Lightcone Infrastructure is competing for talent not only with industry, but also with the rest of the nonprofit sector. You could also frame this pay rate as a way to attract people from other forms of lower-paying nonprofit work, where they may be getting, say, industry − 40% rather than Lightcone’s pay rate of industry − 30%.
From that point of view, I think LI’s approach makes more sense. First, attract talent from even lower-paying nonprofits, along with a view enthusiasts from industry. Once that resource is tapped out, then you start increasing your pay closer to that of industry. This pulls in people who are increasingly more driven by money than by mission.
There’s a way to cast this as unfair. But I don’t think that’s your objection. You’re more worried about whether there will be pernicious effects on the effectiveness of LC and the broader EA ecosystem by offering lower pay than you could get in industry. With this hypothesis that LC will first be primarily attracting talent from the even-lower-paying nonprofit sector in mind, here are my responses to your higher-order negative effects:
The strategy is scalable. They can attract the talent they can get at industry −30%, then increase from there as necessary.
The pay → status → values hypothesis seems shaky to me. US Senators and House representatives make a salary of $174,000/year. Doctors make $200,000/year. Who has higher status and a greater ability to shape the values of the nation, an average doctor or an average congressperson/senator? Even if pay does cause status and value-spreading ability to increase, it’s not clear that this is a primary factor relative to, say, the ability to put more people on the job of promoting ideas and value systems.
The future pay issue is equally a virtue when we consider attracting people from lower-paying nonprofit jobs. Beyond that, I think your objection is that “industry −30%” doesn’t illustrate the amount of money at stake clearly enough, and that decisions that seem reasonable when we underestimate the magnitude in this way would seem unreasonable when we considered the lifetime earnings amount. That’s reasonable, and easy to test by displaying the expected lifetime earnings cut along with the percentage figure. Would this change our gut reaction?
It sounds like you’re worried that people can purchase an equal or larger amount of status by giving 10% of their income to charity as they can by giving up 30% of their income working for Lightcone. If this leads to an “overallocation” of EtG, then this comes with the tacit assumption that people are using altruism as a way to chase status, and that status isn’t allocated by utilitarian efficiency. Quite plausible, and I have to admit I don’t know what to do about that.
I’m not convinced by the “perverse incentives” worry. Introducing jobs that did not previously exist is creating an incentive where none existed before. What if LI had been offering unpaid internships before, and then decided to start paying those interns industry −30% salaries? Would that be a perverse incentive?
These are just off the top of my head, and I’m glad you raised these issues. Definitely worth further thought as the rationality/EA ecosystem grows!
US Senators and House representatives make a salary of $174,000/year. Doctors make $200,000/year
Do we think that the marginal increases in a Senator-making-174k’s wealth over time compared to a Doctor-making-200k look much like the marginal increases in a Doctor-making-174k’s wealth compared to a Doctor-making-200k?
Lightcone Infrastructure is competing for talent not only with industry, but also with the rest of the nonprofit sector. You could also frame this pay rate as a way to attract people from other forms of lower-paying nonprofit work, where they may be getting, say, industry − 40% rather than Lightcone’s pay rate of industry − 30%.
From that point of view, I think LI’s approach makes more sense. First, attract talent from even lower-paying nonprofits, along with a view enthusiasts from industry. Once that resource is tapped out, then you start increasing your pay closer to that of industry. This pulls in people who are increasingly more driven by money than by mission.
There’s a way to cast this as unfair. But I don’t think that’s your objection. You’re more worried about whether there will be pernicious effects on the effectiveness of LC and the broader EA ecosystem by offering lower pay than you could get in industry. With this hypothesis that LC will first be primarily attracting talent from the even-lower-paying nonprofit sector in mind, here are my responses to your higher-order negative effects:
The strategy is scalable. They can attract the talent they can get at industry −30%, then increase from there as necessary.
The pay → status → values hypothesis seems shaky to me. US Senators and House representatives make a salary of $174,000/year. Doctors make $200,000/year. Who has higher status and a greater ability to shape the values of the nation, an average doctor or an average congressperson/senator? Even if pay does cause status and value-spreading ability to increase, it’s not clear that this is a primary factor relative to, say, the ability to put more people on the job of promoting ideas and value systems.
The future pay issue is equally a virtue when we consider attracting people from lower-paying nonprofit jobs. Beyond that, I think your objection is that “industry −30%” doesn’t illustrate the amount of money at stake clearly enough, and that decisions that seem reasonable when we underestimate the magnitude in this way would seem unreasonable when we considered the lifetime earnings amount. That’s reasonable, and easy to test by displaying the expected lifetime earnings cut along with the percentage figure. Would this change our gut reaction?
It sounds like you’re worried that people can purchase an equal or larger amount of status by giving 10% of their income to charity as they can by giving up 30% of their income working for Lightcone. If this leads to an “overallocation” of EtG, then this comes with the tacit assumption that people are using altruism as a way to chase status, and that status isn’t allocated by utilitarian efficiency. Quite plausible, and I have to admit I don’t know what to do about that.
I’m not convinced by the “perverse incentives” worry. Introducing jobs that did not previously exist is creating an incentive where none existed before. What if LI had been offering unpaid internships before, and then decided to start paying those interns industry −30% salaries? Would that be a perverse incentive?
These are just off the top of my head, and I’m glad you raised these issues. Definitely worth further thought as the rationality/EA ecosystem grows!
Do we think that the marginal increases in a Senator-making-174k’s wealth over time compared to a Doctor-making-200k look much like the marginal increases in a Doctor-making-174k’s wealth compared to a Doctor-making-200k?