Zero Interest Rates Policy from 2008-2022 and lack of antitrust enforcement in the USA lead to two things: incumbent software companies got bigger because they could borrow so much money and buy or crush their competition, and small software companies did not have to make profits now because investors tossed in more money and hoped they would make big profits one day. That world is dead but the industry has not adapted.
The short version is probably “MetaMed and FTX were a typical rationalist businesses” but there have to be more anecdotes. These are not people who spend less than they earn, own Booglehead portfolios, and take night classes on business to get ready to launch their side hustle next year.
This blog post talks about who funds one EA organization. https://rufuspollock.substack.com/p/what-lightcone-infrastructures-financial. Note that all the foundations like OpenPhil (Moskovitz) and SFF (Tallinn) which are mostly a way to distribute one patron’s funds have well-paid senior staff. They are not squeamish about letting a former CFAR board member join the grants committee that votes money for CFAR either.
I cover all the overlapping organizations at http://effective-altruism.com/ea/gb/the_2014_survey_of_effective_altruists_results/
I think it mostly comes through very wealthy patrons, less from Effective Altruists like Zhang who they persuaded to “earn to give” at the start of their careers (although they hope all their friends at AI startups will donate their shares to the cause). Most of those billionaires were in the software industry before 2008.
Small donors to EA orgs don’t always know the money will pay Yud $600,000 a year to think great thoughts, or Nonlinear Fund to be digital nomads with a live-in servant, or the European EAs to buy a Czech castle to hold retreats. I have not looked into who funds Effective Altruism after FTX went bankrupt but the pledge drives always have matching donations from a foundation with a billionaire patron.
And then the people who receive the benefits and earn hundreds of thousands a year pass on $50-100k at a time to their friends.
The LW insider thinks Aschenbrenner is trying to save a stake in Anthropic. I think that is very likely because the press release stressed “public stock position” and Anthropic is privately owned.
Edit / I don’t think Thomas Kwa of METR and LW understands leverage. The idea is that if you borrow $40.5b on $4.5b of collateral, you have $45b to invest but a 10% drop will wipe you out. Before you get there the bank will knock on your door and say “margin call! either you provide more collateral or we seize your assets.”
It sounds like a dubious investment because its run by a hedge fund bro:
JueYan is a philanthropic advisor and a grantmaker. He runs the AI Safety Tactical Opportunities Fund (AISTOF), a pooled multi-donor charitable fund which seeks to reduce the probability and severity of catastrophic risks from advanced AI. Since inception in September 2023, the fund has raised more than $10mm and disbursed more than $7mm. JueYan serves on the boards of Family Empowerment Media and Suvita. He also advises Ambitious Impact and is a speculation grantor for the Survival and Flourishing Fund (“Our primary client is philanthropist Jaan Tallinn”). Previously, JueYan spent a decade earning-to-give as a hedge fund manager.
Mr. Zhang is a rare Asian-American in Effective Altruism. FEM helps women access contraception rather than encouraging some women to breed. Suvita helps poor Indians vaccinate their children.
Edit / Schmidt Sciences means “Eric Schmidt of Google.” He clearly has not lost faith in EA!
In the 2008 post about sparky elites, Yud also admits to feeling intimidated and not sure his achievements were so remarkable. So young Yud had a different position on some issues than wealthy, famous Yud. He is not a very clear writer and has trouble spotting weak spots and inconsistencies in his arguments because he never had a scientific education or an editor who was not his fan/employee.
People who are awful online and especially on corporate social media generally turn that off in person because ruining the community you actually live in is costly and requires courage. So best practice is to use the Internet as a research library and a Yellow Pages not as a substitute for your local coffeehouse or makerspace.
SlateScott was feeling down that he had trouble connecting with women the way many people can. There are a lot of hints that the first year he spent in San Francisco, in 2012-2013, was the first time he had a face-to-face social life, and mysteriously his love live improved thereafter and he stopped posting so many angry things about feminists and women who put out for the wrong guy. “Find some face-to-face activity with the sex you are interested in, especially a virtuous or physical activity,” is really common advice for the loveless. A SlateScott who did some kind of medical volunteering in Cork, say educating partygoers about substance use, might have found a girlfriend and spent less time reading wordy racists.
AFAIK Yud denies he is autistic which is why the community keeps reinventing names like akrasia for things that the neurodivergence movement already named. At one point he told Twitter he had superior Ashkenazi genes not Autistic genes like some Untermensch.
The op-ed writer is Adam Mastroianni who is a regular at Lighthaven. https://gwern.net/interview-inkhaven
He cites Andy Masley who is yet another autodidact with a cushy job in the Effective Altruism grantland. https://www.andymasley.com/ and Brian Potter who is an engineer at a think tank called the Institute for Progress https://ifp.org/author/brian-potter/ (“The overwhelming priority of energy policy must be making it easier to build things” which things angryDuckMeme.png)
The controversy about the 26-year-old with the 16-year-old wonders if the respondents are all in California which has a very high age of consent. More replies say that is rape than say “a client fails to pay a sex worker” is rape. Her audience ranks it equally with the bodice-ripper scenario (handsome top ravages someone who says no and struggles but really wants it in his or her heart).
That link is login-walled, how about summarizing it?
It was Yudkowsky-2008 who was astonished that “these CEOs and CTOs and hedge-fund traders, these folk of the mid-level power elite, seemed happier and more alive,” prompting David Gerard to ask “My dude, have you never heard of cocaine?” I don’t know if he had moved to the Bay Area yet but Yudkowsky-2025 had thoughts on LSD.
AFAIK, exercise is competitive with SSRIs as a treatment for depression too. I don’t know how to square Dr. Siskind the specialist in people whose depression won’t clear up with exercise, pills, and therapy, and SlateScott encouraging his friends to self-experiment.
He seems to have spent a lot of time on early tumblr, but young lefty activist women horrified him. I don’t think anyone explained that people are nicer in person and volunteering in person is a great way to fall in love.
He loves San Francisco, but not exploring the city’s many different kind of weird energetic people.
“Any Sufficiently Transparent Magic…” by Damien P. Williams talks about chatbots as sorcery https://pages.charlotte.edu/damien-p-williams/wp-content/uploads/sites/1342/2024/01/DPW_Any-Sufficiently-Transparent-Magic_Edits-PrePrint.pdf
One of the odd things about the Scott Alexander posts is that he cites academic papers, and trade books, and people he knows in person, but does not mention that there are communities in the Bay Area which will talk your ear off about substances and harm reduction.
He also seems more comfortable with taking drugs to be more productive than with taking them for fun or taking them for transcendence.
I like to keep my analysis separate from my word-magic (making things happen by saying them). Greer is trying to remake the world and not just work up his courage which is a harmless and consensual form of word-magic.
Also, Bostrom is an academic writing for serious publications. The standards are higher than when Yudkowsky was rewriting pop-science books without sufficient attribution on his private blog, because Yudkowsky is a self-published autodidact.
Some of the Zizians had parents who paid for them to bum around in the Bay Area for a few years, but AFAK no famous rationalist has parents who donated a few million to a charity which subsequently gave the child a make-work job. Their most enthusiastic patrons are New Money too.
Edit / SBF has rich and connected parents who were involved in his business ventures