I know it sucks for nerds to hear that reputation (popularity) is important
I’m not sure we should be thinking of these as the same thing. For example I’d say this is reputation:
Samaritans has a much better, easier time at city hall compared to newer organizations, because of a decades-long productive relationship where we were really helpful with issues surrounding unemployment and homelessness. Permits get back to us really fast, applications get waved through with tedious steps bypassed, and fees are frequently waived. And it made sense that this was happening! Cities also deal with budget and staffing issues, why waste more time and effort than necessary on someone who you *know *knows the proper procedure and will ethically follow it to the letter?
and this is popularity:
the NIMBYs were reluctant to come out against us
And they probably have overlapping causes and effects, but they’re not the same.
I think most of what you describe feels more like it comes from reputation than popularity, and also I feel like EA as a whole simply can’t ever have that kind of reputation. Individual EA orgs can, but with no barrier to entry, it will never be the case that someone can reliably say “this organization calls itself an EA organization, so I can be confident it will execute competently and clean up after itself”. But also, if EA as a whole is unpopular, that’s also going to cause problems for well-reputed EA orgs.
Relatedly, I’d be curious about the mechanism behind Samaritans keeping its reputation for however long. (I get a sense that the org is probably between 15 and 50 years old? Not sure where I get that from.) It’s probably been through a bunch of CEOs, or whatever equivalent it has, in that time. Those CEOs probably weren’t selected on the basis of “who will pick the best successor to themselves”. Why has no one decided “we can help people better like this, even if that means breaking some (implicit?) promises we’ve made” and then oops, no one really trusts them any more?
So some questions I’d be interested in, I guess:
Have they had any major fuck ups?
If so, did that cost them reputationally? How did they regain trust?
If not, how did they avoid them? Luck? Tending to hire the sorts of people who don’t gamble with reputation? (Which might be easier because that sort of person will instead play the power game in a for-profit company?) Just not being old enough yet for that to be a serious concern?
How common is it for a well-reputed for-profit company to lose that reputation? /r/BuyItForLife will tell you several brands that used to be good and then outsourced manufacturing to China and now mainly or exclusively produce expensive branded shit. (Caution: I have no specific reason to doubt these stories, but it is reddit.) But how often does that sort of thing actually happen and how quickly (if at all) does their reputation disintegrate afterwards? Perhaps Nintendo and Disney count as companies that haven’t done anything like this? (e: and when this does happen, does it tend to be an error? An unforced error? Like, can’t maintain a reputation for producing quality product if you’re not producing quality product because you’re bankrupt because people weren’t willing to pay what it cost.)
(Acknowledging that this is super reductive about the concept of reputation.)
I get a sense that the org is probably between 15 and 50 years old
Yep, close to the top end of that.
It’s probably been through a bunch of CEOs, or whatever equivalent it has, in that time. Those CEOs probably weren’t selected on the basis of “who will pick the best successor to themselves”. Why has no one decided “we can help people better like this, even if that means breaking some (implicit?) promises we’ve made” and then oops, no one really trusts them any more?
That’s a really great observation. Samaritans has chosen to elide this problem simply by having no change in leadership throughout the entire run of the organization so far. They’ll have to deal with a transition soon as the founders are nearing retirement age, but I think they’ll be okay; there are lots of well aligned people in the org who have worked there for decades.
Have they had any major fuck ups? If so, did that cost them reputationally? How did they regain trust?
If not, how did they avoid them? Luck? Tending to hire the sorts of people who don’t gamble with reputation? (Which might be easier because that sort of person will instead play the power game in a for-profit company?) Just not being old enough yet for that to be a serious concern?
They haven’t had any major fuck ups, and there’s two main reasons for that imo:
The culture is very, very hufflepuff, and it shows. When you talk to people from Samaritans it’s very obvious that the thing they want to do the most is to do as much good as possible, in the most direct way as possible, and they are not interested in any sort of moral compromise. They’ve turned down funding from organizations that they didn’t find up to snuff. Collaborating orgs either collaborate on Samaritan’s stringent terms, or not at all. Doing the work this way has become increasingly easier as working with Samaritans has gotten to be an increasingly stronger and valuable signal of goodness, but they didn’t make compromises even as a very young and cash strapped organization.
They have a very very slow acculturation process for staff. It’s very much one of those organizations where you have to be in it for over a decade before they start trusting you to make significant decisions, and no one who is unaligned would find working there for a decade tolerable, lol. So basically there are no unaligned rogue actors inside it at all.
[reputation and popularity] probably have overlapping causes and effects, but they’re not the same.
I’m inclined to think that this is a distinction without a difference, but I’m open to having my mind changed on this. Can you expand on this point further? I’m struggling to model what an organization that has a good reputation but is unpopular, or vice versa, might look like.
If EA as a whole is unpopular, that’s also going to cause problems for well-reputed EA orgs.
Yes, I think that’s the important part, even though you’re right that we can’t do much about individual orgs choosing to associate itself with EA branding.
This feels vague and not very well pinned down, but:
I think a large part of it is the difference between “how positively do people feel about you” (popularity) and “how confidently can people predict what you’ll do” (reputation). Of course both of these also depend on “what people/organizations are we even talking about here”.
So when NIMBYs don’t want to fight you, that feels like a combination of
The NIMBYs themselves probably quite like you
The NIMBYs know lots of other people like you, and don’t want to be seen fighting someone popular
both of which are because you’re popular with the general public, and I can imagine you being popular with the general public even if you’re incompetent at your relations with other organizations.
But when your dealings with government get fast-tracked, that’s probably also related to people at city hall thinking well of you. But it also seems to me that a lot of it is “we know what happens when these people get to do the thing they’re asking to do”. And I can imagine that being the case even if the general public basically doesn’t know you, or doesn’t like you.
(“Reputation” doesn’t feel like quite the word for that, because I’m more imagining it being a “you have a history of working with us” thing than a “we heard about you from someone else you worked with” thing.)
I’m not sure we should be thinking of these as the same thing. For example I’d say this is reputation:
and this is popularity:
And they probably have overlapping causes and effects, but they’re not the same.
I think most of what you describe feels more like it comes from reputation than popularity, and also I feel like EA as a whole simply can’t ever have that kind of reputation. Individual EA orgs can, but with no barrier to entry, it will never be the case that someone can reliably say “this organization calls itself an EA organization, so I can be confident it will execute competently and clean up after itself”. But also, if EA as a whole is unpopular, that’s also going to cause problems for well-reputed EA orgs.
Relatedly, I’d be curious about the mechanism behind Samaritans keeping its reputation for however long. (I get a sense that the org is probably between 15 and 50 years old? Not sure where I get that from.) It’s probably been through a bunch of CEOs, or whatever equivalent it has, in that time. Those CEOs probably weren’t selected on the basis of “who will pick the best successor to themselves”. Why has no one decided “we can help people better like this, even if that means breaking some (implicit?) promises we’ve made” and then oops, no one really trusts them any more?
So some questions I’d be interested in, I guess:
Have they had any major fuck ups?
If so, did that cost them reputationally? How did they regain trust?
If not, how did they avoid them? Luck? Tending to hire the sorts of people who don’t gamble with reputation? (Which might be easier because that sort of person will instead play the power game in a for-profit company?) Just not being old enough yet for that to be a serious concern?
How common is it for a well-reputed for-profit company to lose that reputation? /r/BuyItForLife will tell you several brands that used to be good and then outsourced manufacturing to China and now mainly or exclusively produce expensive branded shit. (Caution: I have no specific reason to doubt these stories, but it is reddit.) But how often does that sort of thing actually happen and how quickly (if at all) does their reputation disintegrate afterwards? Perhaps Nintendo and Disney count as companies that haven’t done anything like this? (e: and when this does happen, does it tend to be an error? An unforced error? Like, can’t maintain a reputation for producing quality product if you’re not producing quality product because you’re bankrupt because people weren’t willing to pay what it cost.)
(Acknowledging that this is super reductive about the concept of reputation.)
Yep, close to the top end of that.
That’s a really great observation. Samaritans has chosen to elide this problem simply by having no change in leadership throughout the entire run of the organization so far. They’ll have to deal with a transition soon as the founders are nearing retirement age, but I think they’ll be okay; there are lots of well aligned people in the org who have worked there for decades.
They haven’t had any major fuck ups, and there’s two main reasons for that imo:
The culture is very, very hufflepuff, and it shows. When you talk to people from Samaritans it’s very obvious that the thing they want to do the most is to do as much good as possible, in the most direct way as possible, and they are not interested in any sort of moral compromise. They’ve turned down funding from organizations that they didn’t find up to snuff. Collaborating orgs either collaborate on Samaritan’s stringent terms, or not at all.
Doing the work this way has become increasingly easier as working with Samaritans has gotten to be an increasingly stronger and valuable signal of goodness, but they didn’t make compromises even as a very young and cash strapped organization.
They have a very very slow acculturation process for staff. It’s very much one of those organizations where you have to be in it for over a decade before they start trusting you to make significant decisions, and no one who is unaligned would find working there for a decade tolerable, lol. So basically there are no unaligned rogue actors inside it at all.
I’m inclined to think that this is a distinction without a difference, but I’m open to having my mind changed on this. Can you expand on this point further? I’m struggling to model what an organization that has a good reputation but is unpopular, or vice versa, might look like.
Yes, I think that’s the important part, even though you’re right that we can’t do much about individual orgs choosing to associate itself with EA branding.
This feels vague and not very well pinned down, but:
I think a large part of it is the difference between “how positively do people feel about you” (popularity) and “how confidently can people predict what you’ll do” (reputation). Of course both of these also depend on “what people/organizations are we even talking about here”.
So when NIMBYs don’t want to fight you, that feels like a combination of
The NIMBYs themselves probably quite like you
The NIMBYs know lots of other people like you, and don’t want to be seen fighting someone popular
both of which are because you’re popular with the general public, and I can imagine you being popular with the general public even if you’re incompetent at your relations with other organizations.
But when your dealings with government get fast-tracked, that’s probably also related to people at city hall thinking well of you. But it also seems to me that a lot of it is “we know what happens when these people get to do the thing they’re asking to do”. And I can imagine that being the case even if the general public basically doesn’t know you, or doesn’t like you.
(“Reputation” doesn’t feel like quite the word for that, because I’m more imagining it being a “you have a history of working with us” thing than a “we heard about you from someone else you worked with” thing.)