Well, I think it can both be the case that a given staff member thinks the organization’s mission is important, and also that due to their particular distribution of comparative advantages, current amount of burnout, etc., that it would be on net better for them to work elsewhere. And I think most of our turnover has resulted from considerations like this, rather than from e.g. people deciding CFAR’s mission was doomed.
I think the concern about short median tenure leading to research loss makes sense, and has in fact occurred some. But I’m not that worried about it, personally, for a few reasons:
This cost is reduced because we’re in the teaching business. That is, relative to an organization that does pure research, we’re somewhat better positioned to transfer institutional knowledge to new staff, since much of the relevant knowledge has already been heavily optimized for easy transferability.
There’s significant benefit to turnover, too. I think the skills staff develop while working at CFAR are likely to be useful for work at a variety of orgs; I feel excited about the roles a number of former staff are playing elsewhere, and expect I’ll be excited about future roles our current staff play elsewhere too.
Many of our staff already have substantial “work-related experience,” in some sense, before they’re hired. For example, I spent a bunch of time in college reading LessWrong, trying to figure out metaethics, etc., which I think helped me become a better CFAR instructor than I might have been otherwise. I expect many lesswrongers, for example, have already developed substantial skill relevant to working effectively at CFAR.
Well, I think it can both be the case that a given staff member thinks the organization’s mission is important, and also that due to their particular distribution of comparative advantages, current amount of burnout, etc., that it would be on net better for them to work elsewhere. And I think most of our turnover has resulted from considerations like this, rather than from e.g. people deciding CFAR’s mission was doomed.
I think the concern about short median tenure leading to research loss makes sense, and has in fact occurred some. But I’m not that worried about it, personally, for a few reasons:
This cost is reduced because we’re in the teaching business. That is, relative to an organization that does pure research, we’re somewhat better positioned to transfer institutional knowledge to new staff, since much of the relevant knowledge has already been heavily optimized for easy transferability.
There’s significant benefit to turnover, too. I think the skills staff develop while working at CFAR are likely to be useful for work at a variety of orgs; I feel excited about the roles a number of former staff are playing elsewhere, and expect I’ll be excited about future roles our current staff play elsewhere too.
Many of our staff already have substantial “work-related experience,” in some sense, before they’re hired. For example, I spent a bunch of time in college reading LessWrong, trying to figure out metaethics, etc., which I think helped me become a better CFAR instructor than I might have been otherwise. I expect many lesswrongers, for example, have already developed substantial skill relevant to working effectively at CFAR.