oh ps, I’m sure this has already been mentioned in the 100+ comments I haven’t read, but it’s weird to call Leverage a “high-demand” group since – during my time there – people were regularly complaining about basically having too much freedom. I can’t remember a single day there that anyone demanded I do anything, in the way a manager demands of employees or guru makes demands of disciples. (Actually there might have been a few where, eg, there was a mandatory meeting that we all install a good password manager so we don’t get hacked. But often people missed these “mandatory” meetings.) Most days I just did whatever I wanted. Often people felt like they were floating and wanted *more* directives.
My current model is that this changed around 2017 or so. At least my sense was that people from before that time often had tons of side-projects and free time, and afterwards people seemed to have really full schedules and were constantly busy.
Oh you might be right. I think around 2017 was when the overall thing started to separate into subgroups, some of which I remember having stronger requirements (eg do one presentation every X weeks or something). Around that time I was off doing Reserve, which largely got started in New York, and wasn’t so in touch with the rest of the “ecosystem” in the Bay Area. OK, yeah, I think this makes me not a reliable commentator on the 2017-on period.
Maybe one thing worth mentioning on this: If my memory serves correct, Reserve was founded with the goal of funding existential risk work. This included funding the Leverage ecosystem (since many of the members thought of themselves as working on solutions that would help with X-Risk) but would have also included other people and orgs.
oh ps, I’m sure this has already been mentioned in the 100+ comments I haven’t read, but it’s weird to call Leverage a “high-demand” group since – during my time there – people were regularly complaining about basically having too much freedom. I can’t remember a single day there that anyone demanded I do anything, in the way a manager demands of employees or guru makes demands of disciples. (Actually there might have been a few where, eg, there was a mandatory meeting that we all install a good password manager so we don’t get hacked. But often people missed these “mandatory” meetings.) Most days I just did whatever I wanted. Often people felt like they were floating and wanted *more* directives.
My current model is that this changed around 2017 or so. At least my sense was that people from before that time often had tons of side-projects and free time, and afterwards people seemed to have really full schedules and were constantly busy.
Oh you might be right. I think around 2017 was when the overall thing started to separate into subgroups, some of which I remember having stronger requirements (eg do one presentation every X weeks or something). Around that time I was off doing Reserve, which largely got started in New York, and wasn’t so in touch with the rest of the “ecosystem” in the Bay Area. OK, yeah, I think this makes me not a reliable commentator on the 2017-on period.
Maybe one thing worth mentioning on this: If my memory serves correct, Reserve was founded with the goal of funding existential risk work. This included funding the Leverage ecosystem (since many of the members thought of themselves as working on solutions that would help with X-Risk) but would have also included other people and orgs.