I grew up on the south side of Chicago in a pretty rundown two-flat. Directly across the street was a mansion: an eight-bedroom, seven-bathroom, four-car garage house. As a kid, this seemed relatively normal. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized this was indicative of US income inequality. In my mid-twenties, I realized that even in that rundown flat, my parents and I were in the 80–90th percentile of global income. Now I'm CEO of Rethink Priorities, a nonprofit that, through rigorous research, helps decision makers move resources to maximum impact.
I spent a lot of time in my early twenties hanging out with groups that discussed science and rationality, trying to understand the way the world works. There were biologists, philosophers, doctors, and physicists. They really challenged me to better understand reality, but no one actively did things to improve the world. They were primarily focused on debate and discussion. Very rarely, if ever, would anyone think: what if we try to do something about this?
When I read Peter Singer's book
Practical Ethics, he described
GiveWell, an organization that evaluates global health charities on the basis of helping as many people as you can per dollar. This concept of helping people effectively immediately resonated with me. The opportunity to help people living in poverty, with confidence that it would actually improve their lives, was totally new to me. Once I learned about it, I thought: obviously, I should work on this.
"I really deeply believe that every person deserves to have a flourishing life as free from suffering as possible. If you're in a position to provide some benefit at relatively trivial cost to yourself, you have an amazing opportunity — but also a moral obligation."
I started volunteering with effective altruism organizations. Eventually, I co-founded an organization called
Charity Entrepreneurship, that helps people launch high-impact nonprofits to address neglected but tractable issues.
One of the organizations we incubated merged with another to become
Suvita. Today, Suvita has sent 40 million vaccination text message reminders to parents with young children. They're reaching about 1% of all newborn babies in the world through these messages, likely saving hundreds of lives each year.
Now I'm CEO of
Rethink Priorities, a nonprofit think-and-do-tank working across causes like global health and development, animal welfare, AI, and strategic philanthropy. We work with various groups, including policymakers, to increase their positive impact.
"Effective altruism is not a set of answers. It's a set of principles. It's a way of approaching the world."
My advice to someone who wants to help but doesn't know how: stay curious. Start talking to people who work in this space, and go to events if possible. In-person connections with inspiring people were extremely valuable to me.
