In 2019, having finished some other hobby, I decided my next hobby would be AGI safety. So I started reading and writing posts and comments on less wrong in my little bits of time squeezed between my full-time job and two young kids. The normal advice would be to apply for existing AGI safety jobs, or go back to grad school, etc. But I had high living expenses and didn't want to move out of Boston. And I wound up making enough progress to get a grant to do full-time independent research. Here he is: "I think I'm doing something important and maybe a bit idiosyncratic"