The 80,000 Hours Podcast with Rob Wiblin

In-depth conversations about the world’s most pressing problems and what you can do to solve them.

Search for “80,000 Hours” wherever you get podcasts, or click one of the buttons below:

Selected episodes

Cass Sunstein on how social change happens, and why it’s so often abrupt & unpredictable
Ajeya Cotra on worldview diversification and how big the future could be
Toby Ord on the precipice and humanity’s potential futures
Vitalik Buterin on better ways to fund public goods, blockchain’s failures, & effective giving
Hilary Greaves on moral cluelessness, population ethics, & harnessing the brainpower of academia to tackle the most important research questions
Having a successful career with depression, anxiety and imposter syndrome
Chris Olah on what the hell is going on inside neural networks
Pardis Sabeti on the Sentinel system for detecting and stopping pandemics

View all episodes

Explore the archive

Every episode has a full transcript and links to further reading.

Quotes from the show

I’m very, very concerned that North Korea today has an advanced biological weapons program.
You don’t need a lot of biological weapons to potentially kill billions of people…
Fortunately, while we’re not there yet, the science and the tools that are now available enable the possibility of making [such] bioweapons obsolete.
Andy Weber, former US Assistant Secretary of Defense

…they randomly determined when officers would take the training… so it’s a really nice natural experiment.
And they found that this one-day training program pretty dramatically reduced both complaints and use of force.
Jennifer Doleac, Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University

…more teachers, more books, more inputs, like smaller class sizes – at least in the developing world – seem to have no impact, and that’s where most government money gets spent…
Rachel Glennerster, Chief Economist at the UK Department for International Development

I’m inclined to think that I can imagine a being with the ability to consciously think and perceive, but no ability to feel pleasure or pain.
And still, it just actually seems monstrous to me to think about killing such a being.
Dave Chalmers, Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at New York University

About the show

The 80,000 Hours Podcast features unusually in-depth conversations about the world’s most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them.

We invite guests pursuing a wide range of career paths – from academics and activists to entrepreneurs and policymakers — to analyse the case for and against working on different issues and figure out which approaches are best for solving them.

The show is produced and edited by Keiran Harris. Get in touch with feedback or guest suggestions by emailing [email protected]

How to listen

Search for “80,000 Hours” wherever you get podcasts, or click one of the buttons below:

You’ll find transcripts and links to further reading on the episode pages.

“The podcast has substantially changed how I think about the entire world, how I donate money, and has made me open to exploring job opportunities that would do more good for the world.”

— Steven Bills

What is 80,000 Hours?

80,000 Hours is a nonprofit dedicated to helping people have a larger positive influence on the world with their careers. If you’re new here, read our “Key ideas” series to get our current take on how to think about careers that have a positive impact and where the best opportunities may lie.

Read our key ideas

About Rob Wiblin

Robert Wiblin is one of the interviewers I most respect, and indeed, envy. He is Director of Research at a nonprofit called 80,000 Hours, and their mission is to figure out and then communicate to people how they can do the most good with their careers.

Robert is a long-standing leader in the effective altruism movement. He runs an excellent podcast called the 80,000 Hours Podcast. And he is from Adelaide.

— Tyler Cowen

Rob studied genetics and economics at the Australian National University, graduating top of his class and later being named Young Alumnus of the Year. He worked as a research economist in various Australian Government agencies, before joining the Centre for Effective Altruism in Oxford, first as Research Director and then Executive Director. In 2015 he joined 80,000 Hours as Head of Research.

Rob is known for predicting pandemics on Twitter and ranting about non-utilitarians on Facebook. You can find out more on his personal website.

View Rob’s writing at 80,000 Hours

A serious reasoning error that is particularly common among educated people is to argue that if a study hasn't been done on a particular question we have 'no data', and therefore no basis on which to form beliefs or act.
This is incorrect and dangerous. 1/
— Robert Wiblin (@robertwiblin) January 3, 2021

Octopuses are pretty nuts.
Totally separate evolution of intelligence — our nearest common ancestor was a worm or something. They're highly curious and learn the way we expect primates to do. But:
• They're not social, so intelligence didn't emerge for a social purpose. 1/
— Robert Wiblin (@robertwiblin) May 14, 2021

What could be the harm in temporarily pausing putting out the fire and getting the whole fire department to carefully check over its hoses for tiny leaks?
— Robert Wiblin (@robertwiblin) April 15, 2021

Effective Altruism: An Introduction

A collection of ten top episodes of The 80,000 Hours Podcast, specifically selected to help you get up to speed on the school of thought known as effective altruism.

Learn more →

1: Holden Karnofsky on the world’s most intellectual foundation and how philanthropy can have maximum impact by taking big risks
2: Toby Ord on why the long-term future of humanity matters more than anything else and what we should do about it
3: Alexander Berger on improving global health and wellbeing in clear and direct ways
4: Spencer Greenberg on the scientific approach to updating your beliefs when you get new evidence.
5: William MacAskill on why our descendants might view us as moral monsters

6: Ajeya Cotra on worldview diversification and how big the future could be
7: Philip Tetlock on lessons learned from 40 years studying how to predict the future
8: Hilary Greaves on moral cluelessness, population ethics and tackling global issues in academia
9: Ben Todd on the key ideas of 80,000 Hours
10: Arden Koehler and Ben Todd on the core idea of effective altruism and how to argue for it

Subscribe by searching for “effective altruism” wherever you get podcasts, or click one of the buttons below: