I'm not happy with how big Eliezer's salary is either
What rational reasons do you have?
I can imagine two rational reasons for feeling that someone is overpaid. First and most commonly, if someone is overpaid relative to their productivity. For example, a programmer who writes buggy, poorly designed code and makes 130k for it is clearly overpaid, as is a CEO who makes zillions while driving their company into the ground. This objection could be bluntly phrased as "Eliezer is a hack" - if you think so, say so. I suspect that very few people on LW hold this opinion, especially if, as I said above, they agree that good-enough AI researchers are literally beyond value. (That is, if you subscribe to the basic logic that AI holds the potential to unleash a technological singularity that can either destroy the world or remake it according to our wishes, then EY's approach is the way to go about doing the latter. Even if you disagree with the particulars, he is obviously onto something, and such insights have value.)
Second, your objection may be "someone who works for a nonprofit shouldn't be richly compensated". For example, you could probably go through Newsweek's Fifteen Highest-Paid Charity CEOs, and pick one where you could say "yeah, that's a well-run organization, but that CEO is paid way too much - why don't they voluntarily accept a smaller, but still generous, salary, like a few hundred K?" I don't believe that the second one applies to EY, because he works in an expensive area. More importantly, the fundamental root of this objection would be "if X accepted less money, the nonprofit would have more resources to spend elsewhere". That's pretty obvious when you're talking about mega-zillion CEO salaries. What about Eliezer's case? What if he handed back, say, 10k of his salary to SIAI? That's a significant hit in income for someone whose income matches expenses and whose expenses aren't unreasonable, and it would be much less significant to SIAI. Finally, EY is already working 60 hours a week for SIAI, and you would want him to donate a chunk of his current salary on top of that? Really?
On the other hand, I can think of an irrational reason to be unhappy with Eliezer's salary, which I think I'll be too polite to mention here.
Please refer to the updated documented here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/5il/siai_an_examination/
This version is an old draft.
NOTE: Analysis here will be updated as people point out errors! I've tried to be accurate, but this is my first time looking at these (somewhat hairy) non-profit tax documents. Errors will be corrected as soon as I know of them! Please double check and criticize this work that it might improve.
Document History:
Todo:
Disclaimer:
Acting on gwern's suggestion in his Girl Scout Cookie analysis, here is a first pass at looking at SIAI funding, suggestions for a funding task-force, etc.
The SIAI's Form 990's are available at GuideStar and Foundation Center. You must register in order to access the files at GuideStar.
Overview
Analysis:
Revenue
Analysis:
Expenses
Analysis:
Big Donors
Analysis
Officer Compensation
Prior to doing this investigation, I had some expectation that the Singularity Summit was a money losing operation. I had an expectation that Eliezer probably made around $70k (programmer money discounted for being paid by a non-profit). I figured the SIAI had a broader donor base. I was off base on all counts.* I am not currently an SIAI supporter. My findings have greatly increased the probability that I will donate in the future.
Overall, the allocation of funds strikes me as highly efficient. I don't know exactly how much the SIAI is spending on food and fancy tablecloths at the Singularity Summit, but I don't think I care: it's growing and it's nearly breaking even. An attendee can have a very confident expectation that their fee covers their cost to the organization. If you go and contribute you add pure value by your attendance.
At the same time, the organization has been able to expand services without draining the coffers. A donor can hold a strong expectation that the bulk of their donation will go toward actual work in the form of salaries for working personnel or events like the Visiting Fellows Program.
Eliezer's compensation is slightly more than I thought. I'm not sure what upper bound I would have balked at or would balk at. I do have some concern about the cost of recruiting additional Research Fellows. The cost of additional RFs has to be weighed against new programs like Visiting Fellows.
The organization appears to be managing its cash reserves well. It would be good to see the SIAI build up some asset reserves so that it could operate comfortably in years were public support dips or so that it could take advantage of unexpected opportunities.
The organization has a heavy reliance on major donor support. I would expect the 2010 filing to reveal a broadening of revenue and continued expansion of services, but I do not expect the organization to have become independent of big donor support. Things are much improved from 2006 and without the initial support from Peter Thiel the SIAI would not be able to provide the services it has, but it would still be good to see the SIAI operating capacity be larger than any one donor's annual contribution. It is important for Less Wrong to begin a discussion of broadening SIAI revenue sources.
Where to Start?
There is low hanging fruit to be found. The SIAI's annual revenue is well within the range of our ability to effect significant impact. These suggestions aren't all equal in their promise, they are just things that come to my mind.