I’d definitely agree monetary incentives aren’t the whole picture. (Also, I don’t think it’s necessary for the answer to be ‘billions’ to start producing distortionary effects from monetary incentives – “thousands” can be perfectly sufficient. It just so happens that “billions” is the order of magnitude of money available)
“Number of people who’s epistemics I can evaluate well” seems relevant, but I’ve also found some kinds of distortionary effects within startups with 5 people.
I think there’s a few things going on.
I’d definitely agree monetary incentives aren’t the whole picture. (Also, I don’t think it’s necessary for the answer to be ‘billions’ to start producing distortionary effects from monetary incentives – “thousands” can be perfectly sufficient. It just so happens that “billions” is the order of magnitude of money available)
“Number of people who’s epistemics I can evaluate well” seems relevant, but I’ve also found some kinds of distortionary effects within startups with 5 people.