Analysis projects equity stakes and founder pledges at OpenAI and Anthropic will yield $370 billion in philanthropic assets supporting up to $100 billion in annual grants
OpenAI Foundation's stake already surpasses the Gates Foundation by assets.
it will be very hard to productively spend this scale of philanthropic capital effectively, it seems already quite hard
Nan Ransohoff@nanransohoffNew blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today’s valuation. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth and have instituted the most aggressive donor matching program for employees in tech history. How much does this all add up to? And how meaningful is that in the context of philanthropy today? I was doing some simple napkin math to wrap my head around the scale of what’s coming, and radicalized myself in the process. I had dramatically underappreciated the scale of the philanthropic capital that’s about to become available and the corresponding gap in talent and organizations that will be needed to make the most of it. This piece aims to directionally sketch the scale of what’s coming, the gap in operational capacity needed to absorb it, and what we can do to fill it. (Link to full post in reply)
#70Dwarkesh Patel@DWARKESH_SPOne of the most important and under appreciated trends in the world right now.
1. 100s of billions of dollars will soon be available to solve big problems (making the world resilient to ASI, ending factory farming, etc). 2. The projects and organizations which will turn billions of 2027/28 dollars into impact need to be started NOW. 3. We need really talented people to start and run and work for these new projects. What @nanransohoff calls general managers, who feel personally resposible for solving one of the world’s important problems.
What is especially scarce are detailed visions about what making AI go well looks like. These will help inform what problems these new projects ought to work on.
Nan Ransohoff@nanransohoffNew blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today’s valuation. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth and have instituted the most aggressive donor matching program for employees in tech history. How much does this all add up to? And how meaningful is that in the context of philanthropy today? I was doing some simple napkin math to wrap my head around the scale of what’s coming, and radicalized myself in the process. I had dramatically underappreciated the scale of the philanthropic capital that’s about to become available and the corresponding gap in talent and organizations that will be needed to make the most of it. This piece aims to directionally sketch the scale of what’s coming, the gap in operational capacity needed to absorb it, and what we can do to fill it. (Link to full post in reply)
#167Emad@EMOSTAQUEShouldn’t this mean > $100b in charitable giving for effective altruism adjacent projects from Anthropic founders & team members alone?
Nan Ransohoff@nanransohoffNew blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today’s valuation. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth and have instituted the most aggressive donor matching program for employees in tech history. How much does this all add up to? And how meaningful is that in the context of philanthropy today? I was doing some simple napkin math to wrap my head around the scale of what’s coming, and radicalized myself in the process. I had dramatically underappreciated the scale of the philanthropic capital that’s about to become available and the corresponding gap in talent and organizations that will be needed to make the most of it. This piece aims to directionally sketch the scale of what’s coming, the gap in operational capacity needed to absorb it, and what we can do to fill it. (Link to full post in reply)
#615Logan Graham@LOGANGRAHAMWithin ~2 years, there might be >0.5 Manhattan Projects worth of philanthropic $$$ to spend on the biggest challenges, like cyber or biodefense.
@nanransohoff is right: the hard part is finding enough good organizations to spend the $.
You should build one!
Nan Ransohoff@nanransohoffNew blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today’s valuation. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth and have instituted the most aggressive donor matching program for employees in tech history. How much does this all add up to? And how meaningful is that in the context of philanthropy today? I was doing some simple napkin math to wrap my head around the scale of what’s coming, and radicalized myself in the process. I had dramatically underappreciated the scale of the philanthropic capital that’s about to become available and the corresponding gap in talent and organizations that will be needed to make the most of it. This piece aims to directionally sketch the scale of what’s coming, the gap in operational capacity needed to absorb it, and what we can do to fill it. (Link to full post in reply)
@tszzl I'll take it and turn it into computronium tyvm
roon@tszzlit will be very hard to productively spend this scale of philanthropic capital effectively, it seems already quite hard
@calebwatney Then we’ll be able to resolve whether to call them institute for progresses or institutes for progress
Caleb Watney@calebwatney
yes, the bottleneck if you go the org building route is mostly just talent (there are not another 5 CG's worth of good capital allocators in philanthropy, nor is the equivalent number of founders available to run orgs that these allocators could grant to)
this is partly because the non-profit ecosystem is just much less compelling to top talent than the for-profit one.
therefore, you need to figure out how to use this capital some other way...
roon@tszzlit will be very hard to productively spend this scale of philanthropic capital effectively, it seems already quite hard
#1092Chris Painter@CHRISPAINTERYUP+1
Alec Stapp@AlecStappWe are entering a new era where the binding constraint on philanthropic startups is no longer funding. The scarce factors are good ideas & the talent who can execute on them. Now is the time for entrepreneurial people to start new organizations that create public goods.
@tszzl give it to mckenzie & melinda, problem solved.
roon@tszzlit will be very hard to productively spend this scale of philanthropic capital effectively, it seems already quite hard
#1196Matt Clifford@MATTHEWCLIFFORDExcellent and important post on an underrated topic: what will AI wealth do to philanthropy?
Nan Ransohoff@nanransohoffNew blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today’s valuation. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth and have instituted the most aggressive donor matching program for employees in tech history. How much does this all add up to? And how meaningful is that in the context of philanthropy today? I was doing some simple napkin math to wrap my head around the scale of what’s coming, and radicalized myself in the process. I had dramatically underappreciated the scale of the philanthropic capital that’s about to become available and the corresponding gap in talent and organizations that will be needed to make the most of it. This piece aims to directionally sketch the scale of what’s coming, the gap in operational capacity needed to absorb it, and what we can do to fill it. (Link to full post in reply)
#1735Andy Masley@ANDYMASLEYA little nuts
Andy Matuschak@andy_matuschakIntense vertigo thinking about @nanransohoff's numbers. Based on current pledges/valuations, AI philanthropic giving would saturate an additional 300+ Arc Institutes, i.e. an extra 80K employees. Or 5,000 Institutes for Progress, demanding 200K employees! https://nanransohoff.substack.com/p/the-third-wave-of-american-philanthropy
.@nanransohoff's framing is better than mine, but worth noting that again, if you wanted this take 6 months ago, subscribe to my blog.
Nan Ransohoff@nanransohoffNew blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today’s valuation. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth and have instituted the most aggressive donor matching program for employees in tech history. How much does this all add up to? And how meaningful is that in the context of philanthropy today? I was doing some simple napkin math to wrap my head around the scale of what’s coming, and radicalized myself in the process. I had dramatically underappreciated the scale of the philanthropic capital that’s about to become available and the corresponding gap in talent and organizations that will be needed to make the most of it. This piece aims to directionally sketch the scale of what’s coming, the gap in operational capacity needed to absorb it, and what we can do to fill it. (Link to full post in reply)
This article has some good content, but it feels like it's asking 'other people' to do things.
I suggest spending 3 minutes thinking if you should run an org, or solve a problem and if not, then forget about it until next time you ponder.
Nan Ransohoff@nanransohoffNew blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today’s valuation. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth and have instituted the most aggressive donor matching program for employees in tech history. How much does this all add up to? And how meaningful is that in the context of philanthropy today? I was doing some simple napkin math to wrap my head around the scale of what’s coming, and radicalized myself in the process. I had dramatically underappreciated the scale of the philanthropic capital that’s about to become available and the corresponding gap in talent and organizations that will be needed to make the most of it. This piece aims to directionally sketch the scale of what’s coming, the gap in operational capacity needed to absorb it, and what we can do to fill it. (Link to full post in reply)
A longer take.
Nathan is in Berkeley 🔎@NathanpmYoungThis article has some good content, but it feels like it's asking 'other people' to do things. I suggest spending 3 minutes thinking if you should run an org, or solve a problem and if not, then forget about it until next time you ponder.