[I don’t like the $5k/life number and it generally seems sus to use a number GiveWell created (and disavows literal use of) to evaluate OpenPhil, but accepting it arguendo for this post...]
I think it’s pretty easy for slightly better decision-making by someone at openphil to save many times 2000 lives/ year. I think your math is off and you mean 20,000 lives per year, which is still not that hard for me to picture. The returns on slightly better spending is easily that high, when that much money is involved.
You could argue OpenPhil grant makers are not, in practice, generating those improvements. But preferring a year of an excellent grant maker to an additional $10m doesn’t seem weird for an org that, at the time, was giving away less money than it wanted to because it couldn’t find enough good projects.
[I don’t like the $5k/life number and it generally seems sus to use a number GiveWell created (and disavows literal use of) to evaluate OpenPhil, but accepting it arguendo for this post...]
I think it’s pretty easy for slightly better decision-making by someone at openphil to save many times 2000 lives/ year. I think your math is off and you mean 20,000 lives per year, which is still not that hard for me to picture. The returns on slightly better spending is easily that high, when that much money is involved.
You could argue OpenPhil grant makers are not, in practice, generating those improvements. But preferring a year of an excellent grant maker to an additional $10m doesn’t seem weird for an org that, at the time, was giving away less money than it wanted to because it couldn’t find enough good projects.
Sorry, I don’t feel comfortable continuing this conversation in public. Thank you for your thoughts Elizabeth.