EA - AMA: Ben West, former startup founder and EtGer by Ben West

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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: AMA: Ben West, former startup founder and EtGer, published by Ben West on November 8, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Hey everyone! I'm Ben, and I will be doing an AMA forEffective Giving Spotlight week. Some of my relevant background:In 2014 I cofounded a company for earning to give (EtG) reasons (largelyinspired by 80k), which was latersuccessfully acquired.Since late 2018 I have been doing direct work, currently as Interim Managing Director of CEA.(With a brief side project of founding a TikTok-related company which wassimilarly acquired, albeit for way less money.)I've had some other EtGish work experience (eight years as a software developer/middle manager, a couple months at Alameda Research) as wellAdditionally, I've talked to some people deciding between EtG and direct work because of mystanding offer to talk to such folks, so I might have cached thoughts on some questions.You might want to ask me about:EntrepreneurshipTrade-offs between earning to give and "direct work"Cosmetics and skincare for those who (want to) look masculineTikTokFunctional programming (particularly Haskell)Or one ofmy less useful projectsAnything else (I might skip some questions)I will plan to answer questions Thursday, November 9th. Post them as comments on this thread.See alsoJeff's AMA, which is on a similar topic.Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org