Rethink Priorities is inviting expressions of interest for (co)leading a longtermist project/organization incubator

The General Longtermism Team at Rethink Priorities is currently considering creating a  "Longtermist Incubator" program and is accepting expression of interest submissions for a project lead/ co-lead to run the program if it’s launched. 

If you’d be interested in leading a longtermist incubator as part of Rethink Priorities and fit the profile described below, we encourage you to complete this general interest application. Please click "Apply Now" to respond to the brief prompts in the application form and submit your CV.

We will keep your profile on our system, and as this is an expression of interest for an exploratory role, we will only contact you when we have general updates related to this position, or if there could be a suitable match, or as relevant opportunities arise. 
Please note that we have not fully committed to a particular format for a longtermist incubator or to hiring for this program, and given this, please don’t worry if you don’t get a quick update or a response from us. In the meantime, we'd be happy to refer you to other roles within RP or at related groups, where applicable, if you have given permission for us to do so in your application form.

Application Deadline: There is currently no deadline, and we anticipate that we will be accepting expressions of interest into mid-late March. However, since the main goal of this form is to gauge interest and availability for this position, if you're interested in applying, we'd appreciate it if you could apply by February 28 in line with our planning efforts for this project.

Contact: Please email [email protected]  if you have any questions.

About the Position and the Longtermist Incubator Program

In 2022,  Rethink Priorities’ General Longtermism team focused on facilitating the faster and better creation of longtermist projects (see here). In 2023, we are exploring ways to improve this process, including creating a more formalized ‘incubator’ program within the organization. Broadly, by longtermist incubator program, we mean a program that finds and matches potential founders with longtermist project ideas and provides support so they can get these projects off the ground. We have not settled on the exact model for this yet, but we anticipate that a key bottleneck will be the availability of leads/co-leads with experience running/managing incubator programs. 

This lead/co-lead position would initially be a fixed-term role for 6-12 months to manage the pilot of this incubator program. Whether the program would be continued would be decided only after the pilot is completed. In case of discontinuation of the program, the contractor we hire for this experiment could potentially stay for other projects, although this is not guaranteed and whether this would be on a new fixed-term contract term or a different work arrangement would depend on the circumstances at that time. We expect this role to be full- or part-time, with a minimum time commitment of 20 hours per week. The role could be fully remote, but might require the contractor to be based in (most likely) London or Oxford for perhaps 2-8 weeks, depending on strategic decisions about the incubator pilot.

This person, if the project goes through, would work closely with and have the support of our General Longtermism and Special Projects teams. The General Longtermism team focuses on generating, prioritizing among, and doing further research on longtermist projects and interventions. 

The Special Projects team is a new initiative that focuses on operations activities related to supporting these projects, such as developing budgets, writing business plans, fundraising, liaising with stakeholders, researching legal/operational issues, scouting for talent for the projects, helping run prizes or requests for proposals, and grantmaking.

What we are looking for

In order to better understand who might be available, we’d be interested in connecting with people with 2+ years experience in i) a leading role at a start-up incubator or accelerator OR ii) founding and/or leading a start-up OR iii) leading scalable independent projects. 

Desired skills, experience, competencies, and knowledge:

• Excellent interpersonal and team skills
• Experience in scouting and recruiting founders and early employees for new organizations and projects
• Experience advising/coaching start-ups or running training programs for founders
• Good knowledge of one or more longtermist areas, e.g. AI governance and safety, biosecurity, or field-building.

What we Offer

Compensation

• The salary for a project (co)lead is yet to be determined as Rethink Priorities has not currently committed to this project and to hiring for this position
• The general range of salary we are able to offer for a full-time 12-month position, prorated for part-time work, is: $67,000 - $115,000 USD pre-tax
  • The exact salary would be determined based on the candidate’s prior relevant experience and corresponding title level and calculated using RP’s salary algorithm. RP does not negotiate salaries to ensure fairness.
• Payments could be made in different currencies and payment intervals depending on the location of applicants and legal requirements.

Other Benefits

If this project is taken up, some of the benefits we would be able to offer a project lead/co-lead would include the following:

• Opportunity to contribute to a fast-growing, high-impact organization — our research is used by key decision-makers who influence the distribution of hundreds of millions of charitable dollars
• Flexible work hours and location, except for when work-related travel could be involved
• Generous paid time off leave
• A caring team that values respectful work relations and a healthy work-life balance
• Opportunities to grow/advance your career and engage in professional development
• Low administrative bureaucracy
• We don’t provide snacks but we could mail you a box of Oreos if you want!

About Rethink Priorities

Founded in 2018, Rethink Priorities (RP) is a nonprofit organization that addresses global priorities—important and neglected issues—by researching solutions and strategies, mobilizing resources, and empowering our team and others. RP’s mission is to generate the most significant possible impact for others in the present and the long-term future. 

Our cause areas include animal welfare, artificial intelligence, climate change, global health and development, and other work to safeguard a flourishing long-term future. RP also aims to understand and support those working on these issues.

Rethink Priorities works as all of the following:

1. A consultancy doing commissioned work in response to demands from organizations aligned with effective altruism (EA).
2. A research institute driven by research agendas we set according to our own priorities.
3. A think tank aiming to inform public policy to improve the world.
4. An accelerator, incubator, and base for priority projects.

Some of our recent accomplishments include: 

• Helping major foundations to answer their questions on climate change solutions, weather forecasting in lower- and middle-income countries, increasing access to medicine, and the effectiveness of prizes and other interventions. 
• Comparing the capacity of different animal species to experience pleasure and pain to help philanthropists decide how to allocate funding.
• Investigating various animal welfare interventions, as well as bringing to light the neglected areas of invertebrate and insect welfare.
• Publishing pieces on nanotechnology and ways to use forecasting to improve the long-term future, as well as supporting those interested in these types of topics.
• Launching a Special Projects Team to incubate promising new initiatives, such as Epoch (a new AI research organization) and Condor Camp (EA and longtermism movement-building in Brazil and Latin America).
• Conducting surveys to better understand the EA community, the general public’s familiarity with EA and their attitudes towards related issues over time as well as message testing specific issues for various EA groups. 

We welcome you to review our database of published work here. 

We’re supported by Open Philanthropy, Effective Altruism Funds, the Survival and Flourishing Fund, and additional institutional and individual donors. 

How to Apply

To apply for this role, please respond to the prompts in the application form and submit your CV. We ask that you spend no more than one hour preparing your responses.