[Linkpost] “Podcast: Austin and Oli on funding & incubating projects” by Austin

This is a link post. Oli Habryka of LessWrong and I recently spoke about his plans to improve the AI safety funding ecosystem with a better S-Process platform, and my new incubator for EA/AIS software projects, Surplus (since launched; apply now!) We also cover: hot takes on different funders; what kinds of founders might succeed in the age of vibecoding; whether to do direct work or go meta; and what we respect and criticize in each other. Watch along here: I've transcribed the full conversation at (Beware: the AI makes notable edits for readability, sometimes distorting what the speaker meant. If specific phrasing is cruxy, listen to the audio.) Selected quotes The cursed game of philanthropy Oli: "Philanthropy is one of the most cursed games in existence... The default outcome of what happens when rich people try to do philanthropy is that they think about starting a foundation, they imagine hiring someone on the market and ask themselves: who am I going to show up and feel comfortable trusting most of my net worth to? That doesn't make any sense. And so what they often end up doing is making a family office. The only way to solve this [...] --- Outline: (01:01) Selected quotes (07:00) Chapters (08:38) Referenced links (09:08) Full transcript (09:13) Critiques of SFF's grant process \[0:00\] (11:32) The SFF application process \[2:26\] (12:56) The speculation grant freeze for advocacy orgs \[3:40\] (14:36) A lower-trust, more transparent funding process \[5:04\] (16:32) How the S-process works \[6:53\] (20:24) Naming and communicating the value to funders \[10:54\] (25:49) EA philanthropy and the principal-agent problem: Open Philanthropy, Longview \[15:51\] (31:18) How much funding is coming \[21:28\] (32:39) Surplus: the incubator \[22:33\] (34:52) Why for-profits over nonprofits \[24:37\] (37:39) The ideal founder profile \[27:11\] (40:58) Whether writers can found startups in the vibe-coding era \[30:26\] (42:25) Monetizing public communications projects \[31:45\] (53:07) Oliver's case for the incubator \[42:09\] (54:41) On professional grantmakers \[44:04\] (58:00) Whether infrastructure work is more direct than safety research \[47:36\] (01:01:47) The case for a better AI safety journal \[51:08\] (01:04:10) Mutual feedback \[53:17\] (01:10:10) How to help: LessWrong, Surplus, and the S-process \[1:01:01\] --- First published: June 27th, 2026 Source: Linkpost URL: --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO .