To a large degree we’re aggregating and synthesizing the best existing advice, rather than generating our own wholecloth. This lowers the bar that we have to clear.
Vipul and I both have experience doing research and analysis for MIRI.
I worked at MathPath for 3 summers, taught college students throughout graduate school at University of Illinois, taught high school at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and technology (an academic magnet high school) and teach high performing math students at Art of Problem Solving. Vipul taught throughout graduate school at University of Chicago.
We’re learning about our target population through personalized advising.
But the ultimate test is whether people find our advice useful.
Agreed. This is maybe the most important question that isn’t addressed in the post. There are lots of people and organizations offering young people advice of varying quality, and if Jonah and Vipul want to reach lots of people they need to send a strong signal among all of this noise that people will notice and pay attention to. (The quality of the advice is not such a signal; presumably if the target population could distinguish between good and bad advice then they wouldn’t need this service.)
One response to this is that even though there’s a lot of competition for people’s attention in general, if one restricts to a niche population, there’s much less competition. Do you think that there’s a lot of advice aimed specifically intellectually gifted young people? What are some examples of such sources? (We know of some, e.g. College Confidential — I’m curious as to whether you know ones that we haven’t come across, or haven’t thought of.)
Good question.
To a large degree we’re aggregating and synthesizing the best existing advice, rather than generating our own wholecloth. This lowers the bar that we have to clear.
Vipul and I both have experience doing research and analysis for MIRI.
I worked at MathPath for 3 summers, taught college students throughout graduate school at University of Illinois, taught high school at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and technology (an academic magnet high school) and teach high performing math students at Art of Problem Solving. Vipul taught throughout graduate school at University of Chicago.
We’re learning about our target population through personalized advising.
But the ultimate test is whether people find our advice useful.
You can see some reviews here.
I think you are answering the question why you think are you qualified to offer advice. That’s a different question.
None of your four points answers the question as to why high-IQ kids should turn to you for advice about, basically, how to run their life.
Agreed. This is maybe the most important question that isn’t addressed in the post. There are lots of people and organizations offering young people advice of varying quality, and if Jonah and Vipul want to reach lots of people they need to send a strong signal among all of this noise that people will notice and pay attention to. (The quality of the advice is not such a signal; presumably if the target population could distinguish between good and bad advice then they wouldn’t need this service.)
Thanks.
One response to this is that even though there’s a lot of competition for people’s attention in general, if one restricts to a niche population, there’s much less competition. Do you think that there’s a lot of advice aimed specifically intellectually gifted young people? What are some examples of such sources? (We know of some, e.g. College Confidential — I’m curious as to whether you know ones that we haven’t come across, or haven’t thought of.)