I work as head of the one on one team for 80,000 Hours. Previously I worked at the Global Priorities Institute, ran Giving What We Can and was a Fund Manager at the Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund.
Comments here are my own views only, not my present or past employers', unless otherwise specified.
Thanks for the announcement. I’m really glad to feel that EV is going to continue being in safe hands going forward (both given Rob’s extensive experience and knowing from personal experience how responsible he is).
Thank you so much for your work on EV. Taking on a hugely complex organisation at a time of such turmoil was always going to be extremely challenging. You really stepped up at a time when many of us were struggling just to continue our usual jobs. And then over the start of 2023 instead of getting a break it felt as if a series of separate things happened to keep making the role more challenging. As a staff member of one of the projects EV houses, it’s been really reassuring to know that someone with such great judgement and who is so ceaselessly dedicated was stewarding things, so that we could get on with our object level work without needing to worry much about the background entity.
From a personal standpoint, I’m even more grateful for the years we got to work together at 80,000 Hours. I’ve learned a huge amount from you in the various different roles we’ve each had. Most influentially, as my manager you did an really astounding job of helping me actually live up to my values and grow, while ensuring I always felt supported and was working sustainably. I’m very much going to miss being able to rely on your advice and support, and I hate that you’re moving to the other side of the world. I’m glad we’ll be continuing to work on the same mission, even if we won’t be next to each other to do it.
(I work at 80,000 Hours but on the 1on1 side rather than website.) Thanks for writing out your thoughts so clearly and thoroughly Nick. Thanks also for thinking about the issue from both sides - I think you’ve done a job job of capturing reasons against the changes you suggest. The main one I’d add is that having a lot more research and conversations about lots of different areas would need a very substantial increase in capacity.
I’m always sad to hear about taking away the impression that 80,000 Hours doesn’t care about helping present sentient creatures. I think the hardest thing about effective altruism to me is having to prioritise some problems over others when there are so many different sources of suffering in the world. Sometimes the thing that feels most painful to me is the readily avoidable suffering that I’m not doing anything about personally, like malaria. Sometimes it’s the suffering humans cause each other that it feels like we should be able to avoid causing each other, like cutting apart families on the US border. Sometimes it’s suffering that particularly resonates with me, like the lack of adequate health care for pregnancy complications and losses. I so much wish we were in a world where we could solve all of these, rather than needing to triage.
I’m glad that Probably Good exists to try out a different approach from us, and add capacity more generally to the space of people trying to figure out how to use their career to help the world most. You’re right that Probably Good currently has far lower reach than 80,000 Hours. But it’s far earlier in its journey than 80,000 Hours is, and is ramping up pretty swiftly.
A few things, selected somewhat randomly and somewhat for being possibly useful to others. They're mostly marginal, but I think overall I have been able to make a noticeable change to my hard-workingness over time.
Thanks very much for all your work on EV over the years. Your contribution to my work and to me personally have been significant enough that anything in the way of ‘thanks’ feels kind of trite and inadequate, and hopefully obvious to you. But I still want to mark the change by expressing some of the gratitude I feel for the work you’ve done at EV over the years.
Amongst other things, in your role stewarding EV you co-founded all three of the orgs I’ve spent my working life at (GWWC, 80k, GPI). In my (wholly unbiased! :-p) opinion, setting those up has been tremendously valuable. You’ve also provided me with much needed coaching, support and advice over the years.
I’ve really enjoyed feeling that EV was in safe hands, knowing you were on the board. I’m crossing my fingers we get to work together again soon. I very much hope that you feel proud of everything EV has achieved over the last (more than) decade, to match the deep awe I feel when I think about what you guys built.
Thank you for all your hard work as a trustee. I’m personally sad to know you won’t be on the board of the organisation I work for anymore. But I’m also excited that you get to put your full attention into your next venture.
Being a trustee seems extremely difficult to do well at the best of times, given the amount of responsibility entailed without day to day involvement. Being a trustee for CEA/EV has seemed particularly unenviable to me, even before this year.
I felt kind of sceptical when we first set up CEA (now EV) about how long we’d manage to make it work. After all, 9 in 10 start ups fail and it seems like quite the handicap to be set up and run by philosophy students. Over the last decade it’s hugely outdone my expectations. Its grown far faster than expected and ended up encompassing so many different activities and projects. That’s made being responsible for all of it seem difficult and alarming to me. I’ve been grateful for all the years you took that on.
I remember when we were putting together the board thinking that there were few people I’d trust enough to feel excited to have them in control of an organisation I cared so much about. And I remember how confident I was that you were one of them. The advice I got at the time about startups was that the founders very often end up not getting on, because it’s such a high pressure environment. But I’ve continued to trust your judgement more than almost anyone else I know. I still feel confident that whatever is thrown at you, you’ll handle it resolutely and keep your eye on what would help others most. Thanks for many years of such competent hard work.
Speaking for myself, my org would definitely be happy to reimburse travel. But I very much dislike travelling for a number of reasons including travel time and jet lag increasing the cost significantly. I don't want to be away from my family longer than necessary, in part because I already optimise fairly strongly for working long hours. So I'm most likely to go to EAGs nearby. Like Greg, going to another EA hub has advantages that sometimes offset the cost of needing to travel for me.
Sorry to hear you didn't find what you were looking for in the 80,000 Hours career guide. You could consider checking out this website that maintains a list of social purpose job boards. I'd guess that going through some of those would yield some good options for full stack web-dev roles at organisations with a broad range of missions, hopefully including some inspiring ones!