Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸

Karma: 7,454

I lead Product at Momentum, and care about making funding for high impact causes more robust & diversified. I’m based in the Bay Area, advise Asia-based community builders and run Pineapple Ops. I previously worked in consulting, recruiting and marketing, with a BA in Sociology and focused on social movements. (A little on my journey to EA)

Unless otherwise stated, I always write in a personal capacity.

/’vɛðehi/ or VEH-the-hee

Some posts I’ve written and particuarly like:

Advice I frequently give:

When in doubt, apply*
What Ops in EA is like
If you’re running a retreat, nail the vibes and venue
Add randomness to your conferences

I’m always keen to hear feedback: admonymous.co/vaidehiagarwalla

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Dec 7, 2023, 6:35 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Kaleem’s comment on: Kaleem’s Shortform
I’d love to know more about what the people you’ve spoken to have said—e.g. what kinds of accountability or transparency are they looking for?

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Nov 26, 2023, 7:55 PM
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: Elizabeth’s Quick takes
I’m not sure (my active intro cb days were ~2019), but I think it is possibly still in the intro syllabus ? You could add a disclaimer at the top.

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Nov 26, 2023, 3:42 PM
2 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: Elizabeth’s Quick takes
I’m not on LW very often, how frequently do you see these emojis being used?

From a UX perspective, I agree with Akash—it seems like there are way too many options and my prior is that people wouldn’t use >80% of them.

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Nov 26, 2023, 3:35 PM
7 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: Elizabeth’s Quick takes
I think this might be a good top level post—would be keen for you more people to see and discuss this point

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Nov 21, 2023, 11:26 PM
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: The EA Animal Welfare Fund (Once Again) Has Significant Room For More Funding
Is AWF considering hiring a fundraiser to help fill this funding gap?

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Nov 21, 2023, 11:04 PM
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Impactful Animal Advocacy: Building Community Infrastructure
Thanks for this! A few questions:
1. Of the 100 strategic pairings you did, how would you break down the impact / what was the outcome of the pairings?
2. how do you think the AI for animals group will benefit animals? E.g. what kind of concrete outcomes do you expect to see?
3. do you have a user survey or feedback on the relative value of the different services you provide? How do you prioritize between different initiatives?

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 24, 2023, 8:03 PM
5 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: RyanCarey’s comment on: Monetary and social incentives in longtermist careers
These are all great points. I was planning to add this into the main post, but I don’t think it ended up in the final draft—so thanks for raising this!

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 23, 2023, 9:05 PM
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸’s comment on: vaidehi_agarwalla’s Shortform
Update: It’s posted! https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SWfwmqnCPid8PuTBo/monetary-and-social-incentives-in-longtermist-careers

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 22, 2023, 5:51 AM
18 points
9 ∶ 0
in reply to: Thomas Kwa’s comment on: There should be more AI safety orgs
“Less than half of this round of MATS scholars were funded for independent research.”

-> Its not clear to me what exactly the bar for independent research should be. It seems like it’s not a great fit for a lot of people, and I expect it to be incredibly hard to do it well as a relatively junior person. So it doesn’t have to be a bad thing that some MATS scholars didn’t get funding.

Also, I don’t necessarily think that orgs being unable to hire is in and of itself a sign of a funding bottleneck. I think you’d first need to make the case that these organisations are crossing a certain impact threshold.

(I do believe AIS lacks diversify of funders and agree with your overall point).

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 21, 2023, 1:49 PM
8 points
4 ∶ 3
in reply to: Guy Raveh’s comment on: Announcing the Meta Coordination Forum 2023
My understanding is that the main reason people wouldn’t want to publicize their involvement is to minimize reputation risk(most likely because of FTX). For those doing direct work it could hurt their ability to engage with non-EA actors. I think this is a pretty compelling reason not to publicize your involvement.

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 17, 2023, 12:15 AM
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: vaidehi_agarwalla’s Shortform
I was going to post something for careers week but it was delayed for various reasons (including the mandatory last minute rewrite). I plan to post it in the next couple of weeks.

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 10, 2023, 10:55 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: David M’s comment on: Announcing the Meta Coordination Forum 2023
Ah yes thanks! Meant to delete this.

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 9, 2023, 10:07 PM
15 points
6 ∶ 1
on: Say sorry to the people who you (accidentally) ghosted at EAG
An easier approach might be to mention on your Swapcard profile that you may not be able to respond to everyone who reaches out before the conference.

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 9, 2023, 7:56 PM
7 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: David_Moss’s comment on: vaidehi_agarwalla’s Shortform
There are people who I would consider “EA” who I wouldn’t consider a “community member” (e.g. if they were not engaging much with other people in the community professionally or socially), but I’d be surprised if they label themselves “EA” (maybe they want to keep their identity small, or don’t like being associated with the EA community).
I think there’s actually one class of people I’ve forgotten—which is “EA professionals”—someone who might professionally collaborate or even work at an EA-aligned organization, but doesn’t see themselves as part of the community. So they would treat an EAG as a purely professional conference (vs. a community event).

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 9, 2023, 7:45 PM
54 points
15 ∶ 5
on: Announcing the Meta Coordination Forum 2023
Thanks for sharing this post, this is a really positive step forward in transparency, I especially appreciated the list of attendees and description of the structure of the Forum. I like that there will be assigned owners of different projects, and I hope that outcomes of the Forum and information on initiatives that came out of it will also be shared with the community.
TL:DR;
I think that ultimately, issues pertinent to the community need to have meaningful, two way, sustained engagement with the community. I’d like to see participation from more “regular” community members as well who will add necessary and valuable perspectives to understand our community better and help improve it.
I believe there is a need for two different spaces—one for leaders to coordinate with each other, and one for a dialogue to be had. But I think the latter is essential to informing the agenda of the former. I’d love for the community survey to be a first step towards creating that second space. Perhaps something like what I’m describing could even be the kind of thing that’s discussed during the Forum.
To elaborate:
Often I think the term “EA community” or “community building” can be used to mean different things. I think there’s a difference between efforts towards “EA the movement” vs those (perhaps more internally facing) “EA the community. For example, funding a new organization to target policy professionals for AI governance would “EA the movement” decision (even though it’s community building), while improving sexual misconduct practices would be “EA the community”.
From the post, I understand that the forum’s remit is both “movement” and “community”(emphasis mine):
only focused on the “meta”/community-building space rather than object-level decisions in any cause area.
and is
aimed at improving the trajectories of EA and related communities”
They are of course very intertwined, and from the events of the past year it is likely that community concerns will be an important topic of conversation.
For such issues, I think it’s essential for there to be meaningful dialogue between (regular, representative) community members and EA decision-makers and leaders, and more mechanisms by which community members can systematically raise concerns that are directly relevant to them (e.g. a place to see current issues, how much support there is for addressing those issues, potential solutions being considered & worked on, etc.)
I think that in any community, leaders will likely not always be aware of what is happening “on-the-ground”, and that there are many systemic, power-differential related reasons that they won’t always be getting the information they need. I wouldn’t be surprised if this has improved post-FTX, but I’m pretty sure we have a ways to go in this regard.
Up until now, leaders haven’t prioritized this very highly (even if they believe it’s important). I think this is because there has historically been a lack of clarity as to whose responsibility managing the community is. The community itself has grown faster than the community infrastructure could keep up.
I don’t think setting up the infrastructure to allow for this dialogue to occur is trivial or easy. It’s costly to do well. It requires investment from leaders and others who would work on these issues full time. The work is (often emotionally) hard, unrewarding, and sometimes it’s not clear if you’ve had an impact. That being said, I believe it is essential infrastructure to make this community sustainable and health (and allow it to grow).
What links here?
- Rockwell's comment on Announcing the Meta Coordination Forum 2023 by Sophie Thomson (Sep 12, 2023, 5:44 PM; 50 points)

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 9, 2023, 7:42 PM
0 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Announcing the Meta Coordination Forum 2023
Do you have plan to share the results of the community survey?

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 9, 2023, 3:00 PM
7 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Career Conversations Week on the Forum (8-15 September)
I like that you’ve included some older posts in the sequence—lots of great content that gets lost because the Forum can be a newsfeed.
I’d love to nominate some posts for consideration. Some were very influential at the time and garnered some good discussion, continue to be solid advice or have interesting insights:
SHOW: A framework for shaping your talent for direct work (I like that it focuses a lot on getting outside of EA to build your career)
High absorbency career paths (helpful at a more career meta level rather than individual decision-making, but it’s useful for explaining why there are limited jobs in EA)
The Cost of Rejection (I don’t necessarily agree with all the conclusions, but I think the topic is important and deserves discussion—how can we, as a community, help each other be more resilient to rejection, and are there things which potential employers can do?)
Don’t Be Bycatch (I think this post is memorable /motivational and has good advice. Disclaimer: the author is a friend and we’ve worked on career-related projects together)
EA is a Career Endpoint (A shorter & more motivational flavor than the SHOW framework. Again, I like it because it’s memorable and a useful reference. I feel I’ve used this phrase or something similar more frequently than the SHOW framework. Disclaimer: the author is a friend and we’ve worked on career-related projects together)
EA jobs provide scarce non-monetary goods (I’ve referenced this post several times in my previous writing and think it’s really solid.)
What to do with people? (When I first read this I found it a really helpful framing. I think it’s more useful for meta career discussions)

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 9, 2023, 2:15 PM
26 points
8 ∶ 1
on: vaidehi_agarwalla’s Shortform
(Pretty confident about the choice, but finding it hard to explain the rationale)

I have started using “member of the EA community” vs “EAs” when I write publicly.

Previously I cared a lot less about using these terms interchangeabley, mainly because referring to myself as an EA didn’t seem inaccurate, it’s quicker and I don’t really see it as tying my identity closely to EA, but over time have changed my mind for a few reasons:

Many people I would consider “EA” in the sense that they work on high impact causes, socially engage with other community members etc. don’t consider themselves EA, might I think would likely consider themselves community members. I wonder if they read things about what “EAs” should do and don’t think it applies to them.

Using the term “an EA” contributes to the sense that there is one (monolithic?) identity that’s very core to a person’s being. E.g. if you leave the community do you lose a core part of your identity?

Finally it also helps be specific about the correct reference class. E.g consider terms like “core EAs” with “leaders of EA-aligned organisations” or “decision makers at leading EA meta organisations” or “thought leaders of the EA community”. (there is also a class for people who don’t directly wield power but have influence over decision makers, I’m not sure what a good phrase to describe this role is).

Interested in thoughts!

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 9, 2023, 1:49 PM
6 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Amateur Systems Analyst’s comment on: When in doubt, apply*
Thank you! >25% that you’d take the job.

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸Sep 8, 2023, 6:21 PM
17 points
8 ∶ 0
in reply to: Rockwell’s comment on: Sharing Information About Nonlinear
There are alternatives that are dramatically less monetarily and time-intensive, and more likely to lead to productive outcomes.
Could you say more about the alternatives approaches?