We look forward to hosting you, Joey!

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Arepo. A few clarifications:

We're definitely not abandoning open-ended residencies. We're trying to find the right balance between open residency and structured programming. That's exactly why we're polling: we don't have the answer yet and want community input as one data point among many.

On AI safety focus: I think there's a misread here. We're not narrowing to short-timelines AI doom. Our scope is AI safety, reducing global catastrophic risks, and remaining roughly cause-neutral but EA-aligned. We're following where both talent and high-impact opportunities are concentrated, not locking ourselves into a single timeline view.

You're right that we need to align with funding realities to keep operations running, but we're actively working to avoid being locked into any single cause area. The goal is to remain responsive to what the ecosystem needs as things evolve. That is why we're doing very rudimentary market research that directly reaches the end user above, using the poll.

I am keenly wary of duplicating efforts when there is no demand. However, I suspect (pending actual market research and confirmation) that there are still uncovered use cases and needs that we could — and should — fill. Duplication is not the goal. Finding a niche that is underserved and provides value is.

Thanks for being open to this, Ryan! We would be delighted to work with MATS on making this happen; it is precisely the sort of partnership and programming we're hoping to cultivate in the coming year. I'll reach out next week.