The Nonlinear Library EA - Why I worry about about EA leadership, explained through two completely made-up LinkedIn profiles by Yanni Kyriacos
Mar 16, 2024
02:10
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Why I worry about about EA leadership, explained through two completely made-up LinkedIn profiles, published by Yanni Kyriacos on March 16, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event...da da.
(You better believe this is a draft amnesty thingi).
Epistemic status: very low confidence, but niggling worry. Would LOVE for people to tell me this isn't something to worry about.
I've been around EA for about six years, and every now and then I have an old sneaky peak at the old LinkedIn profile.
Something I've noticed is that there seems to be a lot of people in leadership positions whose LinkedIn looks a lot like Profile #1 and not a lot who look like Profile #2. Allow me to spell out some of the important distinctions:
Profile #1:
Immediately jumped into the EA ecosystem as an individual contributor
Worked their way up through the ranks through good old fashioned hard work
Has approximately zero experience in the non-EA workforce and definitely non managing non-EAs. Now they manage people
Profile #2:
Like Profile #1, went to a prestigious uni, maybe did post grad, doesn't matter, not the major point of this post
Got some grad gig in Mega Large Corporation and got exposure to normal people, probably crushed by the bureaucracy and politics at some point
Most importantly, Fucked Around And Found Out (FAAFO) for the next five years. Did lots of different things across multiple industries. Gained a bunch of skills in the commercial world. Had their heart broken. Was not fossilized by EA norms. But NOW THEY'RE BACK BAYBEEE....
If I had more time and energy I'd probably make some more evidenced claims about Meta issues, and how things like SBF, sexual misconduct cases or Nonlinear could have been helped with more of #2 than #1 but don't have the time or energy (I'm also less sure about this claim).
I also expect people in group 1 to downvote this and people in group 2 to upvote it, but most importantly, I want feedback on whether people think this is a thing, and if it is a thing, is it bad.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org
The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event...da da.
(You better believe this is a draft amnesty thingi).
Epistemic status: very low confidence, but niggling worry. Would LOVE for people to tell me this isn't something to worry about.
I've been around EA for about six years, and every now and then I have an old sneaky peak at the old LinkedIn profile.
Something I've noticed is that there seems to be a lot of people in leadership positions whose LinkedIn looks a lot like Profile #1 and not a lot who look like Profile #2. Allow me to spell out some of the important distinctions:
Profile #1:
Immediately jumped into the EA ecosystem as an individual contributor
Worked their way up through the ranks through good old fashioned hard work
Has approximately zero experience in the non-EA workforce and definitely non managing non-EAs. Now they manage people
Profile #2:
Like Profile #1, went to a prestigious uni, maybe did post grad, doesn't matter, not the major point of this post
Got some grad gig in Mega Large Corporation and got exposure to normal people, probably crushed by the bureaucracy and politics at some point
Most importantly, Fucked Around And Found Out (FAAFO) for the next five years. Did lots of different things across multiple industries. Gained a bunch of skills in the commercial world. Had their heart broken. Was not fossilized by EA norms. But NOW THEY'RE BACK BAYBEEE....
If I had more time and energy I'd probably make some more evidenced claims about Meta issues, and how things like SBF, sexual misconduct cases or Nonlinear could have been helped with more of #2 than #1 but don't have the time or energy (I'm also less sure about this claim).
I also expect people in group 1 to downvote this and people in group 2 to upvote it, but most importantly, I want feedback on whether people think this is a thing, and if it is a thing, is it bad.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org