Well, first of all, the tone of your post is very passive aggressive and defensive, and if you are trying to encourage a good, rational discussion like you say, then you should maybe be a little more self-concious about your behavior.

Regarding the content of your post, I think it's a fair question. However, you seem like you are being quite a bit closed minded and EY-centric about the entire issue. This person is just one employee for SIAI, which presumeably can manage their own business, and no doubt have a much better idea of what their employees are doing than any of us do. Just because this one individual employee is engaging in these generalistic activities doesn't mean the entire organization is unfocused and uncommitted to its stated purpose. So I would say your claim is wrong, or at least very unsubstantiated. Now, if you said that EY salary was 50% of the SIAI budget, then that would be a whole different story, and so on and so forth.

Edit: And just FYI, I've actually voted this post up because I think your question is an interesting, fundamental application of rationality to an obviously important inner issue. So I hope you don't feel the need to think everyone is just a cultist -- try to be more positive my friend!