Latest Interviews
Showing 5956–5970 of 6,394 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Y Combinator1h 8m
A Conversation About Crypto-currencies and ICOs with Andy Bromberg
Andy Bromberg transitioned from founding the failed expert-discourse platform Sidewire to co-launching CoinList, where he led the Filecoin ICO and established strict criteria for tokenized startups that prioritize decentralization over centralized intermediaries. By contrasting token sales with traditional equity, Bromberg highlights how decentralized assets grant immediate investor liquidity while preserving founder control, yet often lack the incentive alignment and governance rights characteristic of venture-backed firms. Despite noting that only a fraction of contacted companies meet his rigorous standards, he argues that tokens serve a specific role in trustless value transmission, predicting a market where few blockchains host numerous interoperable assets built on established standards like ERC-20.
- 80,000 Hours2h 36m
#21 - Holden Karnofsky on times philanthropy transformed the world & Open Phil’s plan to do the same
Holden Karnofsky, Margaret Sanger, Gregory Pincus, Katherine McCormick, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin
The Open Philanthropy Project, funded primarily by Good Ventures, operates on a venture-capital model to deploy over $100 million annually toward high-risk, high-impact causes including U.S. criminal justice reform, farm animal welfare, and artificial intelligence safety. The organization employs a distinct "50-40-10" grant approval framework and prioritizes field building to create expert communities in neglected areas like AI alignment and pandemic preparedness. Through strategic board engagement at institutions like OpenAI and a rigorous, truth-seeking hiring culture, the project aims to mitigate global catastrophic risks while maximizing philanthropic returns on long-term societal transformation.
- 80,000 Hours1h 18m
#20 - Bruce Friedrich on inventing outstanding meat substitutes to end speciesism & factory farming
Bruce Friedrich, Natalie Cargill, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin
The Good Food Institute executes a strategy to displace industrial animal agriculture by accelerating the development of plant-based and clean meats that compete on price, taste, and convenience rather than ethical appeal. While current market share for alternatives remains below 1% amidst a record 9 billion annual animal slaughters, industry experts project cost parity with conventional meat within a decade through bioreactor scaling and synthetic biology. Operating as a rapidly expanding nonprofit funded entirely by philanthropy, the organization targets a 2050 vision where these technologies collectively fulfill 100% of global meat demand.
- 80,000 Hours1h 5m
#19 - Samantha Pitts-Kiefer on working next to the White House trying to prevent nuclear war
Samantha Pitts-Kiefer, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, founded by Sam Nunn and Ted Turner, outlines critical risks of nuclear terrorism and great power miscalculation through insights from Senior Director Samantha Pitts-Kyfer. The analysis highlights how dirty bombs could cause economic collapse, while modern cyber vulnerabilities and hair-trigger alert statuses between the US and Russia threaten accidental nuclear war with global catastrophic consequences. To mitigate these existential dangers, the organization advocates for ending prompt launch policies, restoring US-Russia dialogue, and accelerating verified disarmament to prevent both state conflict and non-state acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.
- Milken Institute18 min
CreditEase Founder Ning Tang at MIGlobal
At the Milken Institute's 21st Annual Global Conference, Credit Ease CEO Nian Tang outlined his company's strategic pivot from China's pioneering P2P lending sector into a global fintech leader facilitating over $1 trillion in transactions. Tang detailed how the firm is leveraging mobile technology and robust investor education to bridge China's credit infrastructure gaps, shifting market behavior from speculation toward long-term wealth management and professional asset allocation. By combining deep financial expertise with advanced technology, Credit Ease aims to serve underserved small businesses and democratize financial advisory services for the Chinese middle class while navigating an increasingly rigorous regulatory landscape.
- 80,000 Hours1h 19m
#18 - Ofir Reich on using data science to end poverty & the spurious action-inaction distinction
Ofir Reich, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin
The Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley advances global poverty alleviation through three core initiatives: fostering academic networks, enforcing research transparency to combat the reproducibility crisis, and directing funding for over 70 academics to study poverty. Recent data science projects led by Ophir Reich apply machine learning to detect tax evasion in India, optimize agricultural yields via mobile platforms in Ethiopia and India, and evaluate mobile salary payments for Afghan teachers. These efforts rely on rigorous randomized controlled trials and open data practices, while the organization advises aspiring practitioners to prioritize high-impact roles in established institutions to build the necessary technical capital for long-term effectiveness.
- 80,000 Hours1h 53m
#17 - Prof Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monster
Prof Will MacAskill, Will MacAskill, Rob Wiblin
Will McCaskill reflects on the transition of the Effective Altruism movement from its origins in GiveWell and Giving What We Can to its current status as a global network, while stepping down as CEO of the Center for Effective Altruism to pursue academic leadership in moral uncertainty research. He argues that decision-making should analogously apply expected value reasoning to moral theories, proposing a "Long Reflection" era where humanity resolves fundamental value questions before committing to irreversible actions. Despite these theoretical advances, McCaskill emphasizes the necessity of addressing critiques regarding justice, institutional bias, and the need for greater diversity to prevent the community from stagnating in groupthink.
- 80,000 Hours55 min
#16 - Dr Hutchinson on global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals
Dr Hutchinson, Michelle Hutchinson, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin
Established at the University of Oxford, the Global Priorities Institute operates as an academic research body dedicated to determining how to maximize good per unit of resources by integrating effective altruism principles with philosophy and economics. Under the leadership of Director Hilary Graves, the institute is currently hiring researchers to develop comparative cause prioritization frameworks and address the limitations of traditional metrics like the QALY. To ensure long-term viability within the university system, the organization structures roles to balance movement-focused agendas with traditional high-status academic publishing, seeking to eventually establish satellite hubs that mirror models like J-PAL.
- Y Combinator56 min
A Conversation with Ooshma Garg - Moderated by Adora Cheung
Ushma Garg founded Gobble after pivoting from previous ventures like Anapata, eventually transforming a struggling personalized meal service into a scalable $100 million weekly revenue business by launching a standardized 15-minute one-pan meal kit model. Through a lean operational strategy that survived 3.5 years of iteration and rejected lucrative acquisition offers, Garg secured Y Combinator support and grew the company by deliberately shutting down profitable but non-scalable revenue streams. The venture now targets a long-term vision of becoming a "Disney of the home" by prioritizing material product superiority and high retention over incremental improvements.
- 80,000 Hours1h 24m
#15 - Prof Tetlock on how chimps beat Berkeley undergrads and when it’s wise to defer to the wise
Prof Tetlock, Prof Philip Tetlock, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin, Philip Tetlock
Spanning 35 years of research on over tens of thousands of participants, Philip Tetlock's program utilizes Brier scores to demonstrate that while most experts and hedgehogs perform no better than chance, a specific subset of adaptable "superforecasters" consistently outperforms intelligence analysts through rigorous training and cognitive diversity. These findings inform a new IARPA-sponsored hybrid tournament that pits human-machine teams against each other in quantitative and idiosyncratic domains to identify the most effective forecasting methods. Ultimately, the research underscores the necessity of calibration and open-mindedness over ideological certainty, advocating for structured aggregation systems to mitigate the dangers of overconfident punditry in complex macro-political landscapes.
- 80,000 Hours1h 26m
#14 - Sharon Nunez & Jose Valle on going undercover to expose animal abuse
Sharon Nunez, Jose Valle, Lewis Bollard, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin, Natalie Cargill
Founded in 2006 by Sharon Nunez and Jose Valle, Animal Equality has evolved from a Spanish volunteer group into a leading international non-profit recognized by Animal Charity Evaluators for three consecutive years. Leveraging investigative journalism, legislative lobbying, and immersive VR technology like iAnimal, the organization currently spares an estimated 4.8 animals per dollar spent through strategies that have secured policy changes affecting millions of farmed animals across multiple continents. Now employing 74 staff members, the group actively seeks specialized talent in data analysis and operations to manage its rapid expansion into new markets like China and Latin America while scaling its annual budget from $200,000 to $3.2 million.
- 80,000 Hours53 min
#13 - Claire Walsh on testing which policies work & how to get governments to listen to the results
Claire Walsh, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin
The J-PAL Government Partnership Initiative deploys a multi-million dollar fund to sponsor randomized control trials and institutional reforms across twelve countries, directly engaging governments to scale evidence-based interventions like deworming and educational strategies. This approach has influenced policies affecting over 300 million people by translating complex econometric data into actionable one-page summaries and fostering local leadership within regional offices. Furthermore, the initiative facilitates career development for public policy professionals through flexible education programs, emphasizing that institutional strengthening and rigorous empirical analysis are essential for sustainable global equity.
- Y Combinator49 min
Peter Reinhardt on Finding Product Market Fit at Segment
Peter Reinhardt, Craig Cannon, Evan Farrell, Benjamin Liam, Danny Prol, Ashwin Doke, Andrew Pikul, Juan Carlos Garza
Segment revolutionized data infrastructure by pivoting from failed consumer products to a unified customer data platform that eliminates internal engineering silos for companies managing diverse interaction points. The company achieved product-market fit by open-sourcing its core routing library, which attracted engineers organically before scaling through direct data warehousing connectors and a shift to high-value enterprise contracts. Underpinned by a strict focus on first-party data privacy and the MEDDIC sales framework, Segment successfully navigated regulatory challenges like GDPR to become an essential intermediary between enterprise applications and storage systems.
- 80,000 Hours1h 46m
#12 - Dr Cameron works to stop you dying in a pandemic. Here’s what keeps her up at night.
Dr Cameron, Dr Beth Cameron, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin, Dr. Elizabeth Cameron
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, led by CEO Secretary Ernest Moniz, is launching the Next Generation Global Health Security Network to engage emerging leaders ahead of the Kampala Ministerial and advance its pilot Global Health Security Index. The organization addresses rising biological risks from dual-use technologies and funding gaps by advocating for integrated public health and national security strategies, including a proposed global preparedness fund and improved governance frameworks. Through these initiatives, NTI aims to dismantle the "cycle of panic and neglect" by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and establishing permanent metrics for global pandemic prevention and response.
- 80,000 Hours1h 30m
#11 - Dr Spencer Greenberg on speeding up social science 10-fold & why plenty of startups cause harm
Dr Spencer Greenberg, Keiran Harris, Rob Wiblin
Spencer Greenberg, a mathematician and founder of initiatives including SparkWave and ClearerThinking.org, advocates for reforming social science research through rigorous methods like data vaulting and leveraging digital tools for large-scale studies. He applies these empirical approaches to developing mental health applications with proven efficacy in reducing depression symptoms while highlighting systemic risks in startups, such as the exploitation of cognitive biases and negative externalities. Greenberg further critiques the effective altruism community for its narrow focus on existential risks and argues that mental health and direct scientific research require significantly more attention alongside urgent work on artificial intelligence safety.