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80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours
Founded October 2011
Founder William MacAskill and Benjamin Todd
Focus Social impact coaching
Origins Oxford, England, UK
Area served
Worldwide
Product Free, evidence-based career advice
Slogan We want to change the world by helping millions of people make more difference with their careers.
Website http://80000hours.org/

80,000 Hours is an Oxford, UK-based organisation that conducts research on the careers with positive social impact and provides career advice. It provides this advice online, through one-on-one advice sessions and through a community of like-minded individuals. The organisation is part of the Centre for Effective Altruism, affiliated with the University of Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. The organisation's name refers to the typical amount of time someone spends working over a lifetime. It was one of the nonprofits funded by startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2015.

According to 80,000 Hours, some careers aimed at doing good are far more effective than others. On their framework for assessing different career options, the value of a career is regarded as depending on both its potential for impact and on the degree to which it gives the individual better opportunities to have an impact in the future.

The group emphasises that the positive impact of choosing a certain occupation should be measured by the amount of additional good that is done as a result of this choice, not by the amount of good directly done. It considers indirect ways of making a difference, such as earning a high salary in a conventional career and donating a portion of it, as well as direct ways, such as scientific research. The moral philosopher Peter Singer mentions the example of banking and finance as a potentially high impact career through such donations in his TED Talk, "The why and how of effective altruism," where he discusses the work of 80,000 Hours.

Members of 80,000 Hours must "use [their] career[s], at least in part, in an effective way to make the world a better place." The only formal requirement is that they report on their altruistic activities once a year. William MacAskill is the Founder and President of 80,000 Hours, the Co-founder and Vice-President of Giving What We Can, and a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Oxford University.

80,000 Hours has promoted the idea that pursuing a high-earning career and donating a significant portion of the income to cost-effective charities can be an effective philanthropic strategy for some people. John Humphrys criticised this idea on the BBC Today programme, saying that people interested in becoming wealthy tend to be selfish and that idealistic young people will become cynical as they age.


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