Africa’s EA Com­mu­nity: A Case for Tar­geted Funding

  makes sense on the understanding of contextual nuances—I agree that on-the-ground understanding is under-practiced in charity work generally, including in EA.

  I still don’t quite understand what you’re advocating for in terms of targeted funding. Don’t most EA organizations and individuals donating in EA already do targeted funding?

  You say “Instead of dispersing funds indiscriminately or generically, targeted funding directs resources to specified areas or objectives in order to accomplish desired results.”

  Are there examples you are thinking of where EA-aligned individuals or organizations are “dispersing funds indiscriminately or generically”? I feel that actually EA folkds are quite good at directing funding “to specified areas or objectives in order to accomplish desired results”. For example:

  • Bednets are funded to reduce malaria incidence

  • Cash is given to specific people to improve overall well-being

  • deworming pills are provided to improve school attendance

  Is there a particular type of activity you think EA organizations engage in where they lack targeting?

  Or are you more just saying that overall the charity space doesn’t do enough targeted funding, and EA should try to get more donors to do targeted funding?

• Luke Eure 11 Jul 2023 4:23 UTC

  7 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Em­pow­er­ing Africa’s EA Com­mu­nity: A Case for Tar­geted Funding

  I’m not clear what the main argument is. Is it simply that EA approaches have already helped Africa broadly across a variety of issues, and that EAs should continue funding and doing initiatives in Africa? Or are there particular types of work you think are neglected and that EA should focus on?

• Luke Eure 16 Jun 2023 7:49 UTC

  5 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Why value-based salaries might help Afri­can effec­tive al­tru­ists achieve more impact

  Lots of good points here!

  Just to isolate and respond on the “black tax” comment: The perspective I have heard from talking to Kenyan entrepreneurs about this is I have a familial financial obligation that expat entrepreneurs do not have. It prevents me from being as risk-taking as I might otherwise be
  
  Here is a direct quote from an entrepreneur I interviewed for a project: “there’s so many cool, really smart Kenyans and local entrepreneurs. But then there’s the sort of like ‘black tax’. It’s family, and there’s all this stuff. And the pressure to make it I think, pushes people to more safer choices, as opposed to picking something that’s a little bit more high risk”
  
  Whatever you might think about the effectiveness or the cultural value of this expectation, I think the term “black tax” does capture that this is a financial obligation for some.
  
  This is a secondhand viewpoint—I am not black nor African. I’d love to hear opinions on this from people with firsthand experience.

• Luke Eure 16 May 2023 3:56 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Cameron.K’s comment on: An­nounc­ing the Afri­can EA Fo­rum Com­pe­ti­tion - $4500 in prizes for ex­cel­lent EA Fo­rum Posts

  I strongly agree.

  Funding seems quite tractable—there could be a fund specifically for assisting EAs from Africa to go to conferences.

  On the visa assistance thing I’m not sure what would be very tractable—maybe there is some way these conferences could position themselves that would make it easier for Africans to get “education”-related visas rather than tourist visas (e.g., if EAG positioned itself as an academic conference somehow, would that enable people to apply under more lenient visa categories)?