Tech founder turned impact investor:
BetterBite.vc—Alt protein / climate VC in Asia
GoalsWon.com—accountability coaching app
Simon Newstead
Karma: 312
This role seems like more of a digital/marketing generalist and who will “translate our EA brand strategy into concrete marketing plans”—my question is more on who is leading the branding strategy effort if this role isn’t. Is it someone with deep experience in branding specifically? The reason I ask is because to turn around a tarnished brand is a very challenging endeavor, and without doing that, it will limit EA’s potential (see GMO, nuclear etc)
“Act now, rather than wait until it’s too late” → well put.
Glad to see the good work of CaML and others highlighted. Positively influencing the models as much as possible right now seems vital.
A random one—is AI for inter-species communication emerging as a thing? Is it viable in the short term, are there promising projects working on it with a view to bringing it to the masses via mobile apps etc?
Thanks for sharing the direction, appreciated.
For the rebrand, do you have experienced marketing folks on board or planned to be?
ie- with real industry experience, beyond EA circles?
It seems like a very tough challenge to undo the damage and change perceptions, and would benefit from a battle-tested team/professional.
I appreciate you sharing this and for making the effort to donate to help out in this world. Sometimes we can get numb to giving (or not giving) and it’s helpful to get a reminder of the impact of our donations in human terms.
From a practical point of view, if all the traffic and search/other reputation is to 80k website, and the timelines are perceived to be short, I could imagine it makes sense to the team to directly adjust the focus of the website rather than take the years to build up a separate, additional brand.
Simon Newstead’s Quick takes
If this is a critical time with probability of short timelines increasing, money invested via donations should be of higher value now vs historically.
But potential for AGI in the short term might lead folks to worry more about the potential risk to their career plus there’s also the desire to invest more now to capture AGI gains, leading to donations not increasing to match their potential value in this moment.
Questions-
Any sense of if this might be the case? I have only anecdotal observations.
If it is, how can we tackle this?
App product guy and mobile game designer (in a past life) here.
Suggestion would be to test and much as you possibly can quickly and cheaply with a bare bones MVP / prototype before you commit lots of time/money on charity setup, full app development, graphics/branding.
Most app concepts and UX’s just don’t resonate with users, find out if it does first before going further, and iterate as needed.
There’s lots of good advice out there on how to do customer development, testing. I’d go both qualitative (blind play test, focus groups etc) and quantitative (embed analytics, see where people drop etc)
All the best with it!
Got to connect with Max through impact investing circles, he also took the time out to have a call to give feedback on another impact project, sharing his experience candidly. I remember thinking—that was really nice of him to take time out to really help a random person on the internet. Shame he was taken too early. Rest in peace Max.
This year have donated:
14k to long term future / s-risks / ai safety
12k to animal suffering
4k to global health / well-being
Glad to finish up with a slight increase vs last year.
Organizations:
Center for AI safety
AI for Animals (via Hive)
Future of Life Institute
Wild Animal Initiative (via GWWC)
Centre for Reducing Suffering
Animal Advocacy Africa
Malaria Consortium (via EA Australia)
Michael Dello-Lacovo (content)
Shrimp Welfare Project
Thanks all for working hard on the important stuff...
My question is about donation swap and is there enough critical mass of givers (and demand) to implement or help facilitate something like this?
eg- Australia can give to some cause areas / charities but not others (eg existential risk, animal policy/lobbying etc)
Thanks for all the great work (and donations!) you and crew all do at GWWC.
Great initiative!
Quite a lot of agri projects doing similar things with satellite imagery
eg- seeing if rice farmers are adopting alternate wetting drying as opposed to traditional flooding, to reduce methane emissions.
Not sure if there are practical lessons to be learned from those folks?
What an interesting and relevant topic area you’re working on, and nice to hear you’re working towards something bigger. How true about extraordinary altruistic leverage. Welcome to the forum...
Thanks for helping out with those communities in Borneo, and caring to want to do more and use reason and kindness to help more out. Welcome!
Hey Ryan, welcome and glad to read your intro! It’s admirable that you are committed to impact. I think it’s natural to feel the problems of the world are big, and sometimes feel that our impact is so low. But it’s not. Every dollar we spend or minute volunteering or working on an effective intervention matters, and can make a big difference in lives, today or potentially in the future. Thanks for posting and all the best with figuring out the next steps!
Any possibility for an ePub/Mobi (for reading on ereader etc)
Inspired by an EA Melbourne planning event yesterday, we came up with concept of having a subtle but visible visual tag for posts/replies by folks who are in the same city as you (opt in option in your profile), to help build more in-person community and potential collaboration.
Great effort on the project, and appreciate the open sharing which helps everyone out 👏
Perhaps another way to frame it might be to count the time and money outside of the your donation bucket? As in, donation budget is rational/effective, and everything else can be included as part of discretionary spending on personal/wellbeing? eg- same bucket as hobbies, travel etc.
Not sure if this might simplify things mentally and guard against motivated reasoning and slippery slope concerns
I don’t think it’s so important to have someone who fully aligns with the values. There are many great marketing execs in industry who don’t use their companies products, or maybe only partially identify with things personally. My suggestion—hire an executive recruiting firm focused on this sector, and ask them to target some of the most successful brands in the broader charity / social enterprise / commercial+impact space or in ad agencies who did the work. Or consider bringing in hired guns on a contract/project basis (or outsource it to an experienced agency). This is a critical brand turnaround project. Let’s not try to DIY