utilistrutil's Quick takes

By utilistrutil @ 2022-08-02T00:35 (+1)

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utilistrutil @ 2022-08-02T00:35 (+1)

EAG SF Was Too Boujee.

I have no idea what the finances for the event looked like, but I'll assume the best case that CEA at least broke even.

The conference seemed extravagant to me. We don't need so much security or staff walking around to collect our empty cups. How much money was spent to secure an endless flow of wine? There were piles of sweaters left at the end; attendees could opt in with their sizes ahead of time to calibrate the order.

Particularly in light of recent concerns about greater funding, it would behoove us to consider the harms of an opulent EAG to our optics, culture, and values. And even if EAGs are self-sustaining, we should still be vigilant regarding the opportunity cost of the money spent on a conference ticket. An attendee seems more likely to fund their ticket out of their "donations bucket" than their "white wine and cheesecake bucket."

I'm not saying we need maximal asceticism; I'm sure there are large benefits to a comfortable conference experience in a good venue. But as a critical thread in the fabric of our community, EAG presents a unique opportunity for us to practice and affirm our values. We can do better.

A couple qualifications: I've only been to a couple non-EA conferences. Maybe conferences are generally quite fancy, and the EAG organizers are anchoring to a standard I'm not familiar with. Second, I have great faith in CEA, and I would not be surprised if they face non-negotiable requirements—eg with respect to personnel—imposed by the city or venue. 

Eli_Nathan @ 2022-08-04T15:40 (+17)

Hi — I’m Eli from the EA Global team. Thanks for your thoughts on this — appreciate your concerns here. I’ll try to chip in with some context that may be helpful. To address your main underlying point, my take is that EA Globals have incredibly high returns on investment — EA orgs and members of the community report incredibly large amounts of value from our events. For example:

  • An attendee from an EA-aligned org said they would probably trade $5 million in donations for the contacts they made at EAGxBoston.
  • Another EA-aligned org reporting that they’ve gotten a minimum of $1.25 million worth of value from connections they’ve made at EAG(x)’s.

This pushes me in the direction of spending more money if it will help make the event better and facilitate more connections between members of the community — though of course we don’t want to spend money unnecessarily or in any way that would be particularly flashy. Another point is that, whilst niceness/spending can be a turn off to some, the reverse can be a turn off to others (e.g., a poorly furnished/not as nice venue could turn off potential donors) — and it can be hard to trade off the preferences between these two groups. To address some other more minor details in your post:

  • It’s not actually feasible for us to collect sweatshirt sizes in advance, as many/most people apply and register quite late in the day (applications close two weeks before the event). Given that we were customizing such a large number of sweatshirts, these needed to be ordered several weeks in advance. I do think we could have gotten smaller sizes on the whole though, as most of the leftover sweatshirts were XL or similar.
  • Alcohol is generally done “on consumption” at EAG events (though I don’t know whether this was exactly the case this time) — meaning that CEA is only billed for the alcohol that is consumed, and any bottles of wine not used are not charged to us. Compared to most non-EA events, our attendees actually drink much less than average, and the caterers/beverage staff are always quite surprised by this. I think there’s a benefit to there being alcohol available (as it makes some people less socially anxious). An alternative to our current setup could be something like “each person gets two drinks”, but then we’d need to track this and it’s unlikely to come out to a significantly lower cost anyway. Another option is having people pay for their own drinks, but that seems unfair to those with less financial stability.
  • The security staff on site was fairly necessary as the venue had multiple entrances/exists and was adjacent to a public park frequented by tourists. Without the security team, members of the public would have just flooded into the venue (which would be bad for several reasons). We selected the venue in question because it had a bunch of outside space and we weren't sure what the COVID situation was going to be so far in advance. Additionally, for a crowd of ~1500 people, there just aren't that many suitable venues anyway (most are too small, some are too big).
  • At an event of ~1500 people, “staff taking away cups” is more of a cleaning exercise rather than a way to pamper attendees. Without this, the trash buildup would likely be substantial.
utilistrutil @ 2022-08-10T01:27 (+1)

Thanks for the reply! I'm satisfied with your answer and appreciate the thought you've put into this area :) I do have a couple follow-ups if you have a chance to share further:

I expected to hear about the value of the connections made at EAG, but I'm not sure how to think about the counterfactual here. Surely some people choose to meet up at EAG but in the absence of the conference would have connected virtually, for example? 

I also wonder about the cause areas of the EA-aligned orgs you cited. Ie, I could imagine longtermist orgs that are more talent-constrained estimating higher dollar value for a connection than, say, a global health org that is more funding-constrained. So I think EAs with different priorities might have different bliss points for conference funding levels.

It also seems like there might be tension between more veteran vs newcomer EAs? Eg, people who have been in the fold for longer might prefer simpler arrangements. In particular, I worry about pandering to "potential donors." Who are these donors who are unaligned to the extent that their conference experience will determine the size of their future donations? Even if they do exist, this seems like  a reason to have a "VIP ticket" or something.

Ultimately, the conference budget is one lens that raises the question, who is EAG for? And I wonder if that question is resolved in favor of longtermist orgs and new donors, at least right now.

Eli_Nathan @ 2022-08-10T23:21 (+2)

No problem! I probably won't be able to respond to your later points, just because the answers would be complicated and I'd have to go into a lot of detail re how I think about EAG. But to answer some of your other questions:

1. I don't have concrete data on the counterfactual likelihood of connections, but I expect that it's not that high (very strong confidence that it's <50% of connections). There's no obvious way for many these people to connect virtually, other than attending a virtual EA conference, and I think there are also strong benefits to meeting in person (as well as the possibility of group discussions and meetups). My rough guess would also be that people in general are less interested in virtual conferences than in-person ones, meaning that there are a bunch of counterfactual connections here.

2. The org that said they’d gotten a minimum of $1.25 million worth of value from connections they’ve made at EAG(x)’s was a global health and development org. I don't know exactly who said that they would trade $5 million in donations for the contacts they made at EAGxBoston, but my guess is that this was someone working in a longtermist/x-risk field (someone on my team told me about this feedback, I didn't receive it directly myself).

Annabella Wheatley @ 2022-08-02T20:20 (+6)

I really agree. I think there is large benefits to things being “comfy” eg having good food and snacks, nice areas to sit and socialise etc etc however it makes me feel super icky attending fancy EAGs. (I also don’t know how standard this is for conferences). 

Unlimited beverages has got to be unnecessary (and expensive).