EA funders and employers should pay more

• Your employees/grantees share your values
  • So much better to give your employee $10k, compared than an unaligned vendor $10k
  • Giving employees more money = taps into their local knowledge
  • With political giving, it’s actually just important that individuals have enough money to donate themselves
• “Paying more” materializes better talent
  • If you want for-profit quality you should compete on for-profit axes
• Churn is very expensive
  • Onboarding costs are high, context is scarce
  • You don’t want to lose people to sth as cheap as money
• You should care about their runway (?)
  • Having good BATNAs and solid runway means that they do what’s most value-creating, rather than what pays the bills
  • Budget to explore is super important
• “What about grift?” My thesis: paying people aligns their values to yours
  • I sure feel much really warm and fuzzy towards everyone who’s ever funded me

EAs should negotiate their salaries

• Personal runway is important

  • Ludicrous that longtime EA employees end up worried about money and being able to pay the bills

• Your ability to donate is important

  • “Is there some group that you would feel strongly about?”
    • The global poor? Chickens, shrimp? Future people? AIs?
    • Your employer and your employer’s donors do not have the same values as yours
    • So think of negotiation as a values trade

• Negotiation is a muscle, a skill

  • Will need to negotiate with many other parties

• Grounding your value

  • The amount you can negotiate for, informs you how valuable your work is
    • Capitalistic heuristic of “work wherever you can get paid the most” does something valuable for the world of putting talent where it is needed
  • Salaries in EA vs salaries in tech

• Observation: EAs I know seem to not care very much about their personal salaries

  • Manifest: Rachel and Saul last year, vs Rach and David this year
  • (maybe: falls out of greater trust all around)
    • (next level argument: things like trust between professional connections is worth way more than $10k of salary)

• Levels.fyi

  • (maybe good april fool’s joke)
    • reveals.fyi
    • reveal.fyi

Patio11 on Salary Negotiation