Benjamin Todd

You both succeed.

This means you don't need to worry as much about getting favors back to break even.

Just helping someone else is already impactful.

This unleashes far more opportunities to work together than would be possible in a community where people don't share one another's aims as much.

And because there are so many ways we can help each other, this makes it possible to achieve far more.

Earning to give can actually be an example of that kind of collaboration.

In the early days of 80,000 hours, I, Benjamin, and my friend Matt had to choose between running the organization and earning to give.

We realized that Matt had higher earning potential, and I would be better at running the organization.

In part, this is why I became the CEO, and Matt became our first major donor, as well as a seed funder for several other organizations.

The alternative would have been for both of us to earn to give, in which case 80,000 hours wouldn't have existed.

Or both of us could have worked at 80,000 hours, in which case it would have taken much longer to fundraise.

Plus the other organizations Matt donated to wouldn't have gotten those donations.

Within the community as a whole, some people are relatively better suited to earning money, and others to running non-profits.

We can achieve more if the people best suited to earning money earn to give and fund everyone else.

there are lots of other examples of how we can work together.

For instance, some people can go and explore new areas and share the information with everyone else, allowing everyone to be more effective in the long term.

Or people can specialize rather than needing to be generalists.

For instance, Dr. Greg Lewis did the research into how many lives a doctor saves that we saw earlier.

After realising it was fewer than he thought, he decided not to focus on clinical medicine.

Instead, he studied public health with the aim of becoming an expert on the topic within the community, particularly on issues relevant to pandemics.