Benjamin Todd on the history of 80,000 Hours

80k After Hours

"The very first office we had was just a balcony in an Oxford College dining hall. It was totally open to the dining hall, so every lunch and dinner time it would be super noisy because it'd be like 200 people all eating below us. And then I think we just had a bit where we just didn't have an office, so we worked out of the canteen in the library for at least three months or something. And then it was only after that we moved into this tiny, tiny room at the back of an estate agent off in St Clement’s in Oxford. One of our early donors came and we gave him a tour, and when he came into the office, his first reaction was, 'Is this legal?'" — Benjamin Todd

In this episode of 80k After Hours — recorded in June 2022 — Rob Wiblin and Benjamin Todd discuss the history of 80,000 Hours.

Links to learn more.

Chapters:
• Cold open (00:00:00)
• Rob's intro (00:00:44)
• Ben's origin story (00:04:07)
• The birth of 80k (00:12:23)
• The early vision for 80k (00:30:12)
• The general vibe in the EA community back then (00:37:35)
• How 80k evolved (00:48:46)
• Trips to Thailand and China (01:13:00)
• Setting up several programmes (01:17:48)
• Moving to California (01:24:54)
• 80k strengths (01:33:49)
• Why Ben left the CEO position (01:39:03)
• The future of 80,000 Hours (01:42:06)
• Rob's outro (01:45:09)

Who this episode is for:

• People who work on or plan to work on promoting important ideas in a way that's similar to 80,000 Hours
• People who work at organisations similar to 80,000 Hours
• People who work at 80,000 Hours

Who this episode isn’t for:

• People who, if asked if they’d like to join a dinner at 80,000 Hours where the team reminisce on the good old days, would say, “Sorry, can’t make it — I’m washing my hair that night”

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Ryan Kessler and Ben Cordell

"Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue, original 1924 version" by Jason Weinberger is licensed under creative commons