Up until recently, Leverage was run by Geoff, our founder. Obviously there was (and is) a board, but essentially Geoff was running the whole show. We’re changing that. That’s because we have this crazy idea that we should do things in accordance with, or even power-use, official forms.
What does that mean concretely? It means that the board has started to matter much more than it did previously. At the Q4 board meeting in October, the previous iteration of the board completed final steps in order to make room for some changes. The board’s final actions involved reviewing the “Post-Experiences” inquiry report (which was the report on the inquiry it had asked for), Joe Corabi stepping down, and me (Oliver Carefull) joining the board.
How does this mean the board matters? In accord with the “official form” idea, Geoff asked Melinda (who is taking point on legal) to look into how boards are supposed to operate. The result we found was that ideally, boards should be “active and engaged” and engage in things like steering and guidance. (The document says “foresight, oversight, and insight.”) So we thought about who we wanted to help with that, and who would be “active and engaged”.
We concluded that Joe was too far away from the day-to-day, and didn’t have experience in a bunch of the domains Leverage is now operating in (though he’s been a great volunteer and we have really appreciated his service thus far), so it made sense for him to step down. We thought Nevin was still a good choice as he remains involved and has relevant experience, but isn’t actually at Leverage (since he’s running Reserve). He has also spent a bunch of time wrangling Geoff, which is necessary if the “steering and guiding” is going to be genuine rather than theatrical.
As a replacement for Joe, Geoff proposed I take the seat. Initially I was skeptical but warmed up to the idea given a number of reasons; (1) I’m one of the original founders of Leverage, (2) I wasn’t around during the crazy intention research and, (3) before returning in 2022 I’d gained a bunch of professional experience.
So, Joe stepped down, I’ve joined the board, and now the board is set up to be active and engaged — except actually, there still needs to be a way to communicate to the board what’s happening. Communicating to the board about what’s happening is good, and also institutional memory is good, and this is something we’ve been thinking about, especially since Larissa took a leave of absence. (She was COO, and the COO would be in charge of making sure the institute remembers things.)
We decided to start tracking what we’re doing on a week-to-week basis, and to write that up quarterly for the board. We had a board meeting coming up, and so we decided to write a summary of our activities over Q3 (ready for the Q4 board meeting.) The result was a 21 page document (written in a day) with a lightly edited version available here:
There’s a lot to go through, but some highlights: (1) we’re running out of money, (2) I (Oliver) figured out a new effective way to analyze audiences, (3) we’ve started power-using Excalidraw (which is the new yEd, for long-time Leverage followers), and (4) we’re preparing for Bottlenecks 2023: Fukushima, which is in early December.
Here’s a little excerpt:
In Q2, Geoff met Clarice Aiello from UCLA, a researcher in quantum biology who had reached out via Leverage’s website for help with the bottleneck in her field. After a few conversations, Geoff determined that Clarice’s project (QuBit) was good and that Leverage could help. In Q3, Geoff (assisted by Oliver) helped Clarice to get funding for QuBit. The strategy for this plan involved identifying the actual bottleneck to progress (clash between funding needs and institutional expectations), using evidentially transparent roadmaps to facilitate conversations between QuBit and potential funders, and relying on Leverage’s existing network of Bottlenecks funders.
This roadmap restarted conversations with one potential QuBit funder
Next, Leverage and QuBit hit the challenge of communicating already existing research results on the topic of biological effects from weak magnetic fields to scientists unfamiliar with the area. Relying on our history of science research (see below), we worked out a plan to have Clarice do public replications of the most striking experiment, one in which 40% of tadpole embryos raised in a Faraday cage were non-viable. We then helped Clarice secure a funding commitment for $50k for the experiment and up to $100k for necessary instruments.
Want to learn more? Read the full update and get caught up, just like the board did. And if you want to know even more, join our Discord where we’re getting ready for Bottlenecks 2023 and thinking about the bottlenecks to safe nuclear energy, effective AI governance, and progress in quantum biology.
‘Til next time, which will be in a week,
Oliver
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