Episode Details
Back to Episodes“Regional EA groups should be incubators, not communities. Hot takes on EA community building strategy” by Erik Jentzen
Description
Epistemic status: hot takes. I have thought quite a bit about EA community building strategy over the past two years, but the style of this post is not "well reasoned and explained". I have been planning to publish something like this for months, kept pushing it back, and now I just want to get it out.
Why I am writing this
For two years now I have been a full-time community builder at EA Switzerland. In those two years I have seen very little high level public discussion about EA Community Building (EA CB) strategy. With this post I hope to spark that discussion and to add my two cents.
With "EA CB" I mean what national or city groups like EA Switzerland do, or should do.
TL;DR
General takes
- "EA community building" is a fuzzy term. It is not clear what it actually means: which programmes count as "general EA CB" and which are "something else".
- EA CB is an unattractive career path. Low pay, yearly grants, low social acceptance outside the bubble.
- It is hard to get funding for EA CB work.
- If the third wave of philanthropy is coming and "the ecosystem" is actually excited [...]
---
Outline:
(00:33) Why I am writing this
(01:01) TL;DR
(03:52) Overview of the field and the current situation
(06:24) Assumptions
(06:52) 1. Positive impact: it does not matter whether the hours are worked by "an EA"
(07:57) 2. Scouting, not converting
(10:12) 3. Cause-area-first outreach produces career changes far more efficiently than principles-first
(12:01) 4. The community people need to boost their productivity is small
(15:01) 5. Once a field is mature, coordination across cause areas has limited value
(18:18) 6. Way more people apply for jobs than for funding
(19:01) 7. If you don't look into what should exist in your region, nobody will
(19:28) What EA CB orgs (regional meta EA orgs) should do at the moment
(20:13) 2. Provide a productive environment, aka a co-working space
(22:56) 3. Build a "captains school"
(23:47) 1. What incubating new projects looks like
(27:57) Doubts
(29:26) Summary: what I want to see less of, and what I want to see more of
(31:52) Thanks
The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
---
First published:
September 4th, 2026
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.