What would update this memo?
Claude: Michael Dickens: "What would update this memo?" – as with the gates, no sense of prioritization is given. IMO by far the biggest uncertainty, about which we will get more information in the future, is: What will Anthropic's valuation be when the lockup ends? "Concrete donor vehicles" is also important evidence, but we won't get that until probably 6-24 months later.
Funders and field builders should prioritize grantmaker capacity
Claude: Michael Dickens: That section says "Funders and field builders should prioritize grantmaker capacity", but that's what to do if the skeptical case is wrong, not if the skeptical case is right.
How to plan if the skeptical case is live
Claude: Michael Dickens: The recommendations under "How to plan if the skeptical case is live" don't really make sense. AFAIK ~zero orgs are planning as if they're guaranteed to get a huge pile of donations 1–2 years from now. I believe nonprofits mainly plan based on the money they already have on their books + short-term (<1 year) fundraising expectations. "How to plan if the skeptical case is live" is just "business as usual".
Notional company equity value, not spendable cash.
Claude: Michael Dickens: My downward adjustments to the model aren't even the pessimistic case. The pessimistic case* is that the AI field collapses (investor funding dries up or something) and Anthropic stock is worth $0. Base rate says there's like a 50% chance that that will happen. Even optimistically, you should expect at least a 10–20% chance that Anthropic stockholders get nothing.
*this is pessimistic for donations but I would actually prefer that this happen because it would lengthen timelines. so in a way it's the optimistic outcome
The steelman could be too pessimistic if founders or employees treat liquidity as an urgent moral obligation
Claude: Michael Dickens: "The steelman could be too pessimistic if founders or employees treat liquidity as an urgent moral obligation" – TBH the BOTEC as written seems to me like it's already pricing in that founders/employees will treat donations as urgent, e.g. it's implying that Anthropic money will be disbursed faster than FTX Foundation money, which itself was disbursed at historic speed. IMO most likely reason why the model will end up underestimating is that Anthropic market cap ends up being like 10x higher than predicted.
Field absorption ceiling
Claude: Michael Dickens: "Field absorption ceiling" is structured more sensibly than "Grantmaker capacity multiplier", but these two seem redundant because they're closely related. If orgs have more capacity to expand, grantmakers can deploy money faster by giving to those orgs. If there are more grantmakers, they can create more and bigger RFPs. etc. I would include one variable or the other, but not both.
it scales raw potential funding by the available people, institutions, judgment, and legal plumbing needed to make good grants.
Claude: Michael Dickens: Also this would make more sense as a dollar amount, not a multiplier. Like there's a fixed total amount that grantmakers can reasonably disburse. You could model it in a more complicated way but IMO a simple cap is the way to do it. Or maybe don't use this parameter at all. I think it's probably worth including, but keep it simple.
Grantmaker capacity multiplier
Claude: Michael Dickens: "Grantmaker capacity multiplier" seems nonsensical as written. Shouldn't the capacity max out at 1x? If grantmakers are a complete non-bottleneck, then the other parameters will dictate the amount disbursed; if they're a bottleneck, then the amount disbursed will be less. There's no way for grantmaker capacity to have a multiplier >1x.
OpenAI Foundation stake
Claude: Michael Dickens: I would delete the OpenAI Foundation bit because (1) the model has enough parameters already and (2) I doubt OpenAI Foundation will give much money to causes that look good by EA lights.
Founder deployment by end-2026
Claude: Michael Dickens: IMO "Deployment by end-2026" should use a different date. IPO 3-6 months from now plus 6 months lockup means no money will be deployed in 2026, unless Anthropic does a fast IPO + early lockup release. Even by the end of 2027, you're talking about a 3-9 month turnaround time on lockup ending -> grants being disbursed. FTX Foundation donated $190 million (pre-clawbacks) in about 6 months, which was ridiculously fast compared to a typical foundation, and that was still a pretty small % of its long-term budget (or at least, what was believed to be its long-term budget before FTX collapsed).
Conversion gates
Claude: Michael Dickens: This model is supposed to illustrate how a lot of people are being too optimistic, but even then, I think most of the point estimates in the model are too optimistic. Consider that e.g. the median self-reported earner-to-give only donates (IIRC) 3% of their income.
Employee committed pool
Claude: Michael Dickens: "Employee committed pool" is defined in terms of dollars rather than as a % of company valuation, which seems weird. Shouldn't it depend on the value of the equity?
Founder pledge
Claude: Michael Dickens: Unclear what the "Founder pledge" variable refers to. Is it the % of pledgers' wealth that they've pledged to donate? If so, the default of 80% seems really high?
Anthropic valuation
Claude: Michael Dickens: "Anthropic valuation" variable should specifically be the valuation at the end of the 6-month lockup. Doesn't matter much for a point estimate but it would increase the variance if there variable were a probability distribution.
Editable assumptions
Claude: Michael Dickens: It looks like the default estimates in the BOTEC are pulled from the sources, but it's not clear which estimates came from which sources. There should be inline citations.
BOTEC model
Claude: Michael Dickens: Would be cool for the BOTEC to use distributions rather than point estimates. (Squiggle is good for this, and Squigglehub even has a built-in way to have AI generate models.) IMO distributions are a lot more informative than point estimates.
Gate 8: Bay social incentives make optimistic funding rumors self-reinforcing
Claude: Michael Dickens: Gate 8 ("Bay social incentives") seems uninteresting since it's not a claim in the same category as the others. It's more like a meta-level reason why people might not think about the other 7 gates.
Gate 5: lab-adjacent money may favor lab-compatible safety
Claude: Michael Dickens: Gate 5 and Gate 7 seem like they're saying the same thing.
A late-2026 IPO could still imply mid-2027 or later insider liquidity because of lockups.
Claude: Michael Dickens: Gate 1 says IPOs have lock-ups. That's true but I basically don't think that matters because lock-ups are very predictable: they will announce how long it is, and that's exactly how long it will be. There's no uncertainty. The main reason it's relevant is that a lockup gives more time for AI valuations to fluctuate or collapse, but the text doesn't even mention this.
Steelman gates
Claude: Michael Dickens: All 8 gates look correct to me, but they don't all deserve equal emphasis.