TLDR: In February, I moved to Da Nang, Vietnam, to live and work with a group of EA people I mostly hadn't met. See our website and original forum post here. We're now extending until July, and we have room for more people^[1]. If you're working on something impact-focused and want to spend a few weeks or months doing it surrounded by cool people, then come stay with us and join our Discord!  We're really excited to grow our community. The rest of this post is my honest account of why this has been one of the better decisions I've made.

I'm bad at networking

I've always struggled with conference 1-on-1s. Luckily, I think trust is built more through many small interactions in different contexts. At a coliving hub, you have many shots. You see the same people at dinner. You overhear them on calls. You watch how they react when their code doesn't work. You see how they deal with unique and stressful situations. You watch them change their mind about something. After three weeks of this, you know whether you'd want to work with them in a way that no 30-minute conversation could ever tell you, and they know the same about you without you ever having to answer the question "so what are you good at?" What I found in Da Nang is that decompressing people takes time, and it's worth it. I don't need to book 1-on-1s anymore. I have many small conversations.

Accountability

"Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself. You'll rise together." - James Clear, Atomic Habits

I have personal projects. I suspect you have personal projects. We both know how that goes.

The thing about working at a coliving hub is that other people can see you. When I'm at home, I can rationalize a slow day very easily. When I'm sitting across from someone who's clearly focused, rationalization becomes harder. The presence of other people working reminds me that work is a thing that can be done right now. Today. By humans.

Flying across the world puts you in a different headspace

There's something about the act of physically relocating that signals to your brain that things are different now. I don't fully understand the mechanism, but I think it's related to how novelty and commitment interact. If I'd just decided to Take My Work More Seriously while staying in the same apartment, I could un-decide that just as easily. Buying a plane ticket is a commitment device. You've made a bet on yourself.

I can't talk to my family about my job

You can probably relate. My family are good people, but if I tell them I'm worried about AI timelines or the welfare of invertebrates or whether my current path has good counterfactual impact, the conversation doesn't go anywhere useful. I'm not blaming them. These are uncommon things to worry about, and it requires a lot of shared context to engage with them meaningfully.

Here, I can say "I'm not sure I'm working on the most important thing" and the response isn't "well you're Doing Your Best." It's "okay, let's think about that. What are your actual constraints? What would you do if you weren't doing this?"

Quick feedback loops

Remote work has a latency problem. If I want a second opinion on something, I have to write a message, wait for someone to be available, explain the context, and then get a response that may or may not have actually engaged with the thing I was confused about.^[2]

Here, I say "hey, could you look at this for a second?" and two minutes later I have a real reaction from a real person who saw the actual thing. This sounds small. It is not small. A large fraction of my best decisions in the last two months has come from exactly this kind of ambient, low-stakes feedback.

In-person coordination is fast

We organized a trip for 15 people in just a few hours. We hired a van driver, booked accommodation, planned tickets. We decided to do it four days before it happened. The total cost was under $25 per person for the weekend. 

Being physically present collapses coordination costs dramatically. When you can just walk up to someone and ask "are you in?", the answer comes back immediately, and the group forms before anyone has time to overthink it.

Sounds like a bubble

A common objection I hear is that EA coliving hubs are echo chambers. Everyone agrees on everything, ideas don't get challenged, and you end up in an epistemic monoculture.

I have found the opposite. Here, I've had long conversations with people working on cause areas I'd barely thought about,^[3] with very different object-level views about what matters and why. The thing that's shared is a method rather than a set of conclusions. Taking evidence seriously and updating when you're wrong. That turns out to produce a lot of productive disagreement.

The bubble, in my experience, is either:

1. On the internet.
2. Living in a city where no one around you thinks seriously about any of this, so these important conversations don't happen.

The hub is the opposite of a bubble. It's the only place where I feel like my views are on trial.

It's fun

Da Nang is affordable. Vegan restaurants are everywhere; there are three within a five-minute walk of where I'm sitting right now. The weather is warm (which is good for me). I have paid less per month here, including housing and food, than I would pay for housing alone in the cities I was living in before.

I think there's sometimes pressure in EA spaces to frame everything in terms of its impact and not admit that you're enjoying yourself. I am not depressed by the weather, so I am enjoying myself. I think that's fine. Here are some pictures:

We're extending until July

We originally planned to be here until April. We're staying until the soon-to-be-announced Vietnam Summit in July. The hub is now organized by the wonderful people at EA Vietnam. If your organization does retreats, or is working on a project that would benefit from a period of intense, in-person work, reach out to us. We know where the cheap accommodation is. We have an office in a great coworking space. You can literally call us (DM me for number) and we will have already done much of the logistical work for you.

We want more of these hubs to exist in more places. This was a pilot, and it worked. If you want to build something like it, or if you want to see what we've built, let's talk.

1. ^{^}

   We currently have a room available in our 4-person group house from April 7th to May 1st. DM me for info.

2. ^{^}

   I still think remote work is by far the best option for most EA organizations. Mostly because it attracts talent.

3. ^{^}

   See the organizations our community members have worked with on our website.