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Notes -
Concrete note on this:
The "all expenses" they're talking about are work-related travel expenses. I, too, would be extremely mad if an employer promised me $75k / year in compensation, $10k of which would be cash-based, and then tried to say that costs incurred by me doing my job were considered to be my "compensation".
Honestly most of what I take away from this is that nobody involved seems to have much of an idea of how things are done in professional settings, and also there seems to be an attitude of "the precautions that normal businesses take are costly and unnecessary since we are all smart people who want to help the world". Which, if that's the way they want to swing, then fine, but I think it is worth setting those expectations upfront. And also I'd strongly recommend that anyone fresh out of college who has never had a normal job should avoid working for an EA organization like nonlinear until they've seen how things work in purely transactional jobs.
Also it seems to me based on how much interest there was in that infighting that effective altruists are starved for drama.
It all seems very dodgy, and I think that the company was one of those set-ups that many people encounter at least once in their working lives: very extrovert/charismatic boss, who spouts a lot of the right stuff about ideals and appeals to better nature, and convinces you that working with them is going to change the world/improve the lives of many.
When you're young and inexperienced, you're vulnerable to all this because you don't have enough time put in to know what work is like. And the use of unpaid interns and so forth is common in all kinds of businesses.
So in this case - were the people volunteers, travelling on their own dime along with the Interlinear people, and getting room and board and expenses with an allowance on top, or were they employees? Since they don't seem ever to have been formally employed or given contracts, it sounds like the 'volunteer/unpaid intern' type of taking advantage.
If I take the initial story on face value, the Interlinear lot are EA-adjacent, swimming in the same waters, but sharks not dolphins (or behaving like sharks, at least). The kind of exploitative set-up that, as I said, most of us hit up against at least once when we're out there working for a living, but covering it all over with the language of volunteering and idealism and changing the world, etc. It's possible that Interlinear aren't that bad, but it's also possible that this Emmanuel guy is that sort of charming psychopath that top management roles attract. And the mess of overlapping romantic/family/employee or pseudo-family? who knows? roles didn't help.
Then the sort of people who are in the EA bubble are exactly the over-sensitive, rather credulous, inexperienced sorts who believe all the clap-trap about idealism and also expect a ton of accommodations for their lifestyle choices (e.g. veganism).
Put the two together, and that's putting fire and tinder together.
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They never promised $75k/year in compensation, $10k of which would be cash-based. This was the compensation package listed in their written, mutually agreed upon employment contract:
They included another text in evidence where they restated part of it:
The only apparent mention of $70000 as a number happened during a recorded interview (edited for clarity, meaning retained):
I would not personally take a job offering this compensation structure, but they were fully upfront about what the comp package was and it came pre-agreed as part of the deal. I see no grounds for complaints about dishonesty around it.
It's not a job, it's more like being an au pair: the 'employer' or 'host family' provides room and board and an allowance in return for light domestic/child minding work.
The selling point here seems to be "wouldn't you like to travel and have fun overseas on our dime? we'll pay for travel, and room and board, and even give you a stipend on top! and all you have to do is help us with our fun, impactful, altruistic projects!"
As a gap year thing, sure. Maybe. Were I a parent, I'd still be "but who are these people and what happens if you're overseas and get sick or something?" But it's not a job job, it's volunteer work or voluntourism or the likes, and that may be what Interlinear are relying on.
Yeah, that’s the same as things like teach abroad programs and Peace Corps. It’s nice when you’re young and single.
Sounds like Nonlinear are relying on those blurry boundaries; one person says you're an employee, here's your contract, you'll be working for me but the head boss says oh no all these are volunteers and we pay for travel, room and board plus we throw in a stipend, but they're independent contractors (as it were). So when they have you there, you think you're working in a job, but any trouble and you find out nope no that's not what we said and that's not what is written down, not our problem.
Speaking of blurry boundaries, Nonlinear almost certainly violated either federal tax law or minimum wage laws, and potentially immigration law too.
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I read the same doc you did, and like. I get that "Chloe" did in fact sign that contract, and that the written contract is what matters in the end. My point is not that Nonlinear did something illegal, but... did we both read the same transcript? Because that transcript reads to me like "come on, you should totally draw art for my product, I can only pay 20% of market rates but I can get you lots of exposure, and you can come to my house parties and meet all the cool people, this will be great for your career".
I don't know how much of it is that Kat's writing style pattern matches really strongly to a particular shitty and manipulative boss I very briefly worked for right after college. E.g. stuff like
just does not fill me with warm fuzzy feelings about someone's ability to entertain the hypothesis that their own behavior could possibly be a problem. Again, I am probably not terribly impartial here - I have no horse in this particular race, but I once had one in a similar race.
While I don't endorse "come on, you should totally draw art for my product"–type behavior, I do think the position would have been appealing and appropriate for a certain type of person I am not far from. My monthly salary on top of room and board was significantly larger as a military enlistee, but I also wasn't traveling the world. I think they were realistically underpaying for what they wanted but also think "don't take the job" is an adequate remedy to that.
I take your point about the writing style, but for me it's secondary to the core impression that the investigation was very badly mishandled in a way that makes examining things now feel unfair. The initial report should not have been released as-is and it reflects poorly on the whole EA/LW-rationalist community that it was. Given the poor choices around its release, I don't feel inclined to focus too much on what really looks like mundane and predictable workplace/roommate drama.
I agree that it was badly mishandled. I think it's valuable to tell EAs that the "people will try to get you to take a job where they say you'll be paid in experience/exposure, be mindful of that dynamic" but singling out a single organization to that degree makes it sound like it's a problem specific to that organization (which it is not, even within the EA space I personally know of another org with similar dynamics, and I'm not even very involved with the space).
I personally still wouldn't work for nonlinear but then I also would have noped out in the initial hash-out-the-contract phase.
The problem is that even if Nonlinear is pure as the driven snow (and there seems to be some grounds to doubt that), it's operating in the EA sphere where 'put the majority of the money you earn to good causes, live sparely so you can give even more' is an acceptable community value, and where there are a lot of idealists willing to save the world if they can, and willing to be emotionally guilt-tripped into volunteering, doing way more work than they should be doing, and living on fresh air while doing that. Where scrupulosity is a known problem, and people do tie themselves into knots over paperclip maximisers.
It's not sustainable for anybody and it's very open to abuse.
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Yeah. And honestly, there are worse things than being paid in exposure. I'd describe that as the primary compensation for my podcast job (my bosses pay me a perfectly fair hourly wage, but I'm certainly not doing it for the money). It's just worth being clear-eyed about precisely what that entails and when it's appropriate.
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See all the reputable media companies, including the New York Times at one time, that use(d) unpaid interns for the same thing - this is helping you get your foot in the door, it pays in exposure. Lots of places rely on the unpaid/voluntary labour of hopefuls to carry them through backlogs, or the busy period, or rush orders. The wonders of the gig economy, where there will be no such thing as guaranteed employment but it's your responsibility to be flexible, available, and constantly re-skilling/upskilling to meet demand.
Sounds like a good learning experience about the world of work, but I imagine since this is all within the EA bubble, the expectations about being treated super-specially and not being taken advantage of and getting all sorts of loving, caring, treatment were sky-high.
Everyone involved sounds narcissistic at best and absolute pricks at worst, and I'm not going to single out one person from the lot.
There is a certain narrative that this is common but I'm not sure a buy it. Maybe it's just software engineering but interns have never made sense as a free labor prospect to me, they cost more in senior dev time spent training than they could possibly be alleviating. It only makes sense as a junior talent pipeline tool.
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Sounds like a mercifully inexpensive lesson about the nonexistence of free lunches. What an offer like that translates to is
If someone willingly agrees to work for a pathetic salary with "all expenses paid," or draw art for "exposure," and they get what they signed up for, it's really not shitty or manipulative, it's just an unremarkable business agreement, regardless of what unrealistic hopes on party may have had.
Ask questions, get everything in writing, in a contract, and if it sounds too good to be true, walk away. I'm continually amazed at how my some of my colleagues and acquaintances just take others' word and then get disappointed when their own expectations let them down. Classic example: "We can't give you a raise this year, but I'm sure we'll be able to do something for you when the next performance cycle rolls around." Okay cool, write me a bonus offer right now for next year and sign it, otherwise I'm hopping on LinkedIn tonight.
I worked a few seasonal jobs in my youth that included room and board, which was taken out of the already-modest paychecks. You really could get away with not spending anything for months if you wanted, although many of my coworkers would occasionally find a restaurant or bar at which to spend money.
I don't regret doing these because the job itself was pretty enjoyable. I make better money now, but I didn't feel exploited by the arrangement: as long as you're saving enough for retirement and such, gigs that cover "expenses" in-kind can be an option, although probably not the most interesting one.
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I have no idea how so many of these so called "well adjusted" human beings fall for things so simple as the Mystery Box. Like people used to call me borderline autistic and even in my worst moments I would never ever have fallen for "I'm sure we'll be able to do something for you when the next performance cycle rolls around".
OTOH, and maybe it's my backwater upbringing talking, $1K cash on top of room, board and other expenses, doesn't sound like a bad deal, if you're still young.
Combined with world travel within an existing social circle and without grinding repetitive labor, and it sounds good to me right now at over 30. Maybe negotiate some sort of bonus if my living/travel costs come in way under the estimate.
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