Holden Karnofsky
Co-founder of GiveWell and Open Philanthropy; at Anthropic from 2025.
At a glance
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- Holden Karnofsky is an American nonprofit executive.
- He co-founded the charity evaluator GiveWell with Elie Hassenfeld in 2007.
- In 2014 he co-founded Open Philanthropy, now Coefficient Giving, and led it until 2023.
- He joined Anthropic in January 2025 to work on its responsible scaling policies.
- He writes the blog Cold Takes.
Key facts
- Born
- 1980 or 19811
- Co-founded
- GiveWell (2007, with Elie Hassenfeld); Open Philanthropy, now Coefficient Giving (2014)1
- Led
- Open Philanthropy as CEO, then co-CEO, until 2023; then its Director of AI Strategy1
- Now
- Member of technical staff at Anthropic, from January 2025, on responsible scaling policies and safety planning1
- Boards
- OpenAI, 2017 to 2021; GiveWell vice chair until 20231
- Before
- Bridgewater Associates; visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 20241
- Education
- Harvard University, social studies (2003)1
- Writes
- Cold Takes, a blog whose best-known series is "the most important century"; he says he is not prioritizing new posts2
Roles
Founded
Part of
- AnthropicOrganization
member of technical staff, on responsible scaling policies · since Jan 2025 source on Anthropic
Before
Leads until 2023
Coefficient Giving (CEO, then co-CEO) source on Coefficient Giving
On the board of until 2023
GiveWell (vice chair) source on GiveWell
On the board of until 2021
Connections
Links
Sources
Last checked against its sources today
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