Projects
80,000 Hours: I'm the Director of Special Projects at 80,000 Hours, a non-profit that helps people find careers tackling the world's most pressing problems. I joined in 2017.
Same Page: I write about mission-driven management at Same Page, with Max Dalton (Executive Director of Forethought).
World record: I hold held the world record for the most throws of a five kilogram medicine ball between two people while standing five metres apart wearing boxing gloves.
Models I've made
- Faster growing teams need more ops staff
I noticed that when we grew faster, operations became harder. This is a model where I tried to play with that. - How much extra will you earn if you work for another hour?
Previously I thought about putting more time into work as a positive mostly altruistically. Now that salaries in effective altruism and AI have increased, the selfish case is worth taking seriously too.
Past
Operations: I oversaw the operations function at 80,000 Hours from 2019 until 2026. It is by far the most valuable thing I have ever done for the world, and I am proud of it.
Medicine: I worked as a doctor in Australia. Having considered the research on the impact of clinical medicine, I moved to 80,000 Hours. I harbour an unjustified sense of confidence that I could insert a drip.
Run to Better Days: I co-founded Run to Better Days, which gave presentations on effective development aid to more than 30,000 people.
Effective Altruism Australia: I also co-founded Effective Altruism Australia, through which Australians have now donated more than $30 million to effective charities helping the global poor.
Self-experiments: I once ate only Soylent for a week. It was a bad experience. Later, when I was older and wiser, I ate only potatoes for a week. It was a bad experience.
Opinions
- The best podcast ever made is 'The Missing Hit', from Reply All.
- The right way to recommend podcasts is with specific episode recommendations. Here's a list of episode recommendations.
- Ireland has a weirdly manageable number of mammals: there are 27 species of terrestrial mammal. This means that if you ever see a hedgehog, you can be like "oh, that must be the western European hedgehog, because that is the only hedgehog here". If you see a mole, you can be like "oh, I mustn't be in Ireland, because they don't have any moles, because they ran out of mammals". This is a weirdly manageable number of mammals.