Peter Drotos 🔸
Bio
Participation7
Working on computer chips driven by a childhood passion and donating the majority of my income. Recently transitioned to work on Compute Governance full-time.
Was seeking a community of people trying to optimize their impact and made the above decisions after engaging with EA core ideas.
Posts 3
Comments36
I think Patient philanthropy and Career capital are valid reasons (not sure about backfire risks).
I'd also highlight that the claim "funding is not the main bottleneck" does not imply that more funding is useless.
And importantly, I think another key part of the 80k advice is to find something you are really good at. So I think the career path priority list should be treated as a starting point that you should first adjust to your own strengths and interests, and then explore through experiments. Start with cheap tests and don't dismiss a great opportunity that is a few items below in the priority list.
If you are considering being a dentist (over alternative EtG paths), then you may already have signals that suggest you'd do well as a dentist. If that's the case, then I think you should also consider Biorisk as a career path. (Starting with reading about it / talking to people who think it's an important problem, if you have not done this already).
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I think it's fair to say that entry into AI/ML is difficult. I just checked recently if 80k themselves acknowledge this, and they do!
Cons
- Due to a shortage of managers, it’s difficult to get jobs and might take you some time to build the required career capital and expertise
- ...
Also adding Rethink Priorities' pilot of personalized donation advice (signup form here) that I found in their 2025 Results, 2026 Plans and Funding Needs document (shared also on their website and in an EA forum post).
I've had a call with them this week, and they are working on establishing support for cause-neutral individual donors. I'd recommend reaching out to them if you are interested.
I forwarded the post to Nina from HIP. But I’d recommend you also reach out to them directly: https://www.highimpactprofessionals.org/contact-us
Don’t have specific ideas in mind but there’s definitly decent overlap. I think having a call about what they see as gaps and how HIE could fill these would be very valuable.
I’d love to see more of the community encouraging people to allocate dedicated time to community/peer support. (Would be awsome to see some research on how this may impact the productivity of a team)
But also, aren’t the EA communities underorganized in general on peer support? Yes, people should be proactive in finding mentors, mentees and peers. But I think the efficiency would also benefit from processes:
- Hiring processes to find promising mentees
- Matchmaking processes to find mentors who can help you best
- Curated peer groups (of those who participate in the two above). This could help form a community of people who are orherwise scattered across different universities or companies (vs. class mates or collegues in a company naturally spending time together)
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I’m seeing peer group organizing going on locally, but honestly, to me, it seems to mostly focus on the inclusion factor (which is also important) and leaves the efficient peer support part unaddressed.
Maybe worth trying the same approach used for this other book (I've not tested it myself yet) until an official version is available:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/D87rkNkNCtHC3X6Ee/new-book-compassionate-purpose-personal-inspiration-for-a