Free-Wheeling, Personality-Driven EA Conversations

By Mjreard @ 2025-10-07T02:51 (+47)

Chana Messinger (80k’s head of video, formerly of CEA’s Community Health team) and I (Matt Reardon, formerly of 80k) have been recording Expected Volume (Apple, Spotify),^[1] a podcast of unscripted conversations between us and and some great guests from across the community, including:

1. Andy Masley
2. Phil Trammell
3. Conor Barnes
4. Daniel Filan
5. Alex Lawsen
6. Trevor Levin
7. Julia Wise

Topics vary widely, but we often touch on EA history, community dynamics, politics, and religion, with some personal revelations about us and our guests mixed in. Some highlights include:

• Chana being very gracious with my episode-long critique of her whole job (making AI-first YouTube videos for 80k)
• Phil Trammell explaining why equities consistently go up (and why you shouldn’t "just buy all the stocks”)
• Andy Masley on his burgeoning environmental impacts of AI work on his incredible blog which you should all read
• Julia Wise answering the question of whether I’m an EA given my non-impact-oriented intentions. Julia also told some amazing stories about teaching her kids about ethics and vegetarianism in particular

The latest episode with Julia is our best work so far (with possible competition from episode 1 with Andy and episode 5 on 80k’s AI 2027 video).

In the future, we’ll be more focused on a single theme and probably drop our running gag of the guest being a surprise to Chana. We may also adopt a new thumbnail style. 

Theory of change

As we established in the Julia episode, I’m not really impact-maxing pilled, but I am excited about a more free-wheeling, personality-driven EA. A quick take on each in turn:

Free-wheeling: I’ve written about excessive caution and defensiveness in EA, and wanted to help normalize EAs just saying whatever they thought *without* playing 5D comms-chess in their head the whole time. EA’s original takeoff had a lot to do with people giving spicy takes online when they felt they had little to lose. That’s still true and we should act like it! 

Personality-driven: There are *so many* fascinating and fun-to-talk-to people in EA land who aren’t field-defining researchers or org leaders who might show up on the 80k podcast. Chana in particular is among the most interesting and charismatic people in our community, yet you’d have to stumble on her in person somehow to ever know this! That shouldn’t be the case. Many of our guests are similarly great and hidden. 

How this helps: EA is over-professionalized in how it’s presented. You read a blog, listen to a podcast, join a local/uni group and the call to action is always “get a job in this field X.” If you merely like the ideas and want to swim in the waters, have fun, and make friends, the sense can be “you’re doing it wrong.” So the podcast is a bid for making that feel more right. 

Our call to action is “here’s a controversy, hear us out, have a take, chat about it with someone. That’s it." The hope is that the (low stakes, easy) conversations it sparks can provide some of the social glue that keeps people engaged with EA ideas and styles of thinking that doesn't feel like work. 

I think we want this. EA circles are a regular source of the most interesting conversations people might have in a given month. If that’s the primary way people engage with EA, many more people can clear that barrier to entry. Cast a wide net, have a broad base of social support for people doing high impact work and donating. Improve the vibe, make EA salient. 

Feedback

So listen to the show and let us know what you think. You can email us at mattandchana [at] gmail or of course comment here. 

We are also very interested if anyone has alternative suggestions for naming the show or would like to submit a new channel icon for us, or volunteer to make better thumbnail art. 

Finally we would be very grateful if you liked, subscribed, rated, commented, and did all the rest on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or other podcast apps – just search for “Expected Volume” and find our horrifying, maybe soon-to-change channel icon:

1. ^{^}

   In our personal capacities. No one is paying us for this and I'm kind of embarrassed I feel the need to clarify.