OllieBase's Quick takes

I say this at EAGx events and in various posts, but I still don't think I say it enough: running EAGx events is a huge amount of work, and most of this work is done by dedicated and hard-working EA community members and national group staff. My colleagues and I support these teams, but I think we get too much credit.

I'm continuously impressed by EAGx teams; their thoughtfulness, their focus on impact and the sheer amount of effort they put into ensuring these events go well (and they do). There's not been a team I haven't enjoyed working with.

I think there's more I could do to make working on EAGx events more enjoyable/efficient/worthwhile, but at the very least I want to be extremely open about my (and CEA's) gratitude towards these people for all they do, have done and will do.

Applications to EAGxBerlin, EAGxAustralia and EAGxPhilippines are open, and Berlin closes tonight. (Adding this because these teams would probably rather I promote their events than just thank them)

Congratulations to the EA Project For Awesome 2024 team, who managed to raise over $100k for AMF, GiveDirectly and ProVeg International by submitting promotional/informational videos to the project.

There's been an effort to raise money for effective charities via Project For Awesome since 2017, and it seems like a really productive effort every time. Thanks to all involved! 

EA Global: Bay Area 2025 will take place 21-23 February 2025 at the Oakland Marriott (the same venue as the past two years). Information on how to apply and other details to follow, just an FYI for now since we have the date.

Sharing a piece of advice I've given to a few people about applying for (EA) funding.

I've heard various people working on early-stage projects express hesitancy about applying for EA funding because their plan isn't "complete" enough. They don't feel confident enough in their proposal, or think what they're asking for is too small. They seem to assume that EA funders only want to look at proposals with a long time-horizons from applicants who will work full-time who are confident their plan will work.

In my experience (I've done various bits of grantmaking and regularly talk to EA funders), grantmakers in EA spaces are generally happy to receive applications that don't have these qualities. It's okay to apply if you just want to test a project out for a few months; maybe you won't be full-time, maybe you aren't confident in some part of the theory of change, maybe it's just a few months. You should apply and just explain your thinking, including all of your uncertainties.

Funders are uncertain too, and often prefer to fund tests for a few months than commit to multi-year projects with full-time staff because tests give them useful information about you and the theory of change. Ideally, funders eventually support long-term projects too.

I'm not super confident in this take, but I ran it past a few EA funders and they agreed. Note that I think this probably doesn't apply outside of EA; I understand many grant applications require detailed plans.

I'm pretty excited about picnics.

Picnics, or more specifically, free, inclusive events which take place outdoors, probably with cheap or bring-your-own food, seem like a great EA community event format:

• They're cheap - venue and food are often the most expensive line items for events, but this format radically reduces the cost for both.
• They help attendees connect - connections are one of the key sources of value from EAG/x events, and picnics help people connect without any frills.
• They're easy to scale - we see increasing returns to scale for EA community-building events and picnics allow you to reach a lot of people without much additional work per attendee (assuming you choose a large enough park).
• They're relaxed - no admissions, no stages, no microphones, soft grass and hopefully sun. Seems like a great environment to meet other people in.
• They're good for the COVID-cautious - no masks required!

Obviously, this isn't my idea: EA NYC and EA Oxford held them recently and they seemed well-attended, and there's another one in SF this weekend. I just wanted to give this idea a shout-out. There could be value in something like an "EA picnic day" where a tonne of EA groups host a picnic on the same day, one in every major city. 

Next month, two EAGx events are happening in new locations: Austin and Copenhagen!

Applications for these events are closing soon:

• Apply to EAGxAustin by this Sunday, March 31
• Apply to EAGxNordics by April 7

These conferences are primarily for people who are at least familiar with the core ideas of effective altruism and are interested in learning more about what to do with these ideas. We're particularly excited to welcome people working professionally in the EA space to connect with others nearby and provide mentorship to those new to the space.

If you want to attend but are unsure about whether to apply, please err on the side of applying!

If you've applied to attend an EA Global or EAGx event before, you can use the same application for either event.

I often hear (and sometimes think) that EA is still "mostly students" and that means we need to outreach to "actual adults" more. I checked, and 45% of my Twitter followers (EA-heavy, I think) thought the average was 25 or lower.

If EAG attendance is anything to go by, this picture seems basically false. The median EAG attendee is 28.2 years old (mean 29.2). EAGx is not that far behind, with a mean of 27. The average age of the 2022 EA survey respondent was 26.

It seems likely that the culture of university EA groups could be improved. I’ve also heard other pessimistic/critical takes on EA uni group organising lately.

In the spirit of claiming that “EA is often actually good” (sometimes a surprisingly hot take), I wanted to rave about EA Warwick, the EA uni group I was part of several years ago and what people from that group have accomplished since, possibly in part because of that group. For context, Warwick is a barely-top-10 UK university where a Giving What We Can group formed quite early (~2012?). 

Alumni of EA Warwick (~2014 - 2020) include:

• A research scholar at the Centre for the Governance of AI
• An independent research consultant working with EA orgs
• A senior ops role at a major safety-focused AI lab
• A leadership team member at Open Philanthropy
• A senior researcher at Rethink Priorities
• A research fellow at the Global Priorities Institute
• A senior biosecurity researcher at the University of Oxford
• A PhD student in reinforcement learning, focused on AI alignment
• A research analyst at the Center on Long-term Risk
• A researcher at Founders Pledge
• A research fellow at the Cambridge Existential Risk Initiative
• A team member at EA Cambridge
• An Economic Adviser to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
• Me

And many other people who I’ve either forgotten or who are pursuing other (likely awesome) non-EA things. Feel free to mention if you're an alumni! 

Again, I’m unsure to what extent these people would credit EA Warwick with influencing their career path, if at all. I'm also unsure if the model EA Warwick used is the right model for today's context.

But still, I think this is pretty neat. If I helped any of these people (other than me) get into these careers even a little bit while I was organising this group, that’s something I’m very proud of.

I found this finding in the MCF 2024 survey interesting:

The average value to an organization of their most preferred over their second most preferred candidate, in a typical hiring round, was estimated to be $50,737 (junior hire) and $455,278 (senior hire).

This survey was hard and only given to a small number of people, so we shouldn't read too much into the specific numbers, but I think it's still a data point against putting significant weight on replacability concerns if you have a job offer for an org you consider impactful. 

Survey respondents here (who all work at EA orgs like Open Phil, 80k, CEA, Giving What We Can) are saying that if they make someone a job offer, they would need to receive, in the typical case for junior staff, tens of thousands of dollars to be indifferent about that person taking the job instead of the next best candidate. As someone who's been involved in several hiring rounds, this sounds plausible to me.

If you get a job offer from an org you consider impactful, I suggest not putting significant weight on the idea that the next best candidate could also take the role and have just as much or more impact as you, unless you have a good reason to think you're in an atypical situation. There's often a (very) large gap!

FYI the question posed was:

Imagine a typical hiring round for a [junior/senior] position within your organization. How much financial compensation would you expect to need to receive to make you indifferent about hiring your second most preferred applicant, rather than your most preferred applicant?

(there's a debate to be had about how "EA org receiving X in financial compensation" compares to "value to the world in $ terms" or "value in EA-aligned donations" but I stand by the above bolded claim).

Full disclosure: I work at CEA and helped build the survey, so I'm somewhat incentivised to say this work was interesting and valuable.

We're really excited to announce the following sessions for EA Global: Boston, which kicks off in just two weeks time:

- Fireside chat with Iqbal Dhaliwal, Global Executive Director of JPAL. 
- Rachel Silverman Bonnifield, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, on the current state of the global movement to eliminate childhood lead poisoning.
- A workshop on Anthropic's Responsible Scaling Policy, led by Zac Hatfield-Dodds, Technical Staff at Anthropic.

Applications close Sunday! More info and how to apply on our website.