An apt phrase! I built that surface area by spearheading a project I cared about in my free time and sharing it with experts at a midpoint to get feedback. Then, serendipity: one of them knew of me from a past project I had worked on, and that started the ball rolling to my getting my current position. I wrote about this more here https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ekbCzxh2SfA64GrxD/my-circuitous-undirected-path-to-an-ea-job
Thanks a lot for reading Seth and for taking the time to comment!. Love your story, thanks for sharing! I read your post and resonate with this "if anything in this journey went well because of things I did, it was usually because something caught my attention in a hard, biting way and I became obsessed with it." I don't think that it was expressed in the post, and I think it's very good point that when you are obsessed with something, you are more likely to do it consistently and well, and thus are more likely to do well on the "quality work and contributions" part.
Also I thought your phrase referencing Bostrom's book - "a state of sullen anxiety is optimal for getting work done." is very interesting. I never thought about this, but come to think of it, some of my best ideas came from being annoyed that there is a gap and no one else has done it, and there is a problem to solve, and I work fast to solve it.
Thanks! Your comment prompted me to look up the exact wording Bostrom uses:
> Perhaps a sullen or anxious fixation on simply getting on with the job without making mistakes will be the productivity-maximizing attitude in most lines of work. The claim here is not that this is so, but that we do not know that it is not so.
An apt phrase! I built that surface area by spearheading a project I cared about in my free time and sharing it with experts at a midpoint to get feedback. Then, serendipity: one of them knew of me from a past project I had worked on, and that started the ball rolling to my getting my current position. I wrote about this more here https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ekbCzxh2SfA64GrxD/my-circuitous-undirected-path-to-an-ea-job
Thanks a lot for reading Seth and for taking the time to comment!. Love your story, thanks for sharing! I read your post and resonate with this "if anything in this journey went well because of things I did, it was usually because something caught my attention in a hard, biting way and I became obsessed with it." I don't think that it was expressed in the post, and I think it's very good point that when you are obsessed with something, you are more likely to do it consistently and well, and thus are more likely to do well on the "quality work and contributions" part.
Also I thought your phrase referencing Bostrom's book - "a state of sullen anxiety is optimal for getting work done." is very interesting. I never thought about this, but come to think of it, some of my best ideas came from being annoyed that there is a gap and no one else has done it, and there is a problem to solve, and I work fast to solve it.
Thanks! Your comment prompted me to look up the exact wording Bostrom uses:
> Perhaps a sullen or anxious fixation on simply getting on with the job without making mistakes will be the productivity-maximizing attitude in most lines of work. The claim here is not that this is so, but that we do not know that it is not so.