Benjamin Todd

He did a huge amount of work behind the scenes to keep things running as funding rapidly grew.

When there was an opportunity to start a new research group in Cambridge, he used what he learned to lead efforts there too, at one point managing both groups.

The field would have moved much more slowly without his management.

If you're interested in positions like these, the best path is usually to pursue a PhD, pick a field, then apply to research groups.

If you want to enable great research, you need a combination of familiarity with the field and operations skills.

Approach 4.

Government and Policy

When we think of careers that do good, we might not first think of becoming an unknown government bureaucrat.

But senior government officials often oversee budgets of tens or even hundreds of millions.

If you could enable those budgets to be spent just a couple of percent more effectively, that would be worth millions of extra dollars spent on those programs.

And more broadly, the scale of the influence in government positions can be enormous.

For instance, Susie Doyster wanted to become a public defender to ensure disadvantaged people have good legal defense.

She realized that in that role she might improve criminal justice for perhaps hundreds of people over her career, but by changing policy she might improve the justice system for thousands or even millions.

Even if the impact per person is smaller, the numbers involved give her the chance of making a greater impact.

She was able to use her legal background to enter government, and now works in the executive office of the President of the US on criminal justice reform, and from there she can explore other areas of policy in the future.

Government is often crucial in addressing many of the issues we most recommend people work on, because they are the only institutions that create and enforce laws and regulation.

For example, only governments can do something like ban battery cages for egg-laying hens.

They can also act to solve coordination problems that are difficult for individual actors to tackle.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, contact tracing was essential to slow its spread, but it wasn't in any individual's self-interest to participate.

Governments stepped in to provide contact tracing services, benefiting society as a whole.