About

This blog is mostly about scientific progress, impactful science projects, and how to fund science – from basic research through clinical trials – when you have a goal in mind.

Here is some of my background, and how I like to approach questions, so you can adjust for my biases (perspectives) as you see fit:

• I am Head of Life Sciences and Curing Diseases at the OpenAI Foundation.
• Before that, I managed a team of Program Officers at Coefficient Giving making grants to science and technology projects, mostly in biomedicine.
• I believe there is wide reasonable disagreement about how best to fund research – both in what ends are valuable (pushing the frontiers of knowledge? Enabling human flourishing?) and in how to get there. I am relatively obsessed with trying to adjudicate those disagreements, but I do not mean to be glib about their depth.
• I am attracted to problems that feel out of whack, which to me means problems neglected by society relative to how big a deal they would be if solved.
• I try to give equal consideration to people's lives around the world when figuring out what constitutes a "big deal".
• I live in San Francisco and used to work in the technology industry. (Software, not biotech.) Many of my friends work in tech or are adjacent to it.
• I grew up in England. Many of my friends are British or adjacent to it.
• Writing is fun, but I have more experience reading.