Marcus Davis on founding and leading Rethink Priorities

Organizational Growth and Structure

• Rethink Priorities (RP) grew from ~10 staff two years ago to 46 permanent employees and 12 fellows as of the interview date.
• The organization is fully remote, a strategy cited as a "huge boon" for scaling and hiring talent globally without relocation barriers.
• Staffing is split primarily between two leaders: Peter Waterford manages long-termism and survey work, while co-CEO Marcus Davis oversees animal welfare and global health/development.
• The split between co-founders is described as practical (based on Peter's machine learning background) rather than ideological.
• RP has hired 25 people in a single round earlier in the year, indicating a period of rapid expansion.
• The organization is currently among the top four largest research entities in the effective altruism community by full-time equivalent staff.

Research Strategy and Portfolio

• RP operates on three research models: foundational research (commissioned by the team's own judgment), consultancy (directly commissioned by clients), and think tank work (commissioned by theory of change/stakeholders).
• Current research focuses on "who matters morally," "how to help them counterfactually," and "how to get better at helping."
• A significant portion of recent work is commissioned consultancy for funders like Open Philanthropy, resulting in a backlog of ~90 published reports, with many pending public release.
• Animal Welfare Specifics:
  • Discovered estimates of 10 to 60 trillion wild-caught shrimp slaughtered annually, plus 320 billion farm-raised shrimp.
  • Proposed shifting from painful rodenticides (which cause internal bleeding) to birth control methods like "ContraPest" or non-lethal habitat reduction.
  • Investigated aquatic noise pollution from oil exploration (100+ decibels) as a welfare concern for marine life.
  • Proposed monitoring systems using microphones to detect animal vocalizations for distress vs. pleasure.
• Global Health and Development:
  • Conducting work on the effectiveness of innovation prizes and global scientific capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Developing a report on global land burden and weather forecasting improvements.
• Long-Termism:
  • Includes nuclear war risk assessment (US vs. Russia) and AI governance.

Hiring and Career Development

• RP does not prioritize CVs or traditional credentials; selection relies on work tests, writing prompts, and problem-solving assessments.
• Desired candidate traits include critical thinking, skepticism, quantitative skills, and scientific literacy.
• Hiring is heavily driven by outreach (LinkedIn/email) and promotion on the 80,000 Hours job board rather than passive applications.
• Future Hiring Plans:
  • Anticipated focus on "worldview investigations" (e.g., interspecies comparisons, cross-cause analysis) early next year.
  • Potential expansion of survey teams if additional funding ($3 million needed through 2023) is secured.
• Career Outcomes:
  • Many alumni move to graduate studies; others transition to roles at Open Philanthropy or start new charities (e.g., via Charity Entrepreneurship incubation).
  • Work at RP serves as a portfolio builder for researchers, with published reports cited by major funders to justify hiring decisions or grant allocations.

Impact and Organizational Evolution

• Strategic Shift: RP has moved from purely publishing reports to a higher volume of consultancy work where specific questions are answered for funders, often with restricted public disclosure.
• Documented Impact:
  • Research on EU farm animal welfare strategies is estimated to have influenced ~$1–2 million in additional funding.
  • Cited in Open Philanthropy's decision to create a new global health R&D role.
  • Helped launch new charities like the Shrimp Welfare Project and Civita via the Charity Entrepreneurship program.
  • Pioneered the consideration of "moral weight" and interspecies welfare in grantmaking criteria.
• Lessons Learned:
  • RP was initially too slow to hire professional operations staff, which constrained growth until the appointment of COO Abraham Rowe.
  • Early operational bottlenecks were solved by specializing roles (e.g., hiring a dedicated strategist and executive research assistants).

Financial Outlook and Funding Needs

• RP requires an additional $3 million over the next two years to support the survey team and avoid turning down commissioned work.
• $1 million annually is sought for "worldview investigation" research projects.
• $2–3 million is targeted for animal welfare expansion, specifically for wild welfare, invertebrates, and policy work.
• $200,000–$300,000 annually is needed for global health and development think-tank style projects.

Notable Insights and Mistakes

• Surprising Discovery: Marcus Davis was initially skeptical of the raw shrimp slaughter numbers (10–60 trillion wild-caught), only believing them after re-computing the data himself.
• Core Challenge: A lack of basic factual data (e.g., population counts, capacity for suffering) in wild animal welfare makes it difficult to design or assess interventions, a problem RP aims to solve through "basic science" first.
• Operational Mistake: Founders initially performed their own finance and budget tasks; they now view this as a constraint on growth and a missed opportunity to focus on comparative advantages in research.
• Future Vision: The organization anticipates that wild animal welfare will become a serious field, making the current establishment of basic facts (population numbers, welfare baselines) foundational for future credibility and impact.