Hi all —

Longtime reader, first time poster. I'm probably delinquent in making this pitch, but some EA friends of mine encouraged me to write in under the logic that if you're interested in effective altruism, you may find what we're building at Puck, our new publication, to be of value.

Puck is a new investor-backed media outlet focused on the inside conversation in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Wall Street and Washington, and I am one of the founding partners over there. I came to Puck after about five years covering donors and their work in politics and philanthropy (first at CNN, and then at Vox); at Puck, I'm continuing to write about the world of Silicon Valley wealth, trying to report out a specific question at the heart of the Forum — how can people with resources do the most good for the world? I describe myself as EA-sympathetic, although I find myself driven primarily by a desire to equip the public with new information about a philanthropic sector that is not as transparent as many of us would like.

Over the last few months, for instance, we've written about a lot of EA topics — such as the pandemic preparedness efforts of Sam Bankman-Fried; the political activities of Dustin Moskovitz and Open Phil; and broken news about lots of the big philanthropists, such as MacKenzie Scott, Peter Thiel and Laurene Powell Jobs. A particular area of interest of mine, and perhaps to some of you, is the collision between EA and Democratic politics, or how Democratic donors can bring EA principles to campaigns and outside groups.

Anyway, you'll see that the links above are paywalled in pursuit of building a new media model, but you can read one article for free by trading an email address, and I'd be happy to email you any full story you're interested in (teddy@puck.news) If you'd like to sign up to receive this reporting straight in your inbox, you can enter your address here.

Comments15


Sorted by Click to highlight new comments since:

For some additional context, on Puck, Teddy describes himself as "covering power, influence, and ego in Silicon Valley", which is maybe a bit less EA-centric than this post makes it sound.  Here is a recent interview with Teddy about covering the "billionare beat".  And a quote from that interview about attempting to give people neutral ground facts about the activities of the rich:

Whether you want to be outraged by billionaires’ philanthropy, political spending or tax avoidance, or whether you think that billionaires are God’s gift to the green earth, you need the facts. And I think that too often, we're deprived of them.  So I don't really approach the beat as a critic or defender of the system. I just think that there's an alarming lack of fact-based reporting about it, and that's a damn shame.

Here is a quote about how he covers billionaire philanthropy:

Much of the tech billionaire set is very thin-skinned about some of the questions that I ask. I don't say that necessarily as a criticism, but I think that lots of them think that the billionaire beat itself puts them inherently on the defensive.

Take the topic of philanthropy, which is something I write about a lot. I think a lot of wealthy people are not used to serious philanthropy journalism, as a concept. So the very idea that someone could be asking questions like, “How is your charitable enterprise structured?” Or, “How much money did you give away to this cause?” Or, “What is your net worth, and how is that reflected or not reflected in the amount of money you give away?”

They see those questions as a fundamental threat, not because they believe that they're unfair questions, but because the entire premise of the question is something that's foreign to them. They think about philanthropy as almost above criticism, above journalism. Like, “Yeah you can critique my business record, but don't critique what I'm doing for the kids.”

I think that misses the forest for the trees to some extent, when there's obviously a raging debate in this country about inequality and about whether the wealthy should be as wealthy as they are. I see philanthropy journalism as essential to answering those questions. They might disagree, but I don't work for them.

Here are two (unpaywalled) articles of Teddy's from the past year about big EA donors:

FWIW, I found the interview with SBF to be quite fair, and imho it presented Sam in a neutral-to-positive light (though perhaps a bit quirky). Teddy's more recent reporting/tweets about Sam also strike me as both fair and neutral to positive.

Thanks, Jackson! I think the interview with me you shared helps — I am indeed EA-sympathetic, but yes, I see my primary "ideology" as pro-transparency above all else.

Thanks for sharing, Teddy. Just read the SBF piece and looking forward to reading more. 

EA is great, but I think it could use more and better external scrutiny. A lot of the criticism it gets right now is either silly (e.g., "this is just a way to make billionaires more powerful") or not especially helpful (e.g., "utilitarianism is obviously false"). Engagement that takes EA seriously but keeps a critical distance and isn't afraid to question the big players is really valuable IMO.

+1! 

FYI anything you write to Teddy could end up in an article. I suggest you read some of his pieces before engaging. I worry this piece makes him sound more EA than he is, although of course he could be pivoting. 

Thanks, Teddy! Excited to read more of your work! 

I find the title of this post misleading.

 

The title says "A new media outlet focused on philanthropy". But in the body we learn that Puck is "focused on the inside conversation in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Wall Street and Washington", which seems more accurate based on their website.

Yeah, fair enough — should've said "in part" ... Puck does a lot of reporting, on everything from race to Ukraine to crypto ... was thinking primairly about my own coverage, but you're right.

No worries. Can you edit the title?

Creating an account defaulted to daily emails and gmail's spam button didn't stop them. Took me a while to figure out you have to unsubscribe in multiple spots on https://puck.news/my-account/email-preferences/

I would like to see a some quantitative comparison of the impact that billionaires do. I suggest publishing a Billionaire Nice List, where you try for a reasonable ranking. I'd read that and I bet a lot of others would too.

Interesting! We did a fun "ranking" of billionaires' political influence but it was obviously very subjective. I'll add your idea to my list!

[comment deleted]1
0
0
Curated and popular this week
 ·  · 23m read
 · 
Or on the types of prioritization, their strengths, pitfalls, and how EA should balance them   The cause prioritization landscape in EA is changing. Prominent groups have shut down, others have been founded, and everyone is trying to figure out how to prepare for AI. This is the first in a series of posts examining the state of cause prioritization and proposing strategies for moving forward.   Executive Summary * Performing prioritization work has been one of the main tasks, and arguably achievements, of EA. * We highlight three types of prioritization: Cause Prioritization, Within-Cause (Intervention) Prioritization, and Cross-Cause (Intervention) Prioritization. * We ask how much of EA prioritization work falls in each of these categories: * Our estimates suggest that, for the organizations we investigated, the current split is 89% within-cause work, 2% cross-cause, and 9% cause prioritization. * We then explore strengths and potential pitfalls of each level: * Cause prioritization offers a big-picture view for identifying pressing problems but can fail to capture the practical nuances that often determine real-world success. * Within-cause prioritization focuses on a narrower set of interventions with deeper more specialised analysis but risks missing higher-impact alternatives elsewhere. * Cross-cause prioritization broadens the scope to find synergies and the potential for greater impact, yet demands complex assumptions and compromises on measurement. * See the Summary Table below to view the considerations. * We encourage reflection and future work on what the best ways of prioritizing are and how EA should allocate resources between the three types. * With this in mind, we outline eight cruxes that sketch what factors could favor some types over others. * We also suggest some potential next steps aimed at refining our approach to prioritization by exploring variance, value of information, tractability, and the
 ·  · 1m read
 · 
I wanted to share a small but important challenge I've encountered as a student engaging with Effective Altruism from a lower-income country (Nigeria), and invite thoughts or suggestions from the community. Recently, I tried to make a one-time donation to one of the EA-aligned charities listed on the Giving What We Can platform. However, I discovered that I could not donate an amount less than $5. While this might seem like a minor limit for many, for someone like me — a student without a steady income or job, $5 is a significant amount. To provide some context: According to Numbeo, the average monthly income of a Nigerian worker is around $130–$150, and students often rely on even less — sometimes just $20–$50 per month for all expenses. For many students here, having $5 "lying around" isn't common at all; it could represent a week's worth of meals or transportation. I personally want to make small, one-time donations whenever I can, rather than commit to a recurring pledge like the 10% Giving What We Can pledge, which isn't feasible for me right now. I also want to encourage members of my local EA group, who are in similar financial situations, to practice giving through small but meaningful donations. In light of this, I would like to: * Recommend that Giving What We Can (and similar platforms) consider allowing smaller minimum donation amounts to make giving more accessible to students and people in lower-income countries. * Suggest that more organizations be added to the platform, to give donors a wider range of causes they can support with their small contributions. Uncertainties: * Are there alternative platforms or methods that allow very small one-time donations to EA-aligned charities? * Is there a reason behind the $5 minimum that I'm unaware of, and could it be adjusted to be more inclusive? I strongly believe that cultivating a habit of giving, even with small amounts, helps build a long-term culture of altruism — and it would