Leadership change at 80,000 Hours

By · Published May 5th, 2022

Hi readers!

We’ve decided for Howie to become CEO and for me to become President of 80,000 Hours.

After ten years in the role, I’d become less excited about overseeing several aspects of the organisation’s on-going operation. We asked the board to investigate, and their recommendation was that Howie Lempel is the best person to take the org to its next level of scale.

In the President role I hope I’ll be able to focus on my most valuable contributions – providing advice on org strategy & the website, writing, and helping with outreach – and won’t have set responsibilities.

I also have a growing list of other projects in effective altruism that I’m excited to explore.

Howie and I expect the transition to be smooth – in part because Howie is already doing several parts of the role as Chief of Staff. We intend for Howie to officially become CEO this week, and to complete the transfer in about a month.

I’m excited to explore this new role and for 80,000 Hours to continue growing and getting the next generation working on the world’s most pressing problems.

Ben

Note from Howie:

Hi everyone,

I’m really looking forward to taking on this new role and leading 80,000 Hours as we continue to grow.

I’m going to send an initial update on our plans as part of our post-Q2 email update. I don’t currently expect them to include any major changes to our strategic direction and I’m excited about our four programmes’ existing plans to scale up.

Over the past decade, Ben put together one of the best staff and leadership teams in all of effective altruism, so I feel confident that we’ll make sure 80,000 Hours reaches its full potential, together.

Howie