As you kind of say—there are already (at least decently smart/competent) people trying to do (almost) all of these things.
For many of these projects, joining current efforts is probably a better allocation than starting your own effort, and most of the value to be added is if you’re in the 99.5th+ %-ile (?) for the ‘skills needed.’ (or sometimes there’s just not enough people working on a problem, or sometimes there’s a place to add value if you’re willing to do annoying work other people don’t want to do—these are both rarer though, in the current funding regime)
Something I’d add to this list (or at least the bottom?) that I’ve heard a couple people mention would be useful is a nonprofit (regranting-like?) org whose primary goal is to hire international independent researchers in the Berkeley area and provide them with visas
I disagree with part of this—I think people often see 1 or 2 projects in space and assume the space is covered. I also think people are generally overrating the orgs that currently exist.
In general, I expect that if there are 3-7 teams focused on a particular issue, 0-2 will be successful.
I think some orgs are worth joining and some people are better off joining existing orgs/projects. But I think it’s very easy to see something that looks-like-its-solving-the-problem (and maybe its mission statement even says it’s going to solve the problem) but forget that Solving The Problem Is Really Hard and Many Organizations Don’t Live Up To Their Mission Statement.
(I may write up a longer thing about this at some point with more details. But for now take this as “Akash’s intuitions/observations.”)
Also I agree with the part about how much of the value is if you’re 99+ %ile for skills needed (though I think people in that category are often deterred from doing things because they assume they’re not in that category. I think people imagine that 99+ %ile means you’re already some superhero with highly relevant experiences and tons of status. See also hero licensing). So on the margin I would want more people trying to test out if they are indeed 99+ %ile at a few different things.
As you kind of say—there are already (at least decently smart/competent) people trying to do (almost) all of these things. For many of these projects, joining current efforts is probably a better allocation than starting your own effort, and most of the value to be added is if you’re in the 99.5th+ %-ile (?) for the ‘skills needed.’ (or sometimes there’s just not enough people working on a problem, or sometimes there’s a place to add value if you’re willing to do annoying work other people don’t want to do—these are both rarer though, in the current funding regime)
Something I’d add to this list (or at least the bottom?) that I’ve heard a couple people mention would be useful is a nonprofit (regranting-like?) org whose primary goal is to hire international independent researchers in the Berkeley area and provide them with visas
I disagree with part of this—I think people often see 1 or 2 projects in space and assume the space is covered. I also think people are generally overrating the orgs that currently exist.
In general, I expect that if there are 3-7 teams focused on a particular issue, 0-2 will be successful.
I think some orgs are worth joining and some people are better off joining existing orgs/projects. But I think it’s very easy to see something that looks-like-its-solving-the-problem (and maybe its mission statement even says it’s going to solve the problem) but forget that Solving The Problem Is Really Hard and Many Organizations Don’t Live Up To Their Mission Statement.
(I may write up a longer thing about this at some point with more details. But for now take this as “Akash’s intuitions/observations.”)
Also I agree with the part about how much of the value is if you’re 99+ %ile for skills needed (though I think people in that category are often deterred from doing things because they assume they’re not in that category. I think people imagine that 99+ %ile means you’re already some superhero with highly relevant experiences and tons of status. See also hero licensing). So on the margin I would want more people trying to test out if they are indeed 99+ %ile at a few different things.