bbarth

Karma: 134

bbarth Jan 19, 2012, 3:57 PM
14 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: POSITION: Design and Write Rationality Curriculum
I don’t know what others think (besides myself and thomblake, clearly), but I think it’s between 3 and 4x under market for a person with those skills in the Bay Area. It’s between 2 and 3x under market in a place like Austin, TX, depending on experience.

People with experience doing the things listed above make high 5 and low 6-figure salaries plus benefits (medical, 401k with some matching, etc.) in industry jobs, or they are university or secondary school teachers who have reasonable salaries, health care, and other benefits like tenure not available to industry workers.

bbarth Jan 19, 2012, 3:38 PM
9 points
in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: POSITION: Design and Write Rationality Curriculum
I guess my points were a little too obtuse. People with even a handful of these skills get paid a lot more than you’re offering (e.g. school teachers have curriculum design and teaching experience, and generally make much more than $36k/yr). Clearly, stating the salary is “upfront” about the salary, but that wasn’t my complaint. My complaint was that it appears that by offering a well below market salary you’re looking for a fellow traveler/true believer/movement participant who is so highly dedicated to the cause that they are willing to sacrifice a good chunk of their potential earnings to advance SIAI’s goals. If that’s the case, then you should state it directly. If it’s not the case, then another possibility that comes to mind is that you’re hoping to exploit the passion of a young person who feels strongly about the cause but doesn’t realize what they’re worth on the open market.

My concern is that by not stating anything about this obviously (to me) below market salary, you’re leaving your motivations open to serious question. I think it better to lay out some sort of reasoning behind it than to leave it ambiguous.

bbarth Jan 19, 2012, 2:03 PM
4 points
on: POSITION: Design and Write Rationality Curriculum
The salary for this position seems off by a factor of between 3 and 4 given the sort of background you want. You’re asking for someone with professional level design skills coupled to the skills of a university professor or really good high school teacher or video game designer (depending or your perspective). People with these skills get paid a lot more than you’re offering. $36k/yr isn’t going to get you a bright recent college grad, especially if they have to live in the Bay Area.

It seems to me that you’re more interested in hiring folks that are deeply dedicated to the movement so that you can pay them a sub-market salary than hiring the best person you can find. Which is fine, but you should be upfront about it.

bbarth Apr 19, 2011, 1:47 PM
0 points
in reply to: jtk3’s comment on: Build Small Skills in the Right Order
Agreed. I just sounded like this discussion was trending into hyperbole about the dangers of smoking.

bbarth Apr 19, 2011, 2:36 AM
1 point
in reply to: jtk3’s comment on: Build Small Skills in the Right Order
I don’t think people become addicted by TRYING a cigarette. It takes several if not dozens or more. The physical dependence is acquired and comes by degrees.

bbarth 19 Sep 2010 15:38 UTC
1 point
in reply to: AnnaSalamon’s comment on: LW’s first job ad
My apologies, Anna, I didn’t know that you worked for SIAI until I was browsing the site this morning for a better hint about this job. I didn’t realize that you were likely operating on inside information.

bbarth 18 Sep 2010 4:48 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Aleksei_Riikonen’s comment on: LW’s first job ad
That’s awfully parochial of you. Also, that puts me firmly in the “this shouldn’t have been promoted camp.”

If the rationality community is going to grow, it would behoove it to be more open not less. It’s a bit surprising that you would advocate for insular and incestuous hiring practices given the hurdles that this community has to overcome if it wants attract more members.

bbarth 17 Sep 2010 22:44 UTC
−1 points
in reply to: Aleksei_Riikonen’s comment on: LW’s first job ad
Also, did a rationalist just ask me to take something on faith? ;)

bbarth 17 Sep 2010 22:22 UTC
9 points
in reply to: Aleksei_Riikonen’s comment on: LW’s first job ad
Here’s the thing: Consider the circumstances of a potential applicant who makes $X and live in Texas. If applying to this job is going to be worth their time, they need to know that it’s worth at least f$X where f (greater than unity) is a conversion factor for the cost of living in Texas vs. the Bay Area. If the only job pays, say 0.5 $X or less, then it’s probably not even worth the applicant’s time to update their resume. Additionally, if the applicant is already employed, then they’d need to have some confidence that the application process would be handled confidentially lest they be exposed to their current employer and put in a difficult situation.

Nothing in EY’s post gives any confidence for either of these factors. He’s made no effort to signal that this is on the up and up. There’s no way to know whether there’s positive utility to be gained by applying. It’s a complete and utter crapshoot. The ad says no experience required, but is that their preference? It reads partly as though they’re looking for a visionary but partly as though they’re looking for a newbie. How is anyone supposed to make out what’s wanted from the ad?

Additionally, as best I can tell, most people on this forum don’t know EY personally. Saying trust him, he’s a good guy is like asking you to trust me. I haven’t given you any reason to do so, and (especially to a person new to the site) the thread of comments here about whether or not to promote this story might make one think that EY is a bit of a loose cannon.

It’s clearly within EY’s power to update the job posting with a better description of the job and a salary range. He should also state some anonymous facts about the company in question (order of magnitude number of employees, industry, public or private, order of magnitude market capitalization, etc.). Finally, he could also state that he is personally in control of yaunshotfirst@gmail.com so that folks know that they’re giving their info over to him and not some random entity on the net.

Edited to remove asterisks which apparently put the font into italics....

bbarth 17 Sep 2010 14:06 UTC
6 points
in reply to: AnnaSalamon’s comment on: LW’s first job ad
And you would guess that why? The post is almost entirely evidence free. If you know something that can shed some light on the situation, please share it! Anything else is rank speculation.

There’s no data in this post that makes it clear that it’s at all safe to send my resume (with some personal data on it) to what appears to be a throwaway gmail account. Job descriptions usually come with more data. Even if there’s a recruiter in the middle, at least the recruiter has you contact them directly. Here, EY is asking us to contact an anonymous email address. This makes it seem really fishy.

bbarth 17 Sep 2010 1:52 UTC
1 point
in reply to: AnnaSalamon’s comment on: LW’s first job ad
I’m not sure why. It suggests that people out of high school could apply if they have participated in math-Olympiad-type events or are a polymath (which for high school grads might cover some high-end calculus and maybe some number theory or analysis). That being said, the job is looking for an ideas person of some sort, which doesn’t scream recent high school grad to me. Thus the question.

Let me rephrase. Does it pay more or less than $100k starting?

bbarth 16 Sep 2010 13:19 UTC
6 points
on: LW’s first job ad
Can you define “pay[s] well”? I.e. does it pay well for someone straight out of college, or does it pay well for someone with 10 years of research experience?

bbarth 31 Mar 2009 14:24 UTC
26 points
on: Money: The Unit of Caring
Salaried professionals often cannot do an extra hour of work in order to donate the proceeds to charity. My employer basically prohibits me from moonlighting/consulting/etc. Even many hourly employees can’t get extra hours at work as that would be higher-rate overtime that their employer is unwilling to pay. Monetary charitable giving takes away from my current bottom line, but charitable working just eats into my leisure hours.

Since I cannot do extra paid work without fear of consequences at my primary job, my non-work time may be practically worthless. I can only use it to do things that I might otherwise pay someone else to do. If I can do work around the house, then I can save the cost of paying the plumber. Suppose I make $100/hr (nominally) and the plumber charges $50/hr. Assuming we can do the same job in the same time, I haven’t lost $50/hr by doing it myself instead of paying the plumber, I’ve simply lost the utility of those hours which I may not rate highly if I’d have otherwise laid on the couch watching Simpsons reruns.

Some units of caring cost more than others. I can donate $100 to charity, or I can do 100 hours of work for that charity using hours that only cost me $1/hr (presuming that I rate the utility of those hours otherwise spent low enough).

Clearly, people shouldn’t be derided for donating excess money (the “overemployed”?) to charity rather than their time, but I think the calculus is a little more complex than what you describe in your post. For those living near their means (neither under- or overemployed), there are additional economic factors that make donation of time heavily favored over donation of money. That a culture of valuing this has arisen to justify/rationalize such behavior shouldn’t be terribly surprising.