It surprises me that this is seen as the norm -- it feels almost antithetical to having impact if you never talk about what you’re doing. At the same time, a lot of EA orgs seem to have put serious effort into marketing in recent years (GWWC, 80k, EA Globals, etc.), and I think that’s good.
To be clear, I’m not saying it’s bad to talk about what you're doing. My concern is more subjective -- it’s about the style of marketing. Some of it mimics a kind of entrepreneurial/tech-speak that I personally find aversive. That might just be because this creates an association with Silicon Valley’s culture that has driven AI progress in risky ways, so I react strongly to the vibe. But ultimately, Bluedot may be right that this style resonates with the people they want to hire. If so, great -- I’m very open to the idea that my subjective reaction doesn’t line up with what’s impactful.
Re: ‘We should be celebrating organisations that are making an effort on this and encouraging others to do more’ — sure, though I think we may be talking past each other. I agree marketing is important: your ideas won’t have much effect if nobody knows about them. But I’m not for default celebration. Sometimes marketing is misleading, manipulative, or just feels icky, and the value really depends on the context. I’m much more inclined to celebrate marketing that pushes in the direction of truth-seeking. Too often, marketing goes the opposite way. (That’s a general comment, not aimed at Bluedot specifically or any other EA-adjacement org for that matter.)
Hot take; ultimately this is not a hill I want to die on, and overall I think Bluedot Impact is good for the world. Having interacted with some of the people there, they seem lovely and I don’t want to burn bridges. But I’ve found some of their recent marketing on their website and LinkedIn somewhat aesthetically cringe. It feels like it’s trying very hard to cater to a kind of tech-bro/Silicon Valley speech. Maybe this is working for them, but I can’t help feeling icked by it, and it makes me lose a bit of faith in the project.
For eg, in hiring for a new tech lead role they have an accompanying blog post that says: "We're hiring for a Tech Lead. Meet Carol, our ideal candidate."
Meet Carol, a senior engineer at a Series B startup that’s losing its way. Multiple years experience, previously built 0-to-1 at a failed startup and has multiple side projects others are using. Could make £200k+ at FAANG but chooses impact over money.
“I'm tired of building things nobody cares about. I want to ship things that matter, fast, with people who give a shit.” – Carol, probably
Outcome obsessed, not code precious. Will happily torch 3 months of work if something better emerges. Measures success by user impact, not lines shipped
Post-failure wisdom. Has startup scar tissue. Been sold dreams that evaporated. Now has pattern recognition for what's real vs what's venture theatre
Full-stack ownership. Talks to users, analyses data, mocks designs, writes docs. Allergic to "that's not my job"
Speed fundamentalist - Ships to real users fast. Viscerally hates bureaucracy, long meetings, permission-seeking culture
What They Want
Real users, real impact. "I want to ship something on Monday and see 1000 people use it by Friday"
Clear line to survival. Not another pre-PMF prayer circle. Evidence of traction, revenue, or at minimum a brutally honest path to it.
Mission that matters. Not another ad-tech optimisation tool or crypto dashboard that makes the world slightly worse.
Speedy by default. Where "let's just try it" beats "let's have another meeting about it"
What They'll Trade
Will grind when it matters - Happy to pull long hours for launches, crises, or breakthrough moments. Not for theatre
Will learn anything useful - New stack? Fine. New domain? Fine. As long as it's not resume-driven development
Will work with ambiguity - But not chaos. There's a difference between startup scrappiness and headless chicken syndrome
I realise this is not actually what the spirt of the post is about, but: Some people have asked me to consider going back to earning-to-give -- why is that? Seems like you have quite a bit of impact working at METR.
Just worth pointing out because it was not obvious to me - the house could add it back, we will still have to wait to see if that happens but seems unlikely.
Good news! The 10-year AI moratorium on state legislation has been removed from the budget bill.
The Senate voted 99-1 to strike the provision. Senator Blackburn, who originally supported the moratorium, proposed the amendment to remove it after concluding her compromise exemptions wouldn't work.
Most good AI Governance takes are not on the EA Forum, or Lesswrong. They exist on Substack! (and on X where they get reposted and turned into threads). You should consider exploring the AI Governance substack space more. Some examples: Anton Leicht - Threading the Needle; Miles Brundage.
EDIT: I did not read the entire thing and now realise the author of this post said the same. I will still keep my feelings around this public.
Hmm. This seems like a strange thing to work towards? Perhaps even harmful. Is this not just trying to push SOTA?
(Perhaps strange is not the right word to use here. I could see many reasons why you would want to do this, but I guess I had the intuition that people at Epoch would not want to do this).
Feels like a resurgence is going on with giving in EA
It surprises me that this is seen as the norm -- it feels almost antithetical to having impact if you never talk about what you’re doing. At the same time, a lot of EA orgs seem to have put serious effort into marketing in recent years (GWWC, 80k, EA Globals, etc.), and I think that’s good.
To be clear, I’m not saying it’s bad to talk about what you're doing. My concern is more subjective -- it’s about the style of marketing. Some of it mimics a kind of entrepreneurial/tech-speak that I personally find aversive. That might just be because this creates an association with Silicon Valley’s culture that has driven AI progress in risky ways, so I react strongly to the vibe. But ultimately, Bluedot may be right that this style resonates with the people they want to hire. If so, great -- I’m very open to the idea that my subjective reaction doesn’t line up with what’s impactful.
Re: ‘We should be celebrating organisations that are making an effort on this and encouraging others to do more’ — sure, though I think we may be talking past each other. I agree marketing is important: your ideas won’t have much effect if nobody knows about them. But I’m not for default celebration. Sometimes marketing is misleading, manipulative, or just feels icky, and the value really depends on the context. I’m much more inclined to celebrate marketing that pushes in the direction of truth-seeking. Too often, marketing goes the opposite way. (That’s a general comment, not aimed at Bluedot specifically or any other EA-adjacement org for that matter.)
Sure -- I am not per se bothered that much by AI speak. It seems like a reasonable trade-off.
Hot take; ultimately this is not a hill I want to die on, and overall I think Bluedot Impact is good for the world. Having interacted with some of the people there, they seem lovely and I don’t want to burn bridges. But I’ve found some of their recent marketing on their website and LinkedIn somewhat aesthetically cringe. It feels like it’s trying very hard to cater to a kind of tech-bro/Silicon Valley speech. Maybe this is working for them, but I can’t help feeling icked by it, and it makes me lose a bit of faith in the project.
For eg, in hiring for a new tech lead role they have an accompanying blog post that says: "We're hiring for a Tech Lead. Meet Carol, our ideal candidate."
Meet Carol, a senior engineer at a Series B startup that’s losing its way. Multiple years experience, previously built 0-to-1 at a failed startup and has multiple side projects others are using. Could make £200k+ at FAANG but chooses impact over money.
“I'm tired of building things nobody cares about. I want to ship things that matter, fast, with people who give a shit.” – Carol, probably
What They Want
What They'll Trade
This also reads a bit like how LLMs write.
I can't put images via comments, but I saw this on a dance floor yesterday and thought it was cute and fitting!
I realise this is not actually what the spirt of the post is about, but: Some people have asked me to consider going back to earning-to-give -- why is that? Seems like you have quite a bit of impact working at METR.
Just worth pointing out because it was not obvious to me - the house could add it back, we will still have to wait to see if that happens but seems unlikely.
Good news! The 10-year AI moratorium on state legislation has been removed from the budget bill.
The Senate voted 99-1 to strike the provision. Senator Blackburn, who originally supported the moratorium, proposed the amendment to remove it after concluding her compromise exemptions wouldn't work.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-senate-strikes-ai-regulation-085758901.html?guccounter=1
Most good AI Governance takes are not on the EA Forum, or Lesswrong. They exist on Substack! (and on X where they get reposted and turned into threads). You should consider exploring the AI Governance substack space more. Some examples: Anton Leicht - Threading the Needle; Miles Brundage.
EDIT: I did not read the entire thing and now realise the author of this post said the same. I will still keep my feelings around this public.
Hmm. This seems like a strange thing to work towards? Perhaps even harmful. Is this not just trying to push SOTA?
(Perhaps strange is not the right word to use here. I could see many reasons why you would want to do this, but I guess I had the intuition that people at Epoch would not want to do this).