Hi James, thanks for your thoughts! Very appreciated. 

"it seems like a lot of small, growing orgs just don’t have the management capacity to reliably keep not-super-value-aligned rowers “on track”

-> Very good point. I will have to think more about it. Here are some initial thoughts. 
Likely, that depends on the kind of organization and role (e.g. Payroll might be easier to do for a rower than answering a research questions.) 
I think my main point is that what you need is the skillset to do the task (e.g. a good rationality toolkit and understanding of probabilities, or whatever the job needs), but that it is secondary if the person has thought about all the philosophical questions that EA brings with it (EA as a question. What cause should I work on)? 
Maybe the comparison is a bit like the "Ethics is the water it needs and religion is only the sort of tee. You can live without tea, but not without water.) = Water is the skill set it needs for a specific task to get done well, while cause prioritization questions, and other philosophical frameworks the tea. 

Causer Area specific outreach: 
I agree with your points and that we need a critical mass of captains who would in best case also can controll what the skilled rowers are working on. 
E.g. a "captain" Grantmaker could stop giving money for not impactful merchinterp work. Or a "captain" CEO could say: We stop this programme. The results are not good. I would like you "rower" to instead try out this new programme (which needs similar skills). 

But open questions: 
- How many captains does it need? What ratio of captains / rowers is sustainable? How do we train/find the captains... 
 

Both good points!
Regarding the "challenge to secure funding": 
- I think this is definitely true at the beginning of a relationship with a funder, but I hope and am optimistic that, over the years, when EA community builders have a continued track record with successful incubation, funders will trust them more it. 
-> A counterargument against this would be that, in reality, EA community builders often don't stay longer than 2 years in their role, and so continued relationships are hard. 

For Zurich AI Safety and the Zuirch Biosecurity Hub we are currently doing: 
- Public Intro Level Talk Series (5 Talks) & Socials (Top Funnel)
- Fellowship (based on BlueDot) & A paper reading/discussion Group (Mid Funnel)
- 1on1 career advising -> connecting to larger ecosystem (bottom funnel) 

 

Great idea! Thanks for sharing!

Great to see that EA UK is running again with cool programmes and plans!
Good luck, and looking forward to collaborating! :) 

Hi Alex, 

thanks for writing this up and sharing your approach! I think quite some community builders/people giving 1:1s can relate to this, and I personally like your framing!

Hi Jamie, 

I agree that tracking the impact of the pilot won't be easy/tricky. So far I just have some loose thoughts and will publish them, when I start focusing on this in two weeks. 

I will keep you in the loop via email. 

Thanks a lot!

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for your comment!

Regarding the pilot:
It’s really about exploring what kinds of hurdles might come up in this 80/20 approach — for example, getting a clearer picture of where enough high-quality videos already exist and where important content is still missing. But also more generally: what else might turn out to be more complicated than expected?

The other key question is: do people like and actually use the platform? And ideally, does it help move people from ambition to action — for example, by inspiring them to donate, explore new career paths, or volunteer their time to help solve the problems discussed?

Happy to keep you in the loop on which videos I find or plan to include — I’d really appreciate your thoughts or suggestions at that stage! And also: if you’ve created any content yourself that might be a good fit, feel free to share!