Hi EA Forum,
I'm Holden Karnofsky I'm here to answer any questions about jobs at Open Philanthropy. I'll be here today from 9:30am to 12:30pm Pacific time (with some breaks) and will likely respond to comments later on as well.
We'd hate to miss out on strong applicants because of misconceptions about the roles, so I hope people will ask whatever is on their mind, on topics from office environment to day-to-day work to the likely long-term trajectory of the role. I think Open Philanthropy jobs are among the best possible ways for effective altruists to have impact, and I hope anyone who could imagine performing well in these jobs will at least consider applying!
Please post different questions as separate comments, for discussion threading.
Looking forward to it!
Added 12:32pm Pacific time: This concludes the "official" portion of the AMA, but feel free to post more questions; we may respond to them later on!
1a. Has Open Phil set any aggressive org-wide goals or timelines for 2018?
1b. The published plan for 2018 says that OPP expects to give "well over $100 million" [1]. What is this expectation based on? Or is it a goal?
2a. Other than current funders, who considers the research coming from Open Phil RAs to be reputable, credible and useful? (ie. government?)
2b. Does it matter that RAs aren't PhDs or that Open Phil isn't directly affiliated with any educational institution?
[1] https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/our-progress-2017-and-plans-2018
Quick replies to each:
1a. Our goals for 2018 are laid out in the post you linked to.
1b. The expectation is based mostly on the fact that we gave well over $100 million last year, and we're devoting similar time and effort to grantmaking in 2018.
2a. Open Phil is still a fairly new organization, and I don't think many know much about us yet. Probably we are best known in the effective altruism community, where we seem to have a strong reputation.
2b. Does it matter for our reputation, do you mean? I'm not sure. I'm not aware of us having received critiques about that.