Yep, I think this is right, but we don’t totally rely on these kinds of surveys!
We also conduct follow-up surveys to check what actually happens a few months after each event and unsurprisingly, you do see intentions and projects dissipate (as well as many materialising). A problem we face is that these surveys have much lower response rates.
Other more reliable evidence about the impact of EAG comes from surveys which ask people how they found impactful work (e.g., the EA Survey, Open Phil’s surveys), and EAG is cited a lot. We’ll usually turn to this kind of evidence to think about our impact, though end-of-event feedback surveys are useful for feedback about content, venue, catering, attendee interactions etc. and you can also do things like discounting reported impact in end-of-event surveys using follow-up survey data.
It’s not clear that EA funding relies on Facebook/Meta much anymore. The original tweet is deleted, and this post is 3 years old but Holden wrote of Cari and Dustin’s wealth:
You could argue Facebook/Meta is what made Dustin wealthy originally, but probably not correct to say that EA funding “deeply relies” on Meta today.