80,000 Hours is a nonprofit organization that helps individuals select high-impact careers. It conducts research on pressing social problems and provides one-on-one advice on the basis of this research.

History

80,000 Hours was founded in July 2011 by Ben Todd and William MacAskill. The organization was called High Impact Careers for a year or so before adopting its current name.^[1][2] In its early years, 80,000 Hours placed great emphasis on earning to give; since around 2015, the organization has de-emphasized this career path in favor of direct work, especially work in research, advocacy, and policy.^[3]

Approach

At the core of 80,000 Hours' rankings and recommendations are two main "frameworks": a problem framework, which ranks problems in terms of importance, tractability and neglectedness, and a career framework, which recommends careers based primarily on career capital, role impact, and supportive conditions, with personal fit as a common fourth factor in both frameworks.

Funding

As of July 2022, 80,000 Hours has received over $9.8 million in funding from Open Philanthropy,^[4] over 1.1 million from Effective Altruism Funds,^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]} and nearly $300,000 from the Survival and Flourishing Fund.^[13][14]