How x-risk projects are different from startups

Abstract

Sometimes new EA projects are compared to startups, and the EA project ecosystem to the startup ecosystem. While I’m often making such comparisons myself, it is important to highlight one crucial difference. When startups fail, they usually can’t go “much bellow zero”. In contrast, projects aimed at influencing long-term future can have negative impacts many orders of magnitude larger than the size of the project. It is possible for small teams, or even small funders, to cause large harm.