Roy E. Bahat

Like today I realized in a group chat, I am a Rawlsian accelerationist. r/acc ftw

Welcome our sixth guest on This Is Not Advice, Rabbi @noakushner... Watch here or anywhere you can find podcasts: open.spotify.com/episode/3wbpRD…

Rabbi Kushner also talks about being a leader in an occupation without a long history of female predecessors, the nature of prayer, and more.

New episode of This Is Not Advice 🎤 I want you to be able to learn from people who are great at what they do, so you can feel more empowered in what you do. In this episode I speak with Rabbi Noa Kushner, founder of The Kitchen and author of Pretend You Believe.

@kevin2kelly "Why I give" is definitely something I can do! Thank you...

@roybahat Don't try to convince others. Just write down all the reasons why you give.

@NickAllardice Classy of you.

@roybahat Haha no worries at all, the more advice that gets out there on this the better!

@NickAllardice @NickAllardice just DM'd you because WHOOPS I titled the second part of my piece, um, almost identically to yours, and if you want me to change it, I will! (Perils of not paying enough attention.)

@roybahat All of this is spot on! I've been having a bunch of conversations exactly like this with people the labs trying to figure out what to do with unfathomable amounts of money that arrives all at once. Wrote down what I typically share here: nickallardice.substack.com/p/how-to-actua…

You are optimized for enjoying and solving social puzzles rather than logic puzzles, and we should design systems accordingly.

@firstadopter Kind of you Tae! Maybe we learned it all playing videogames.

I interacted with @roybahat a couple of times at Bloomberg. He seemed like a nice person. I didn't know he was such a top tier human and class act. We should give the good VCs their flowers on here too. Well done, Roy.

@kevin2kelly I think that after trying to explain that to folks, I'm unsure if I know how to ever convince anyone. Would love if others can do, and I will sit with that idea, too. I'm unsure if I can even account for myself, other than the fact I love it...

@roybahat Wonderful! These pieces are great. I'd like to recommend them. Do you think they need a prequel on Why Give? Or is that too preachy?

@NaithanJones I am... taking this in. I don't have the words yet, beyond that people like you make work like mine worth doing. Thank you feels too small.

Been reading a ton of stories of bad VC behavior on here. I have plenty of those, we all do, but here's a story time about the opposite One thing I learned from working with founders over a decade: people make all of the difference and relationships are not singular transactions. They last decades and multiple contexts. After an 8 year tenure at a16z to jump back into building. I go on sabbatical then start working on a new idea around AI and IP rights in the age of generative media. At the time AI wrappers and frontier labs were sucking the oxygen out of the room (still are). An IP marketplace wasn't so easy to raise for, to say the least lol. Eventually we got traction and my friend @semil invests and intros to @roybahat of bloomberg beta. The call goes decently, but you never can really tell. One day I get a call and Roy says “I’m coming to Austin I want to sit down with you”. Very different vibe from most. We meet and never discuss the business that much. Ended up being a one hour meeting that goes three hours. Mainly we discussed life and out story etc. End of meeting "I'm in, send the docs" - ok off to the races we go Fast forward a little over year later. My once strong mom, my rock, suffers a stroke. A widow, she had the foresight to make me her decision maker in such a case. I become her primary care taker. I end up turning a corner of her hospital room into my office as we were launching to initial customers that month. Roy was one of first people to call me. We spoke about life again. Never the business. He immediately surrounded the company with extra resources from their network and even offered me support for the stress, including access to wellness retreat, expenses paid by the fund. Fast forward a year later. My mom passes away a week after we made the choice to shut down the company. One of the first calls again? Roy. Nothing about business "How can we support you during this time of grief" and "What can we do to help with your career transition". Their team jumped into action. I did not know Roy personally before I started the company. I have always believed in karma. I spent years trying to be as helpful as I could to founders doing a hard job while life happens simultaneously, and then it was me. Roy and Bloomberg Beta team as a whole are much more than a seed fund, they are truly people who see the human side of working with founders and teams. Reflected consistently in the dialog in the Bloomberg Beta founder Slack channel. in the meantime I'll be taking the learnings to spin up a fun side project with a few friends - a new fund vehicle to invest in creators and media rights (more on that in a few days) exploring new options (I'm open to new opportunities) The team at Bloomberg Beta really exemplifies what it is to work with true believers. So I wanted to publicly thank them

@kevin2kelly Kind of you to ask. I will make and send, probably tomorrow! Have had this same problem with others. AI builders often live here but too many others do not!

@roybahat Roy, do you have a combined version of this living on the web so I can share with those not on X?

@JohnFabianWitt P.S. This image was a ChatGPT two shot, because I had to ask it to reformat for 5:2 proportions here (and use good composition, like rule of thirds)

Links! The Radical Fund, by @JohnFabianWitt: simonandschuster.com/books/The-Radi… On how folks in AI giving money away are attention candy right now: ktvu.com/news/openai-en… On participatory grantmaking as an approach: learningforfunders.candid.org/content/guides… Rob Reich's book on the relationship between philanthropy and government: press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove… @pahlkadot on how government dwarfs philanthropy: eatingpolicy.com/p/philanthropy… @NickAllardice at GiveDirectly on how to get started: nickallardice.substack.com/p/how-to-actua… Communities of donors, like @fwd_global, @solidairetweets, @FoundersPledge, including Democracy Takes Work: democracytakeswork.org One perspective on organizing donors, from @migast: organizetherich.substack.com

Part 2, continued, on *how* to give it away -- or at least what questions to ask yourself! x.com/roybahat/statu…

@ashwinl Kind of you. I think that Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz (and their team) have really done heroic work, too. Many others quietly pushing in good ways. And don't get me wrong, I have my critiques! But net-net is what you asked, and I actually hadn't thought about it that way!

@roybahat given the amount of time you’ve spent on advising ppl on this topic, I can’t think of many others who can better craft a holistic case for/against. My uninformed pov is that Dario and Daniela are the best iteration of EA to date.

@Lhunthendrix From someone who knows! Means a ton.

This is so accurate, and great advice