Episode Details
Back to Episodes“Your outreach is written for people who already agree with you” by Anna Pitner
Description
A few months ago I was talking to a software engineer at Google. On paper, a dream job. But she was frustrated. She felt like she wasn't contributing enough to the world and was seriously considering putting her engineering career aside to go study psychology. A whole decade-long academic track, starting from scratch.
I told her there are actually many ways to create a massive impact with exactly the technical background she already has. So I sent her to read about it on the EA websites.
She landed on a page about longtermism and existential risk reduction. She couldn't understand why any of it was relevant to her. Here was someone with the exact profile EA says it wants to reach: technically skilled, motivated by impact, ready to act. And we opened with the most abstract, most philosophically demanding version of the pitch before she'd even encountered the basic idea that some career paths do far more good than others.
She wasn't wrong to bounce. The content wasn't written for her. It was written for someone who'd already bought the premise.
I think this is EA's core growth problem. Not the ideas. The ideas are exceptional. The problem is [...]
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Outline:
(01:59) The bridge problem
(03:45) The sequencing problem
(05:32) What a better bridge looks like
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First published:
March 11th, 2026
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.