80,000 Hours provides research and support to help students and graduates switch into careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems.
Over one million people visit our website each year, and more than 3,000 people have told us that they’ve significantly changed their career plans due to our work. We’re also the largest single source of people getting involved in the effective altruism community, according to the most recent EA Survey.
The Internal Systems team
The Internal Systems team is here to build the organisation and systems that support 80,000 Hours to achieve its mission.
We oversee 80,000 Hours’ office, finances, and impact evaluation, as well as much of our fundraising, org-wide metrics, tech systems, HR, and recruiting.
Currently, we have two full-time staff (Brenton Mayer and Sashika Coxhead), some part-time staff, and receive support from CEA (our fiscal sponsor).
Role
This role would be excellent experience for someone who wants to build career capital in operations, especially if you could one day see yourself in a more senior operations role (e.g. taking on more management, and perhaps eventually being a Head of Operations or COO).
Your responsibilities will likely include:
Creating an outstanding office environment. You’ll hire and manage the team that oversees our beautiful central London office. Your team will be responsible for all the systems that keep the office running smoothly,
People curious about the inner workings of the 1-1 team
People who left the first part wanting more
Who this episode isn’t for:
People who left the first part wanting less
People who like up-to-date movie recommendations
Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ’80k After Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.
Producer: Keiran Harris Audio mastering: Ben Cordell Transcriptions: Katy Moore
One of 80,000 Hours’ main services is our free one-on-one careers advising, which we provide to around 1,000 people a year. Today we speak to two of our advisors, who have each spoken to hundreds of people — including many regular listeners to this show — about how they might be able to do more good while also having a highly motivating career.
Before joining 80,000 Hours, Michelle Hutchinson completed a PhD in Philosophy at Oxford University and helped launch Oxford’s Global Priorities Institute, while Habiba Islam studied politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford University and qualified as a barrister.
Want to get free one-on-one advice from our team? We’re here to help.
We’ve helped thousands of people formulate their plans and put them in touch with mentors.
We’ve expanded our ability to deliver one-on-one meetings so are keen to help more people than ever before.
If you’re a regular listener to the show we’re particularly likely to want to speak with you, either now or in the future.
Why you can specialise and take more risk if you’re in a group
Gaps in the effective altruism community it would be really useful for people to fill
Stories of people who have spoken to 80,000 Hours and changed their career — and whether it went well or not
Why trying to have impact in multiple different ways can be a mistake
The episode is split into two parts: the first section on The 80,000 Hours Podcast, and the second on our new 80k After Hours. This is a shameless attempt to encourage listeners to our first show to subscribe to our second feed.
Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ‘80,000 Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.
Producer: Keiran Harris Audio mastering: Ben Cordell Transcriptions: Katy Moore
80,000 Hours’ mission is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems. The effective altruism community, of which we are a part, is growing in reach and now includes funding bodies with over $40 billion to allocate in total. But how do we make sure people are pursuing the right kinds of work in order to turn all those resources into long-term impact? This is the problem 80,000 Hours is trying to solve.
We’ve had over eight million visitors to our website (with over 100,000 hours of reading time per year), and more than 3,000 people have now told us that they’ve significantly changed their career plans due to our work. 80,000 Hours is also the largest single source of people getting involved in the effective altruism community, according to the most recent EA Survey.
If you join us as a writer, you’d likely be one of the most widely read writers in effective altruism.
The role
As a writer at 80,000 Hours, your work would involve:
Framing, researching, outlining, and writing articles
Generating ideas for additional articles
Helping with others’ writing by providing comments
Generally helping grow the impact of the site
Some of the types of pieces you’d help work on include:
We decided to make a list of all of the career choice heuristics we could think of — see below. Many of these are stated as if completely true, even though we think they aren’t. We invite you to add any additional heuristics you have in the comments of the original post.
Scale, number helped — do something that impacts many people positively
Scale, degree helped — do something that impacts people to a great positive degree
Neglectedness — do something that few others are doing or that won’t be done counterfactually
Tractability — do something that makes significant progress on a problem
Moments of progress — notice where progress happens in your life and find a career path that integrates those
Strong team — if you haven’t worked well alone, join an excellent team
Likable people — join a team of people that you like
Mental well-being — do something that is optimized for being good for your mental health
Team smarter than you — join a team where most people are smarter than you
Be a thought or org leader — roughly, there are two types of leaders – thought leaders and org leaders; figure out which type you are more likely to be and optimize for succeeding at that type
Learn from leaders — learn from the leaders who you most want to be like
In this episode of 80k After Hours, Keiran Harris interviews 80,000 Hours advisor (and former high school teacher) Alex Lawsen about his advice for students.
We cover:
When half-assing something is a good idea
When you should actually learn things vs just try to seem smart
Why you should shift your focus over the academic year
Novel tips for preparing for exams
What to do if you struggle with motivation
What to do when you have bad teachers
How students should think about exploring and experimenting
Bad approaches to learning
How to think about personal goals
When to start thinking about your career seriously
And more
Who this episode is for:
Students, parents, and teachers
People who know a student, parent, or teacher
People with an interest in improving education
Who this episode isn’t for:
People who never interact with students, parents, or teachers
People who get mad when an 80,000 Hours podcast doesn’t feature Rob Wiblin
Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ’80k After Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.
Producer: Keiran Harris Audio mastering: Ryan Kessler Transcriptions: Katy Moore
In this episode of 80k After Hours, Rob Wiblin and Keiran Harris are interviewed by Kearney Capuano and Aaron Bergman of the new podcast All Good about what goes on behind the scenes at The 80,000 Hours Podcast.
We cover:
The history and philosophy of The 80,000 Hours Podcast
The nuts and bolts of how we make the show
Rob’s bad habits as an interviewer
Topics we try to avoid
Critiques of the show
The pros and cons of podcasting vs other media
Our position in the effective altruism community
Whether there’s an optimism bias in the EA community
Unifying themes of Rob’s and Keiran’s careers
Advice for other podcasters
And more
Who this episode is for:
Fans of The 80,000 Hours Podcast
New podcasters
Two 80,000 Hours employees who love the sound of their own voice
Who this episode isn’t for:
People who’ve never heard of The 80,000 Hours Podcast
People who only want to learn about more important topics
People who hate podcasts
Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ’80k After Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.
Producer: Keiran Harris Audio mastering: Ben Cordell Transcriptions: Katy Moore
But different types of content have different audiences, and some people who love classic episodes with Rob will understandably have no interest in experimental episodes with other folks on the team (or vice versa: maybe some people love everyone else on the team but can’t stand Rob!)
It’s a new podcast that includes a much wider variety of content than you’ve come to expect from the original feed.
It’ll mostly still explore the best ways to do good — and some episodes will be much more laser-focused on careers than most original episodes — but we’re going to feel more comfortable with throwing things up there just because they’re fun or entertaining too.
We’ll also feel fine with producing some content for much narrower audiences.
One of our inaugural episodes with Alex Lawsen — on his advice to students — won’t be for everyone. But if you’re a student, a teacher, or a parent,
If you read pollssaying that the public supports a carbon tax, should you believe them? According to today’s guest — journalist and blogger Matthew Yglesias — it’s complicated, but probably not.
Interpreting opinion polls about specific policies can be a challenge, and it’s easy to trick yourself into believing what you want to believe. Matthew invented a term for a particular type of self-delusion called the ‘pundit’s fallacy’: “the belief that what a politician needs to do to improve his or her political standing is do what the pundit wants substantively.”
If we want to advocate not just for ideas that would be good if implemented, but ideas that have a real shot at getting implemented, we should do our best to understand public opinion as it really is.
The least trustworthy polls are published by think tanks and advocacy campaigns that would love to make their preferred policy seem popular. These surveys can be designed to nudge respondents toward the desired result — for example, by tinkering with question wording and order or shifting how participants are sampled. And if a poll produces the ‘wrong answer’, there’s no need to publish it at all, so the ‘publication bias’ with these sorts of surveys is large.
Matthew says polling run by firms or researchers without any particular desired outcome can be taken more seriously. But the results that we ought to give by far the most weight are those from professional political campaigns trying to win votes and get their candidate elected because they have both the expertise to do polling properly, and a very strong incentive to understand what the public really thinks.
First and foremost, that means representing issues as they would be in a hotly contested campaign. If someone says that they sure like the idea of taxing carbon, how much do they still like it when they find out it means their electricity bills would be $100 higher, and gas will cost 20 cents more a gallon? And do they still like it when they know one of the candidates is against it and says it will cost local jobs? This sort of progressive ‘stress testing’ is more work, but can lead researchers to very different conclusions than just asking people favour ‘policy X’.
The problem is, campaigns run these expensive surveys because they think that having exclusive access to reliable information will give them a competitive advantage. As a result, they often don’t publish the findings, and instead use them to shape what their candidate says and does.
Journalists like Matthew can call up their contacts within campaigns and get a summary from people they trust. But being unable to publish the polling itself, they’re unlikely to be able to persuade sceptics.
That’s a pain and a legitimately hard problem to get around. But when assessing what ideas are winners, one thing Matthew would like everyone to keep in mind is that politics is competitive, and politicians aren’t (all) stupid. If advocating for your pet idea were a great way to win elections, someone would try it and win, and others would copy. If none of the pros are talking about your hobby horse, it might be because they know something you don’t.
One other thing to check that’s more reliable than polling is real-world experience. For example, voters may say they like a carbon tax on the phone — but the very liberal Washington State roundly rejected one in ballot initiatives in 2016 and 2018.
Of course you may want to advocate for what you think is best, even if it wouldn’t pass a popular vote in the face of organised opposition. The public’s ideas can shift, sometimes dramatically and unexpectedly. But at least you’ll be going into the debate with your eyes wide open.
In this extensive conversation, host Rob Wiblin and Matthew also cover:
How should a humanitarian think about US military interventions overseas?
From an ‘effective altruist’ perspective, was the US wrong to withdraw from Afghanistan?
Has NATO ultimately screwed over Ukrainians by misrepresenting the extent of its commitment to their independence?
What philosopher does Matthew think is underrated?
How big a risk is ubiquitous surveillance?
What does Matthew think about wild animal suffering, anti-ageing research, and autonomous weapons?
And much more
Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.
Producer: Keiran Harris Audio mastering: Ben Cordell Transcriptions: Katy Moore
Problem profile by Fin Moorhouse · Published February 2022
Humanity’s long-run future could be vast in scale and duration, because almost all of it could lie beyond Earth. As private interest in space increases, early work on space governance could positively shape that spacefaring future, and make it less likely that a future in space goes irreversibly wrong. Of course, it also matters that humanity avoids catastrophe in the meantime, and space governance focused on arms control and diplomacy can help here too — mostly by reducing the risk of great power conflict. However, the path to making a really important difference on these issues looks much less clear and robust than in some of our other top recommended areas.
Expertise in China and its relations with the world might be critical in tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems. In particular, China’s relationship with the US is arguably the most important bilateral relationship in the world, with these two countries collectively accounting for over 40% of global GDP. These considerations led us to publish a guide to improving China–Western coordination on global catastrophic risks and other key problems in 2018. Since then, we have seen an increase in the number of people exploring this area.
China is one of the most important countries developing and shaping advanced artificial intelligence (AI). The Chinese government’s spending on AI research and development is estimated to be on the same order of magnitude as that of the US government, and China’s AI research is prominent on the world stage and growing.
Because of the importance of AI from the perspective of improving the long-run trajectory of the world, we think relations between China and the US on AI could be among the most important aspects of their relationship. Insofar as the EU and/or UK influence advanced AI development through labs based in their countries or through their influence on global regulation, the state of understanding and coordination between European and Chinese actors on AI safety and governance could also be significant.
That, in short, is why we think working on AI safety and governance in China and/or building mutual understanding between Chinese and Western actors in these areas is likely to be one of the most promising China-related career paths.
80,000 Hours’ mission is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems. The effective altruism community, of which we are a part, is growing in reach and now includes funding bodies with over $40 billion to allocate in total. But how do we turn all those resources into long-term impact? This is the problem 80,000 Hours is trying to solve.
We’ve had over 8 million visitors to our website (with over 100,000 hours of reading time per year), and more than 3,000 people have now told us that they’ve significantly changed their career plans due to our work. 80,000 Hours is also the largest single source of people getting involved in the effective altruism community, according to the most recent EA Survey.
The role
We’re looking for a contractor to give our research and writing team regular advice and feedback on their blog posts, articles, and newsletters — helping them produce pieces that are as compelling and engaging as possible. This would mean giving advice about the structure and content of new pieces, and editing drafts to make them punchier and more grabbing.
Some examples of the types of pieces you’d help work on:
On December 31, 2021, the most valuable company on Earth was Apple, worth around $3 trillion. After that came Microsoft, at $2.5 trillion, then Google (officially Alphabet) at $1.9 trillion, then Amazon at $1.5 trillion.
On December 31, 2020, the four most valuable companies were: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
On December 31, 2019, the four most valuable companies were: Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.
And on December 31, 2018, the four most valuable companies were: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Google.
If you’re anything like me, you’re starting to spot a pattern here.
Revenue in software has grown from $400 billion in 2016 to $500 billion in 2021, and is projected to reach $800 billion by 2026.
Software has an increasing and overwhelming importance in our economy — and everything else in our society. High demand and low supply makes software engineering well-paid, and often enjoyable.
But we also think that, if you’re trying to make the world a better place, software engineering could be a particularly good way to help.
This review owes a lot to helpful discussions with (and comments from) Andy Jones, Ozzie Gooen, Jeff Kaufman, Sasha Cooper, Ben Kuhn, Nova DasSarma, Kamal Ndousse, Ethan Alley, Ben West, Ben Mann, Tom Conerly, Zac Hatfield-Dodds, and George McGowan. Special thanks go to Roman Duda for our previous review of software engineering, on which this was based.
In 2014 Taiwan was rocked by mass protests against a proposed trade agreement with China that was about to be agreed to without the usual Parliamentary hearings. Students invaded and took over the Parliament. But rather than chant slogans, instead they livestreamed their own parliamentary debate over the trade deal, allowing volunteers to speak both in favour and against.
Instead of polarising the country more, this so-called Sunflower Student Movement ultimately led to a bipartisan consensus that Taiwan should open up its government. That process has gradually made it one of the most communicative and interactive administrations anywhere in the world.
Today’s guest — programming prodigy Audrey Tang — initially joined the student protests to help get their streaming infrastructure online. After the students got the official hearings they wanted and went home, she was invited to consult for the government. And when the government later changed hands, she was invited to work in the ministry herself.
During six years as the country’s ‘Digital Minister’ she has been helping Taiwan increase the flow of information between institutions and civil society and launched original experiments trying to make democracy itself work better.
That includes developing new tools to identify points of consensus between groups that mostly disagree, building social media platforms optimised for discussing policy issues, helping volunteers fight disinformation by making their own memes, and allowing the public to build their own alternatives to government websites whenever they don’t like how they currently work.
As part of her ministerial role, Audrey also sets aside time each week to help online volunteers working on government-related tech projects get the help they need. How does she decide who to help? She doesn’t — that decision is made by members of an online community who upvote the projects they think are best.
According to Audrey, a more collaborative mentality among the country’s leaders has helped increase public trust in government, and taught bureaucrats that they can (usually) trust the public in return.
Innovations in Taiwan may offer useful lessons to people who want to improve humanity’s ability to make decisions and get along in large groups anywhere in the world. We cover:
Why it makes sense to treat Facebook as a nightclub
The value of having no reply button, and of getting more specific when you disagree
Quadratic voting and funding
Audrey’s experiences with the Sunflower Student Movement
Technologies Audrey is most excited about
Conservative anarchism
What Audrey’s day-to-day work looks like
Whether it’s ethical to eat oysters
And much more
Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.
Producer: Keiran Harris Audio mastering: Ben Cordell Transcriptions: Katy Moore
80,000 Hours is hiring a Head of Job Board to lead the job board. They will be responsible for setting and executing strategy to grow the job board’s impact, as well as managing and hiring the job board team.
More than 180,000 users visited the job board in 2021. Over the next few years, we hope to grow the job board to the point where millions of people per year use it to find out about impactful jobs.
This role is based in London, UK. The salary will vary based on your skills and experience, but the starting salary for someone with five years of relevant experience would be approximately £72,000 per year.
To apply for this role, please complete this application form by 11pm GMT on Sunday, 27 February 2022.
We are offering a £1000 referral bonus to anyone outside the Centre for Effective Altruism who suggests a successful candidate we didn’t otherwise have on our radar. Please email [email protected] with your referrals.
Last year, 80,000 Hours’ advisors spoke to more people than ever before — and we are hoping to help even more people this year! If 80,000 Hours’ content resonates with you, and you want to get help applying the ideas to your career, then apply to speak with our team.
What we did in 2021
2021 was a landmark year for the 80,000 Hours one-on-one team:
We had over 800 advising calls. That’s the most calls per year in our 10-year history!
We hired two new advisors, Alex Lawsen and Matt Reardon, to join Habiba Islam on the team. That means we now have more people focused on helping people one-on-one than ever before.
We spoke to about 50% of people who applied — and when we didn’t speak to people ourselves, we often connected them with someone else, or sent them resources to help with their career planning.
We plan to continue to expand our service and help more people to find high-impact careers in 2022. So if it sounds like we can help you, apply now!
Lots of the team found Keiran Harris’s interview with our chief of staff, Howie Lempel, particularly powerful (and a few of us, myself included, have struggled with many of the issues Howie discusses) — so much so that the majority of my colleagues thought of this release first when I asked them to recommend their favourite.
Alex Lawsen, one of our advisors, describes the episode’s impact on him:
“I had to listen to Howie’s podcast episode over the course of a few days because of how intense its effect on me was; although I’ve never had an episode as difficult as the one he described, the thought patterns felt very familiar. The advice he gives is just about the best I’ve ever heard on mental health: things like noticing when something has become aversive and then making it a top priority, pre-writing an email in case of something like a mental health crisis to minimise the negative repercussions, or considering whether you should see a therapist or seek a diagnosis — all advice I’ve taken and benefited hugely from.
We’re looking for new colleagues to join our team of advisors.
Our advisors talk one-on-one to talented and altruistic applicants in order to help them find the highest impact career they can.
We’ve found that experience with coaching is not necessary – everything from management consulting to global priorities research has helped someone be a good fit.
London-based role with starting salary around £65,000.
80,000 Hours’ mission
80,000 Hours’ mission is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems. The effective altruism community, of which we are a part, is growing in reach and now includes funding bodies with over $40 billion to allocate in total. But how do we turn all those resources into long-term impact? This is the problem 80,000 Hours is trying to solve.
We’ve had over 8 million visitors to our website, and more than 3,000 people have now told us that they’ve significantly changed their career plans due to our work. 80,000 Hours is also the largest single source of people getting involved in the effective altruism community, according to the most recent EA Survey.
The 1on1 team
The 1on1 team at 80,000 Hours takes people from “interested in the ideas and want to help” to “actually working to solve pressing world problems.” For example, Sophie Rose applied for advising in 2019. We helped her decide to focus on biosecurity and start working in the field.
The people who know the most about a career path are usually the people following that path themselves.
Luckily, some members of the effective altruism community have written about their jobs, including insider tips on how to get into similar positions, and how to have an impact once you’re there.
Andrew Yang — past presidential candidate, founder of the Forward Party, and leader of the ‘Yang Gang’ — is kind of a big deal, but is particularly popular among listeners to The 80,000 Hours Podcast.
Maybe that’s because he’s willing to embrace topics most politicians stay away from, like universal basic income, term limits for members of Congress, or what might happen when AI replaces whole industries.
But even those topics are pretty vanilla compared to our usual fare on The 80,000 Hours Podcast. So we thought it’d be fun to throw Andrew some stranger or more niche questions we hadn’t heard him comment on before, including:
What would your ideal utopia in 500 years look like?
Do we need more public optimism today?
Is positively influencing the long-term future a key moral priority of our time?
Should we invest far more to prevent low-probability risks?
Should we think of future generations as an interest group that’s disenfranchised by their inability to vote?
The folks who worry that advanced AI is going to go off the rails and destroy us all… are they crazy, or a valuable insurance policy?
Will people struggle to live fulfilling lives once AI systems remove the economic need to ‘work’?
Andrew is a huge proponent of ranked-choice voting. But what about ‘approval voting’ — where basically you just get to say “yea” or “nay” to every candidate that’s running — which some experts prefer?
What would Andrew do with a billion dollars to keep the US a democracy?
What does Andrew think about the effective altruism community?
What’s one thing we should do to reduce the risk of nuclear war?
Will Andrew’s new political party get Trump elected by splitting the vote, the same way Nader got Bush elected back in 2000?
As it turns out, Rob and Andrew agree on a lot, so the episode is less a debate than a chat about ideas that aren’t mainstream yet… but might be one day. They also talk about:
Andrew’s views on alternative meat
Whether seniors have too much power in American society
Andrew’s DC lobbying firm on behalf of humanity
How the rest of the world could support the US
The merits of 18-year term limits
What technologies Andrew is most excited about
How much the US should spend on foreign aid
Persistence and prevalence of inflation in the US economy
And plenty more
Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.
Producer: Keiran Harris Audio mastering: Ben Cordell Transcriptions: Katy Moore
