Thanks a lot for this article, it's very useful to improve my understanding of what's happening and what to make of it! This has been discussed a lot already, but the claims were usually made with somewhat motivated reasoning and cherry-picked and/or weak arguments.

Thanks for writing this! I'm trying to think through this as I'm writing it. Here are a bunch of not-too-well-formed ideas:

• There might be "a lot more funding" available soon (note: this is still TBC. I believe a lot of caution is warranted on that question)
• This might result in a significant "lowering of the funding bar" from funders.
• In this case, it will attract many more people to:
  • work for EA and/or AI safety projects
  • launch new initiatives.
• As a community-builder, I tend to have a bias for people with deep engagement with EA principles. But I think many projects can be good with leaders who have not initially spent much time thinking about EA.
• I'm not sure I've heard much criticism in mainstream discourse about how easily EA funding was granted during the pre-FTX funding. It's not surprising, given the fact that most people don't think much about it.
• It would probably be much more discussed in some specific spheres: philanthropy in general, TPOT, non-EA spheres.
• Most of all, I think funders (and all of us) should consider the impact this situational change could bring to EA's culture, epistemics, and appropriate trust levels in what might become (again) less of a community and more of a "network".
• At this stage, I think I broadly
  • would avoid talking about "vultures" as this seems insulting to both 1) vultures and 2) people who are rationally looking for funding opportunities
  • share your state of alarm about what this will do to EA's culture
  • still believe this could be immensely good
  • believe that the increase in funding will take some time and that we should invest a lot in grantmaking to maintain decent standards of scrutiny (as well as coordination mechanisms).

I see many good points in the comments of the original The Vultures Are Circling by CitizenTen that you refer to. Most of mine were somehow expressed there already^^

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

On "Is it generally recommended for someone with my skill set to pursue "Earning to Give" (maximizing my income in the corporate marketing world and donating) rather than trying to do direct work for EA orgs?": it's been said a lot, in the past years, that we need more talented, "high-context" communicators. I encourage you to explore direct work opportunities and think deeply about what could, or couldn't, work in the context of EA.

Thank you very much for taking the time to write this, @Melanie Brennan 🔹  and @Anthony L ! It must have been difficult at this time of turmoil.

First, congratulations on all you (and past CBers) have accomplished in Barcelona and in Spain more generally. Your recap in this post clearly shows that much was done, and I think your sustained work has probably created a lot of positive impact.

Second, I think this post is important for reminding all of us that EA community building is at a strange place: it is clearly important, but it is also very hard to get funding for. Like many other roles in EA, we (counting myself) are precarious workers, relying on yearly renewals and decent-if-you-can-live-frugally salaries. Off the top of my head,  I'd say with confidence that fewer than 50 people in the world do principles-first EA community building as their main source of income. And I think perhaps fewer than 30 have been at it for more than 2 years.

Good luck to both of you, and looking forward to see the switch to a community/volunteering-led system works out!

Agreed.

One data point: in the recent EA community retreat I organized for 65 people in France in 2025 (not a "premium" retreat), the cost per participant was 156€. This includes my time as well as financial support from participants.

I tend to see these types of events as complementary. I think we should not treat their various outcomes as fungible. You get results of different, non-tradeable kinds. In particular:

• Differents types of participants
• Different types of impact.

I love number 4! :D

Yes. Another question is the geographical direction of the (potential) giving. I suppose we should expect a strong focus on US-centric actions, which might very suboptimal. Surely relying on funds will help coordinate intelligently.

Therefore, one approach to preparing for the influx of many new donors could be to increase the EA Funds teams to facilitate grantmaking (afaik, they're quite overworked anyway).

Thanks for the kind words!

To answer your question:
- One person said it to me, and another wrote it in the feedback form: it can be hard to understand how an organization can amend their activities to be more effective, concretely. Another person found the event "too theorical".
- I personally think examples contribute a lot to making the ideas clearer and more convincing.

I'm really thrilled that you seized this opportunity to speak to many people (and become one of the relatively rare speakers to discuss a moral atrocity on that stage).
With the Dwarkesh Patel podcast episode you recently did, this is very, very encouraging. Thank you so much.

Thanks a lot for maintaining this space! It's been great coworking with you and others in GatherTown, I love how it creates a cozy, friendly atmosphere akin to that of a physical office.
Strong reco for others to come (especially remote workers) and experiment with this solution.