There’s a surprisingly big category of problems that are ‘orphaned.’ By ‘orphaned’ I mean: you can’t point to a specific person or organization who thinks it’s their responsibility to deliver the outcome in its entirety.
The fact that this excellent essay has just 14 likes and no other comments at the time of my writing hints at another problem upstream of those described in the essay: How can we even get the right people to focus on big problems, and the lack of General Managers to solve them, without essays like this being in the New York Times? How can we get important thinking like this to the audience it needs?
I think I'm pretty sympathetic to this idea, especially for "smaller" problems, but have two places of skepticism:
- I think that GMs working as funders makes some level of sense (because they can see the entire ecosystem, etc.), but there are lots of circumstances where programmatic organizations aren't the right place to house GMs, especially for very large problems, in part because it just seems hard to make large organizations that continue to be effective (and don't get bogged down in bureaucracy, etc). I think there are narrow problems where a single programmatic organization tackling it makes sense, but lots of times you might want to test multiple, potentially contradictory theories of change to address an issue. A funder can do this a lot more easily than a single programmatic group.
- But, funders are also maybe not the ideal GMs at times? They often have worse access to information than programmatic groups in many important ways (because they mainly get info from people who want funding from them), and if they are in a good place to be a GM (because they are a monolithic funder), and their strategy is bad, then the space is at a lot more risk if they take this approach.
That being said, I think many small issues or sub-causes can really benefit from this model. And maybe big causes, but the GM really has to be the right person (which feels very stakesy to get right). Thanks for writing this!
Love this framing, and agree with the need for GM talent development and increased ambition among non-profits so those GMs have a platform (our Big if True Science Accelerator (BiTS), inspired by ARPA program design and management, works on the talent part). It would be great if the organizations looking at the world's problems from a GM perspective could share lessons and tools and coordinate. Also, for some problems, the GM-led effort might be most needed at an early stage or other critical time, to work on core parts of the problem that 1) won't be addressed by traditional mechanisms (e.g., markets, government grants), and 2) if solved, would unlock progress and allow these usual mechanisms to kick in. The entering wedge, or what we would call the "DARPA-hard" part of the problem. Solve that part, and the rest of it is much easier to work out. That lends itself to a time-bound, thesis-driven, focused push.
They offer an alternative path for our best and brightest students to refocus their careers on these issues Nan is illustrating, rather than getting sucked up by PE or Big Four.
As much as this provides an interesting take, I am skeptical of the the central claim here. I don't believe that the principal impediments to successfully addressing the greatest problems of our era is the lack of highly determined 'general managers'; there are other cultural, political, technological and geopolitical factors that have greater explanatory power over the absence of such pivotal figures.
Furthermore, the examples cited there of Henderson's work on smallpox or Wolfson's role in marriage equality are unconvincing.
In the case of small pox, the original idea of eradication was in fact promoted by Victor Zhadnov (over the prevailing consensus of 'control') inspired in part by the Soviet achievement of mass production of freeze-dried vaccines. The idea of vaccinating only the "ring" around the infected person was in fact an accidental discovery by Bill Foege. The eradication effort was boosted by one of the rare collaborations between the superpowers with the US providing the funding and Soviet Union producing and the vaccines. And of course, the actual groundwork of vaccination involved several important "managers" who coordinated village to village and door to door programs to accomplish it.
The same is true if you did some research about marriage equality too. It was a classic example of mass-movement evolution that brought about the cultural shift and boosted no doubt by the role of important figures (not just Wolfson).
It would be highly reductionist to assume that all marriage equality in the US or eradication of smallpox just would not have happened without their respective "general managers".
A GM coordinates effort. They can't accomplish a task single-handedly. If you go back and re-read the respective paragraphs, other forces you mention that are equally required to succeed are described, and the GM's role was to help direct and "manage" them to reach the tipping point of 100% eradication and national equality respectively.
I've come to the same perspective (while trying to GM neglected areas within AI resilience*)
Another reason I'd claim that so few problems have GMs:
The skills to GM a problem of these sizes are incredibly valuable as a startup founder, and most people at a stage in their careers to be able to use such skills grew up at a time when the zeitgeist claimed that private markets solve all problems.
I also think government used to be a place to drive some of these efforts before all the bureaucratic sclerosis and dismantling started.
Also, two more examples of GMs:
- Hyman Rickover, who made the nuclear navy happen
- Thomas Clarkson, who was the driving force behind abolition in the British empire
To the first big problem: "Can we prevent infection from all respiratory pathogens (including the common cold)?" I think there are some individuals who are GM'ing nearly this: (e.g. https://coefficientgiving.org/team/andrew-snyder-beattie/ might be closest)
Do you think these GMs need to be in nonprofit contexts? It seems to me that some important problems have been solved through private sectors/ public policy (eg. China air clean up, Alpha school, to name a few). One downside to the nonprofit sector to me seems like it severely lacks funders like you describe, and more often money is either earmarked to specific projects, or limited in amount that it scopes long term outcomes (though obviously there are new nonprofits that are changing that as well)
I have a similar post in my drafts. I do think the question goes further upstream--where are the hyper-persistent and spendy philanthropists? People in these roles in ordinary nonprofits also run into some issues where certain parts of the problem are housed in parts of society that their nonprofit, as an entity for the public good, isn't allowed to touch. Also there are tax/legal issues with paying people at nonprofits tonnes of money, although perhaps hospitals have found a way around this. I imagine a new sort of vehicle (not an ordinary nonprofit) might make it easier to get more of these off the ground.
This was fantastic, thanks for sharing! Within the farmed animal space; I can think of a few other people filling GM-type roles at different scales, and thinking of them that way immediately makes me notice areas that don’t have a GM.
I’m very sympathetic to this; I think the hard part is sizing and defining problems so a GM can actually own them. When a problem feels too big or fuzzy, it’s hard for anyone to internalize real accountability or know where to push. Any thoughts on how one can define an outcome that’s concrete enough to own, but still big enough to matter?
The fact that this excellent essay has just 14 likes and no other comments at the time of my writing hints at another problem upstream of those described in the essay: How can we even get the right people to focus on big problems, and the lack of General Managers to solve them, without essays like this being in the New York Times? How can we get important thinking like this to the audience it needs?
I think I'm pretty sympathetic to this idea, especially for "smaller" problems, but have two places of skepticism:
- I think that GMs working as funders makes some level of sense (because they can see the entire ecosystem, etc.), but there are lots of circumstances where programmatic organizations aren't the right place to house GMs, especially for very large problems, in part because it just seems hard to make large organizations that continue to be effective (and don't get bogged down in bureaucracy, etc). I think there are narrow problems where a single programmatic organization tackling it makes sense, but lots of times you might want to test multiple, potentially contradictory theories of change to address an issue. A funder can do this a lot more easily than a single programmatic group.
- But, funders are also maybe not the ideal GMs at times? They often have worse access to information than programmatic groups in many important ways (because they mainly get info from people who want funding from them), and if they are in a good place to be a GM (because they are a monolithic funder), and their strategy is bad, then the space is at a lot more risk if they take this approach.
That being said, I think many small issues or sub-causes can really benefit from this model. And maybe big causes, but the GM really has to be the right person (which feels very stakesy to get right). Thanks for writing this!
Love this framing, and agree with the need for GM talent development and increased ambition among non-profits so those GMs have a platform (our Big if True Science Accelerator (BiTS), inspired by ARPA program design and management, works on the talent part). It would be great if the organizations looking at the world's problems from a GM perspective could share lessons and tools and coordinate. Also, for some problems, the GM-led effort might be most needed at an early stage or other critical time, to work on core parts of the problem that 1) won't be addressed by traditional mechanisms (e.g., markets, government grants), and 2) if solved, would unlock progress and allow these usual mechanisms to kick in. The entering wedge, or what we would call the "DARPA-hard" part of the problem. Solve that part, and the rest of it is much easier to work out. That lends itself to a time-bound, thesis-driven, focused push.
This essay reminds me of Rutger Bregman's School for Moral Ambition. https://www.moralambition.org/
They offer an alternative path for our best and brightest students to refocus their careers on these issues Nan is illustrating, rather than getting sucked up by PE or Big Four.
As much as this provides an interesting take, I am skeptical of the the central claim here. I don't believe that the principal impediments to successfully addressing the greatest problems of our era is the lack of highly determined 'general managers'; there are other cultural, political, technological and geopolitical factors that have greater explanatory power over the absence of such pivotal figures.
Furthermore, the examples cited there of Henderson's work on smallpox or Wolfson's role in marriage equality are unconvincing.
In the case of small pox, the original idea of eradication was in fact promoted by Victor Zhadnov (over the prevailing consensus of 'control') inspired in part by the Soviet achievement of mass production of freeze-dried vaccines. The idea of vaccinating only the "ring" around the infected person was in fact an accidental discovery by Bill Foege. The eradication effort was boosted by one of the rare collaborations between the superpowers with the US providing the funding and Soviet Union producing and the vaccines. And of course, the actual groundwork of vaccination involved several important "managers" who coordinated village to village and door to door programs to accomplish it.
The same is true if you did some research about marriage equality too. It was a classic example of mass-movement evolution that brought about the cultural shift and boosted no doubt by the role of important figures (not just Wolfson).
It would be highly reductionist to assume that all marriage equality in the US or eradication of smallpox just would not have happened without their respective "general managers".
A GM coordinates effort. They can't accomplish a task single-handedly. If you go back and re-read the respective paragraphs, other forces you mention that are equally required to succeed are described, and the GM's role was to help direct and "manage" them to reach the tipping point of 100% eradication and national equality respectively.
I've come to the same perspective (while trying to GM neglected areas within AI resilience*)
Another reason I'd claim that so few problems have GMs:
The skills to GM a problem of these sizes are incredibly valuable as a startup founder, and most people at a stage in their careers to be able to use such skills grew up at a time when the zeitgeist claimed that private markets solve all problems.
I also think government used to be a place to drive some of these efforts before all the bureaucratic sclerosis and dismantling started.
Also, two more examples of GMs:
- Hyman Rickover, who made the nuclear navy happen
- Thomas Clarkson, who was the driving force behind abolition in the British empire
To the first big problem: "Can we prevent infection from all respiratory pathogens (including the common cold)?" I think there are some individuals who are GM'ing nearly this: (e.g. https://coefficientgiving.org/team/andrew-snyder-beattie/ might be closest)
* see https://blog.atlascomputing.org/p/civilizations-maintenance-backlog, https://www.essentialtechnology.blog/p/securing-critical-components-of-cyberphysical
Do you think these GMs need to be in nonprofit contexts? It seems to me that some important problems have been solved through private sectors/ public policy (eg. China air clean up, Alpha school, to name a few). One downside to the nonprofit sector to me seems like it severely lacks funders like you describe, and more often money is either earmarked to specific projects, or limited in amount that it scopes long term outcomes (though obviously there are new nonprofits that are changing that as well)
renphil to the rescue sort of!
You should try to do some of the things on that list
Thank you for the essay!
I have a similar post in my drafts. I do think the question goes further upstream--where are the hyper-persistent and spendy philanthropists? People in these roles in ordinary nonprofits also run into some issues where certain parts of the problem are housed in parts of society that their nonprofit, as an entity for the public good, isn't allowed to touch. Also there are tax/legal issues with paying people at nonprofits tonnes of money, although perhaps hospitals have found a way around this. I imagine a new sort of vehicle (not an ordinary nonprofit) might make it easier to get more of these off the ground.
Do you have religious beliefs that are concrete enough to put into words?
This was fantastic, thanks for sharing! Within the farmed animal space; I can think of a few other people filling GM-type roles at different scales, and thinking of them that way immediately makes me notice areas that don’t have a GM.
I’m very sympathetic to this; I think the hard part is sizing and defining problems so a GM can actually own them. When a problem feels too big or fuzzy, it’s hard for anyone to internalize real accountability or know where to push. Any thoughts on how one can define an outcome that’s concrete enough to own, but still big enough to matter?