Tech founder turned impact investor & aspiring EA.
Am doing 4 active EA projects:
EA Talkmasters—improve public speaking in a friendly supportive group
BetterBite.vc—Alt protein VC in Asia
GoalsWon.com—accountability coaching app
EAforKids.org—EA storybooks for kids
Simon Newstead
Karma: 199
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
There are calculators out there, like this simple one from the UN for example: https://offset.climateneutralnow.org/footprintcalc
(includes lifestyle factors like meat as well as travel)
Aim to finish up 2023 having donated:
16k to AI safety / long term future
9k to animal suffering
4k to global health / well-being
This year wanted to shift more toward existential risk, vs last year which was mostly global health and well being—given the increased concerns and seemingly accelerating timelines.
Also put money into EA community side-projects:10k for accountability coaching app (pro-bono for EAs)
3k for EA kids storybook project
Happy with the year—also took the GivingWhatWeCan pledge—better late than never!
ps—thanks for all the folks working hard in non-profits, fighting the good fight...
Thanks and likewise, got and continue to get a lot out of Toastmasters, and trying to extend that benefit to EA community, especially those who can’t get to a local club in person. Please use the same form, organizing the next event shortly and will reach out to all the emails via the form to call for roles etc. Thanks
Thanks for sharing the experience, can resonate with the emotional rollercoaster—always the challenge to figure out how to soften the lows and maintain separation when the failures and setbacks inevitably happen but still be able to enjoy and celebrate the wins and little steps forward.
Agreed about the increased need to to consciously plan for physical/mental health to help provide a strong foundation for taking on this type of role.
Sure, we self studied from an agenda that the two of us put together:
- those 3 books
- some clearer thinking modules (great resource)
- practicing forecasting on metaculus
- reading some other articles and interviews
Here’s a doc with all the details (also contains book notes if it’s of info)
Our venture capital fund (alt protein) recently did training into forecasting and decision making (based on approach from Superforecasting, How to Decide, The Scout mindset).
As a result, we’re currently revamping our evaluation process to attempt to reduce bias and explicitly think in terms of scenarios, probabilities and expected value return multiples, rather than our old approach of guesstimating the likely outcome and scoring around that single scenario (we’re also participating in some forecasting exercises to help us understand possible paths for the technology in more detail)
So far the key obstacles are to figure out how to adopt these new techniques without spending vastly more time in analysis, leaving us less time on generating dealflow and also making founders wait longer for feedback and go/no go decisions.
Another practical challenge is the actual nuts and bolts of how to take various expert inputs and then actually come up with the predictions (Superforecasting doesn’t really go into the details).
Thanks for the analysis.
Curious about the big difference in effective per-person costs between this intervention in Ecuador vs in sub-Saharan Africa, is there any main factor that leads to the much lower cost in Latin America.
Congrats on the launch!
Curious about how it scales, does the training of facilitators take place always in person, I could imagine over 100 hours is quite a long time to spend to get new recruits up and going, and would they be able to attend it if they are from a remote area etc?
Are orgs / movements like Doctors without Borders, Greenpeace, Peace Corps , Rotary etc considered relatively high trust too?
2022 donations in USD:
5k to Maternal Health Initiative (new CE org, family planning in Africa)
5k to Vida Plena (new CE org, mental health in LATAM)
2k to Giving What We Can fund (short and longtermism causes)
2k to Cellular Agriculture Australia (developing cell ag industry)Donated to own EA projects:
22k to GoalsWon (accountability coaching app, pro-bono for EAs)
1k to EA for Kids (EA storybook creation started)
Overall happy with the year, the best yet for contributions both directly and investing in own EA projects. Also thankful for all the collaboration and advice from the community.
Agreed, physical is the real end target, though it’s nice to be able to test/refine on ebook before committing to printing costs. Thanks!
Hey, great to hear that and sure, let’s swap notes and help each other out as we go!
Agreed stories are powerful, and the sentimental value can also remain strong over years.
If someone is thinking what book to give to a niece, or friend’s kid, or their own kid in the future, they might think of those classics like The Giving Tree they resonated with years back…
(I’m imagining all those millions of young parents starting to read Harry Potter to their own kids now...)
Still figuring it out, but most likely in 2-5 year old range where kids are just old enough to grasp concepts, but still enjoy getting lost with their parents in a tale that sparks their imagination.
Looking forward to your and your niece’s feedback later!
Thanks Devon, looking forward to the feedback.
The illustrated philosophy book for older kids sounds like a great idea, and could be helpful for parents as well who can learn new things while reading with the child. Nice you have a “deadline” for it :)
As an early stage VC, checklists we and others use typically cover all the basics such as: who is on the board, what requires board consent, what is the past history of investor updates, what conflicts of interest exist and mechanisms to resolve them etc
All things that should have, if press reports are accurate, provided ample red flags prior to an investment, even before getting into forensic accounting etc.
Fear of missing out on a competitive round can drive normally savvy investors to skip or discount results of the normal dd process.
Thanks Sanjay, similarly this was sparked by wanting an a EA storybook for our kid as well.
There are some wonderful kindness and empathy books (eg- “We are all kind” by P. Crumble and Jonathan Bentley) but would be great to have some more aligned with EA principles and ideas.
As for evidence, agreed.
I aim to do a more deep dive during the book creation process, but the initial skim of the literature seems encouraging, with some research showing potential transfer effects of morals/cultural attitudes to kids through storybooks, particularly at younger ages.
A nice summary article is here: https://theconversation.com/why-stories-matter-for-childrens-learning-52135
That said, I’ll share a more structured post once I’ve gone into the primary sources, before the ebook launch.If such evidence is strong, agree that makes the project more impactful (and vice versa) - that is, beyond simply satisfying the desire for such a book from fellow EA parents
Appreciate you joining, and looking forward to the feedback...
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.