Avoid groups with strong evaporative cooling dynamics. As part of that, avoid very steep status gradients within (or on the boundary of) a group. Smooth social gradients are better than strict in-and-out dynamics.
Probably be grounded in more than one social group. Even being part of two different high-intensity groups seems like it should reduce the dynamics here a lot.
To some degree, avoid attracting people who have few other options, since it makes the already high switching and exit costs even higher.
Confidentiality and obscurity feel like they worsen the relevant dynamics a lot, since they prevent other people from sanity-checking your takes (though this is also much more broadly applicable). For example, being involved in crimes makes it much harder to get outside feedback on your decisions, since telling people what decisions you are facing now exposes you to the risk of them outing you. Or working on dangerous technologies that you can’t tell anyone about makes it harder to get feedback on whether you are making the right tradeoffs (since doing so would usually involve leaking some of the details behind the dangerous technology).
It’s interesting to think of these four in particular as applied to a company like OpenAI.
It’s interesting to think of these four in particular as applied to a company like OpenAI.