All of Zachary Robinson🔸's Comments + Replies
Agreed that marketing is valuable! We're actually in the process of hiring for someone now (note that the job posting at that link is closed, though if you know other potentially interested marketing professionals you can feel free to send them to our expression of interest form).
This role seems like more of a digital/marketing generalist and who will "translate our EA brand strategy into concrete marketing plans" - my question is more on who is leading the branding strategy effort if this role isn't. Is it someone with deep experience in branding specifically? The reason I ask is because to turn around a tarnished brand is a very challenging endeavor, and without doing that, it will limit EA's potential (see GMO, nuclear etc)
I want the cause-neutral resources you mention to exist. I also worry that CEA isn't the right place to host them for now, both because we unfortunately have to make difficult tradeoffs on our focuses right now (we have some public comms related to our own strategic updates that we'll hopefully be sharing in the not too distant future), and because it would be a major lift for us to create some of these resources given we don't have significant staff or other infrastructure for career advisory articles and services.
This is something I'd ideally like ...
It would be great if you could provide evidence (beyond your word) for that! Even saying that you talked to people at OP, or any other epistemic status would be helpful.
I have talked to multiple people at OP and close to OP who seem to agree that OP is very hesitant to fund anything right-coded. The correlations are extremely obvious, Dustin has made relatively concrete statements to this affect, and I really can't reconcile this kind of extremely sparse and confident public communication with the very obvious and clear feedback I get from people working c...
I think it's possible our views are compatible here. I want expertise to be valued more on the margin because I found EV and many other EA orgs to tilt towards an extreme of prioritizing value alignment, but I certainly believe there are cases where value alignment and general intelligence matter most and also that there are cases where expertise matters more.
I think the key lies in trying to figure out which situations are which in advance.
I think the weighted views of the community should likely inform CEA's cause prioritization, though I think it should be one data point among many. I do continue to worry a bit about self-fulfilling prophecies. If EA organizations make it disproportionately easy for people prioritizing certain causes to engage (e.g. by providing events for those specific causes, or by heavily funding employment opportunities for those causes) then I think it becomes murkier how to account for weighted cause prioritization because cause prioritization is both an input and an output.
I think it's super reasonable for people to be confused about this. EV is a ridiculously confusing entity (or rather, set of entities), even without the name change and overlapping names.
I wouldn't consider Wytham to have ever been a part of the project that's currently known as CEA. A potential litmus test I'd use is "Was Wytham ever under the control of CEA's Executive Director?" To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no, though there's a chance I'm missing some historical context.
This comment also discusses this distinction further.
I'm nigh-certain that Wytham was never under the control of CEA's Executive Director.
I think that this litmus test is pretty weak, though, as a response to Arepo's suggestion that CEA was the primary beneficiary of Wytham. However, I also think that this suggestion is mistaken. I believe that CEA hosted <10% of the events at Wytham (maybe significantly less; I don't know precisely, and am giving 10% as a round threshold that I'm relatively confident using as an upper bound).
[T]hese seem to be exactly the same principles CEA has stated for years. If nothing about them is changing, then it doesn't give much reason to think that CEA will improve in areas it has been deficient to date. To quote probably-not-Albert-Einstein, ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
...I really really wish 'transparency' would make the list again (am I crazy? I feel like it was on a CEA list in some form in the early days, and then was removed). I think there are multiple strong reasons for maki
Hi Zachary,
First off, I want to thank you for taking what was obviously a substantial amount of time to reply (and also to Sarah in another comment that I haven't had time to reply to). This is, fwiw, is already well above the level of community engagement that I've perceived from most previous heads of CEA.
On your specific comments, it's possible that we agree more than I expected. Nonetheless, there are still some substantial concerns they raise for me. In typical Crocker-y fashion, I hope you'll appreciate that me focusing on the disagreements for the r...
With that being said, if and when having a positive impact on the world and satisfying community members does come apart, we want to keep our focus on the broader mission.
I understand the primary concern posed in this comment to be more about balancing the views of donors, staff, and the community about having a positive impact on the world, rather than trading off between altruism and community self-interest. To my ears, some phrases in the following discussion make it sound like the community's concerns are primarily self-interested: "trying ...
I think if anyone was best able to make a claim to be our customers, it would be our donors.
CEA receives many fewer resources from its donors than from the community. Again, CEA would not really have a job without the community. An organization like CEA would totally exist without your big donors (like, the basic institution of having an "EA leadership organization" requires a few hundred k per year, which you would be able to easily fundraise from a very small fraction of the community, and even at the current CEA burn-rate the labor-value of the people w...
I want to flag for Forum readers that I am aware of this post and the associated issues about FTX, EV/CEA, and EA. I have also reached out to Becca directly.
I started in my new role as CEA’s CEO about six weeks ago, and as of the start of this week I’m taking a pre-planned six-week break after a year sprinting in my role as EV US’s CEO[1]. These unusual circumstances mean our plans and timelines are a work in progress (although CEA’s work continues and I continue to be involved in a reduced capacity).
Serious engagement with and communication about qu...
but I want to wait to publicly discuss my thoughts on these issues until I have the capacity to do so thoroughly and thoughtfully, rather than attempt to respond on the fly
You did speak publicly about them, in a large newspaper nonetheless: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/28/sam-bankman-fried-effective-truism-fraud
To be clear, I think it's still fine to take some time, but it does seem like you made claims that the EA community has engaged in successful investigation and reflection here, and so saying that you want to hold off on engaging u...
1. It's unclear what the legal status of EV will be at the end of the process. If it does exist, I expect it would be in a minimalist fashion and I wouldn't expect it to resemble what it has historically looked like (e.g. I don't expect it to be a fiscal sponsor for multiple projects).
2. No specific timeline. It's in a queue with other pieces of public communications I expect to do after I transition into a new role at CEA, and I'm not planning on it being the first piece.
I'm planning to publish some forum posts as I get up to speed in the role, and I think those will be the best pieces to read to get a sense of my views. If it's helpful for getting a rough sense of timing, I'm still working full-time on EV at the moment, but will transition into my CEA role in mid-February.
Cross posting from here
Thanks for flagging! New donations won’t be used for this settlement. The funding for the settlements has already been secured, and none of EV’s projects will need to allocate any additional funding. Besides funding that came from FTX, no funds that have previously been donated to a specific project will be used as part of this settlement.
As noted by Jason, the EV US settlement remains subject to court approval, and we won’t be commenting on it further while the settlement process is still underway. With that being said, we did...
Thanks for flagging! New donations won’t be used for this settlement. The funding for the settlements has already been secured, and none of EV’s projects will need to allocate any additional funding. Besides funding that came from FTX, no funds that have previously been donated to a specific project will be used as part of this settlement.
As noted by Jason, the EV US settlement remains subject to court approval, and we won’t be commenting on it further while the settlement process is still underway. With that being said, we didn’t want any misunderstanding...
Our strategy development thus far has been a team effort between me, @Emma Richter🔸, and a number of communications consultants and collaborators from other EA organizations.
I agree it would be great to have a leader with experience with turnaround brand efforts! Unfortunately, the pool of people who share and understand EA values while also having that experience is quite small (though again, I'd be very open to any referrals you or others have!). We're looking for a long-term leader for our Communications Team and are open to people with a variety of ba... (read more)