At the start of 2025, I wrangled with all my info and hazy memories re: previous jobs and ended up with a CV that I was really pleased with, and a much stronger sense of "oh yeah, I can totally apply for great jobs, I've done some really good stuff".
So this gave me the idea of reaching out to friends asking for little writeups on what they like about me, to make my non-work-related strengths more legible too. I highly recommend doing this, it was so sweet.
Okay, Alex, it's your energy. You have such a beautiful, loving, kind, fun, playful energy. You're so funny and thoughtful; you think about things, you consider things. You're interested in the world, in things, and you get excited about them. You're always exploring, and trying things, and wanting to be the best version of yourself. I love how you share your process along the way, so beautifully, vulnerably, openly, honestly. You're someone who I'm just so excited about where your life is going. And I love it when I'm exposed to hearing about it, whether it's through your tweets or videos or voice notes or writing or when we talk. I love hearing about how you're thinking about things, and that playful, fun energy as you navigate things.
Basically, I just feel that you're a kind, loving, good person with a good heart. Despite what you might have been through in your life, I really feel like you're bringing goodness into the world, and it makes me happy and excited.
During my time at the Effective Altruist Hotel (CEEALAR), you quickly became one of the highlights of my stay. You’re insightful, mindful, and incredibly kind, with extensive knowledge of thinkers like Vervaeke and other philosophers. Even though you can be a bit withdrawn at times, your inquisitive nature and easy-going personality made it effortless to connect with you. Our gym sessions were fantastic—you were always a great sport, encouraging and supportive. I genuinely hope we cross paths again, and I’d jump at any chance to work with you in the future.
Reference for Alexander Large - 10 April 2025.
I previously worked as Head of Coaching at Effective Thesis (an EA organisation). I've been a part of a productivity group that Alex set up for 7 weeks now. This group has led to significant increases in focus, strategic thinking, and prioritisation for myself and other team members. For example, having accountability structures, spaces for strategic thinking, group prediction markets, and divisions of planning and action have helped us focus on our highest priorities.
Getting to know Alex more through this group, I've been really impressed by how he thinks and acts. He has an excellent approach to strategic planning and execution. I've seen him devote long dedicated hours of deep work towards making progress on his goals across different life areas. He regularly shares his learnings on strategic thinking, tactics, work flows, productivity tools and more in our work space, with many learnings that I've personally benefited from.
Alex has a very warm, clear, honest and straightforward way of communicating. This makes Alex a joy to work with, and I know I can rely on him to deliver on promises made. Alex is on a great trajectory and I'm delighted to see where this goes.
Best regards,
Conor Spence
Let's assume you're targeting "high impact leader". I think there are some core traits which are like agency, which I think you have in extremely high amounts. I think you the agency to be a really successful leader. I think you have the potential to select cause area well, which is the most important thing in a sense in terms of impact, like you could choose something a thousand times less impactful, do a thousand times more work on it, and still only break even with something way better selected.
I think there's a question mark over people management, I don't know that you have much in the way of like leading an organisation, or leading a whole team of people, I think it's possible you could do that well. You have a lot of experience with 1:1 training, training people 1:1, I think leading people as a team is something you could do pretty well, get the 80/20 on and execute pretty well, and own the fact that you're inexperienced with it and bound to make mistakes, and learn on the fly which is ultimately what everyone has to do. I think you have the temperament to be a good people leader, and the communication skills to do that well.
I think definitely, if we lived in a normal world [that is, one where Al timelines weren't a concern], you could become an unbelievably successful CEO in a small number of years. I think you could easily build a multi-100-million-dollar business in under a decade. You've got the intelligence and the work ethic, the ability to work incredibly hard, the ability to learn anything really effectively. So in a normal world, absolutely no doubt whatsoever, I'd bet on you as much as I'd bet on anyone I've ever met.
I'm in a microsolidarity crew that my friend Simmo put together - we've been having fornightly calls for nearly 2 years now (wild how the time has flown by!!). We're a group of post-rationalist-y, emotoinal processing-y people, sometimes we do Circling/Authentic Relating-y practices, sometimes we do a "Case Clinic" where one person talks for 20 minutes about a problem in their life and then there are a few rounds of reflections etc.
By quite a margin I think you are one of the people in my life I've seen grow the most in the past few years. I feel privileged to have witnessed so many different 'Alex eras' and have a lot of love for all the different versions of you - also the ones yet to emerge!
A few random reflections I have:
I feel like I have to repeat my first point: very very few people I know have impressed me as much with their intellectual / spiritual / emotional / social growth in the past few years as you have. And I have a feeling there's much more where that came from <3
Thank you for being a good friend, Alex.
For Alex Large
When I met first met Alex in person in Taiwan a year or 2 ago, he was a sweet, kind, quiet shy guy. He had left his job, was nomadic, and I respected his courage, and could see how it was tough on him.
Over the last year or 2, in crewing regularly with him, I've seen him grow substantially, in terms of his okayness with himself, his circumstances, and relationally. I still remember in particular a call where I kind of came at him with a comment related to sexuality, and being surprised by how unfazed he was by the question - I had expected to frazzle him (indeed, part of why I shared).
There's a calmness, centeredness in himself that I've been impressed by seeing in Alex. I've admired his commitment to his pursuits, whether that's making a song/YouTube video every day, or diving into getting better at rationality. To me, he's held onto his kindness while increasing his personal power - his willingness and ability to be honest, frank, own his experience and share it.
These days I feel safer with him and able to go into more challenging/uncharted waters. And I even see it in how the women in our crew respond to him. I don't know if he's gotten funnier or something but his memes lately have been killer.
Let me think about the ways that I've witnessed you and the things that I like about you.
The first thing that comes to mind is that yeah there's something really, I think I kind of shared this on the call, but there's something really beautiful about your comedic humility about some of your life circumstances. And while they don't on the surface look like, I don't know if the word is masculine, or super eventful, but the way you carry yourself around those things is really inspiring and really really beautiful and very masculine and very centred. There's something I recognise in you that I want to see in my own partnership where it's like "yeah some of these things aren't going perfectly well" but if that centre point of knowing who you are and standing in that or feeling confident enough to expose or be transparent with some of the shortcomings or some of the less-than-ideal things, I don't know I think it's sexy, I think it's very sexy and very masculine to just own all of the parts of us, and to witness that has been really fun to watch.
The other thing that I've noticed is that you've done this deep drop into self reflection and self discovery, and I've seen you again with that anchor point of knowing who you are, you've dipped in and out of it so gracefully. Meaning I think sometimes people go into a self-help space and they get kind of lost, or more lost than when they started, and/or some people never go into that space. But with you, I've witnessed you going into that space of self-reflection and growth, and beautifully developing yourself in some of these spaces, and then also not being so tied and so... tortured by this category of self help, which I think is really admirable.
The other thing that I've noticed about you is your willingness to help the people that you care about, your like "oh, if there's a project that I can help with!". Like, I noticed that even a while ago when I reached out a while back, well I've done it a few times actually, asking for some resources from your world, and you've typed something up or you've done an excel spreadsheet or you've..., I've just felt really supported by you, and that's a beautiful gift, so thank you for that also.
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