All of KevinWei's Comments + Replies
I'm not really sure how to answer this question because I think it's rather difficult to identify unequivocally "positive" and "negative" aspects of this program (or of any program in particular, really). My take is that there are only aspects of the program that may be more or less suitable for EAs who are considering the program, and that we've done our best to articulate some of the reasons why any particular EA may or may not want to pursue the Schwarzman vs. other educational opportunities (see the What other programs do those applying for Schwarzman ...
I agree that the length of the program should be a medium to substantial consideration for folks; it definitely was for me (although/especially because I might go on to do more/other grad school after this)
I would actually suggest that you do not discuss any policy proposals with these politicians/policymakers/people, as it could be ineffective for the following reasons:
- Communicating policy to policymakers is a very specific skillset, and doing it effectively requires lots of practice. It sounds like this isn't your day to day, so I do not recommend starting with "fairly influential people in American politics"
- Pitching policy is much more effective when you have i) established yourself as an expert in the field of that policy, and/or ii) developed deep relat
I'd probably have to think harder about breaking down the specific skillsets; re: the comments above, hiring seems to be one of the skills that would fall into this subset. It would likely be slightly different for different management roles.
I agree with the weirdness in smaller races, but I think that this may be more of a culture issue than a talent issue—candidates should just learn to rein in their egos, step back, and realize that running a campaign is not a skillset that they have (and that they should let their staff handle it). I've wor...
Hmm, I should probably be more specific in defining what I mean by "talent bottleneck in campaigns." There is probably less of a bottleneck for large campaigns at the presidential/gubernatorial/senate level; I would estimate that on smaller races from House and non-gubernatorial state-level races downward, there is:
- A shortage of campaign staffers who have a skillset in campaign management / strategy—I would argue that campaign management / strategy is sufficiently distinct from non-profit / industry / other organizational management / strategy to war
+1 to @BlueFalcon's response below, and I would also add that:
- There is indeed research that deep canvassing is effective, but the set of things that you can spend $ on to change people's minds ("persuasion") is only a very small subset of things that you can spend $ on in campaigns. For instance, spending $100 to ensure that a voter who already supports you turns out to the polls and votes does not change any minds but does net 1 vote.
- There are thousands upon thousands of RCTs compiled over at Analyst Institute on how campaigns can effectively spend $. I s
The optics concern makes sense to me, but I'm 90% certain PACs and Super PACs can and do spend on things that are not ads? Eg paid canvassers/phone bankers, polling, mailers, etc.
Additionally (and I'm not advocating for this), there seem to be many ways to get around the coordination ban, e.g.: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/us/politics/buttigieg-votevets-super-pac.html
I think the fact that contributions and contributors are publicly disclosed by campaigns at fixed intervals is another argument in favor of contributing to candidates (perhaps over other giving options) — particularly for EAs who may not be giving the max to a specific candidate. The number of contributions and/or contributors can often be used by political insiders/press as a signal for how well a campaign is doing, so for every new contribution/contributor, there is a small downstream effect of potentially influencing other people to also support that ca...
I did get one of those rooms through EA @ Georgia Tech. From my personal perspective, the block booking was convenient from a logistics perspective. It also probably had secondary effects for community building, as all of us staying in the same hotel helped us organize meetups / coworking time in the hotel.
From a cost perspective for the conference, my guess would be that it would be more cost effective to book a block rather than reimbursing individuals who book separately. Source: I had to do a bunch of block bookings for a past job, and it was significa...
I like the reasons laid out here for why group rentals would be good/impactful, and anecdotally I've seen some of these dynamics play out.
Fwiw, I believe the EAGxBoston team did book a large block of rooms for attendees, which they offered/organized through EA group organizers.
The closest thing that I can think of off the top of my head is the Think Tanks and Civil Society Project at Penn—but the type of work that they do seems markedly distinct from SoGive...
To clarify, the Schwarzman is a terminal degree and AFAIK is viewed by employers as such. From what I've seen in internal program data the vast majority of Schwarzman Scholars do not go onto further education; I think my case / specific niche is unusual for the program.