Vaidehi Agarwalla
Bio
I lead Product at Momentum, and care about making funding for high impact causes more robust & diversified. I live in the Bay Area, advise Asia-based community builders and run Pineapple Ops. I previously worked in consulting, recruiting and marketing, with a BA in Sociology and focused on social movements. (A little on my journey to EA)
I'm always keen to hear feedback through any means. Here's an anonymous way to share: admonymous.co/vaidehiagarwalla
Unless otherwise stated, I always write in a personal capacity.
/'vɛðehi/ or VEH-the-hee
Some posts I've written and particuarly like:
- Ideas from network science about EA community building
- The funnel or the individual: Two approaches to understanding EA engagement
- The availability bias in job hunting
- What comes after the intro fellowship?
Advice I frequently give:
- When in doubt, apply*
- What Ops in EA is like
- If you're running a retreat, nail the vibes and venue
- Add randomness to your conferences
How others can help me
If you feel I can do something (anything) better, please let me know. I want to be warm, welcoming & supportive - and I know I can fail to live up to those standards sometimes. Have a low bar for reaching out - (anonymous form here).
If you think you have different views to me (on anything!), reach out -I want to hear more from folks with different views to me. If you have deep domain expertise in a very specific area (especially non-EA) I'd love to learn about it!
Connect me to fundraisers, product designers, people with ops & recruiting backgrounds and potential PA/ops folks!
How I can help others
I can give specific feedback on movement building & meta EA project plans and career advising.
I can also give feedback on posts and grant applications.
Posts 64
Comments658
Topic contributions62
Good Ventures have stopped funding efforts connected with the rationality community and rationality
Since that post doesn't specify specific causes they are exiting from, could you clarify if they specified that they are also not funding lower case r "rationality"?
More broadly, they are ultimately scared about the world returning to the sort of racism that led to the Holocaust, to segregation, and they are scared that if they do not act now, to stop this they will be part of maintaining the current system of discrimination and racial injustice.
This feels somewhat uncharitable.
Oh thanks for the clarification, I didn't realize that! I'd expect there to be less wealth in LMIC countries though - I assume the vast majority of wealth (not sure what reasonable numbers are here) is held in HIC's and by HNWIs / corporations / governments in those countries.
Also global GDP increased 43% between 2010 and 2022.
GDP per capita numbers are 2022 estimates, didn't make that clear earlier.
Calculating the rest of the world, geographically (2010 population numbers, 2022 GDP numbers):
- 242M in Sub-saharan Africa, GDP per capita ~$1600 (source)
- 275M in Southeast Asia, Indonesian GDP per capita is $5000 (source), so another
- 500M in South Asia, where GDP per capita is <$2000 (source)
- 195M in North Africa where GDP per capita is <$4000 (source)
- 155M in Central-West Asia (excl. Turkey) where GDP seems to be <$5000 (source)
- 74M in Turkey with a GDP of $14K (source)
This accounts for something like 87% of Mulisms in 2010. I believe this distribution is basically accurate in 2024 (or if anything, accounts for even more of the population because the main population growth comes from LMICs).
Cumulatively I'd expect that these regions could (being fairly generous) give maybe ~$206B per year (accounting for population growth from 2010 to present) if everyone was giving 2.5% of income, but I'd expect the number to be much lower.
Marisa was a wonderfully kind, thoughtful and supportive person. She was one of the first friends I made in EA many years ago, and I felt I'd found a kindred spirit in her - we exchanged many ideas and about sociology, ops, community building. She gave wonderfully helpful feedback and I always enjoyed learning about what she was up to (always something new!).
I'm so saddened and heartbroken by this news. She deserved so much more.
Could you share some examples of where people have done this or called for it?
From what I've seen online and the in person EA community members I know, people seem pretty clear about separating themselves from the Rationalist community.