# Good Ventures **Good Ventures** is the **private philanthropic foundation** established in 2011 by **[[Dustin Moskovitz]]** (co-founder of Facebook and Asana) and his wife **[[Cari Tuna]]** (former *Wall Street Journal* journalist) to direct their philanthropic giving. Headquartered in San Francisco, Good Ventures is the **legal and financial vehicle** that holds and distributes the Moskovitz-Tuna philanthropic resources — a role that has expanded from tens of millions of dollars in annual giving in its early years to over $500 million annually by the mid-2020s, with cumulative distributions exceeding $4 billion. Good Ventures has operated throughout its existence as the **institutional partner of [[Open Philanthropy]]** (formally split out in 2017 but operationally linked since the 2014 launch of what was initially called "GiveWell Labs") — Good Ventures provides the capital; Open Philanthropy makes the strategic and grant-level decisions. Good Ventures matters for the KB for three reasons. First, it is the **principal institutional vehicle** through which the Moskovitz-Tuna Facebook-derived fortune has been directed into the Effective Altruism movement's institutional apparatus — making it, by a wide margin, the single largest source of EA-aligned philanthropic funding. Without Good Ventures' commitment (codified in the 2015 Giving Pledge), Open Philanthropy's institutional scale and the broader EA movement's operational scope would not be possible. Second, the **Good Ventures / Open Philanthropy / GiveWell triad** is one of the most documented case studies in the KB of modern institutional philanthropy design — a three-organization structure in which the capital source, the strategic decision-maker, and the charity evaluator are separate entities with interlocking but distinct roles. This design pattern has been influential for other Silicon Valley philanthropic operations. Third, Good Ventures' **post-FTX role** (November 2022) as the principal remaining source of large-scale EA-aligned funding after the FTX Future Fund collapse has made it structurally central to the EA movement's post-crisis institutional trajectory — whether the movement's scale was sustainable, which causes got continued funding, and what governance reforms were pursued all ran substantially through Good Ventures' decisions. ## Founding (2011) Good Ventures was established in 2011, three years after Moskovitz's 2008 departure from Facebook (co-founding Asana shortly thereafter) and approximately the same time as his marriage to Cari Tuna. The founding context: - Moskovitz's Facebook equity had reached multi-billion-dollar values, producing philanthropic resources well beyond what personal giving could reasonably absorb - Tuna had just left the *Wall Street Journal* to lead the Moskovitz-Tuna philanthropic operation full-time - Existing philanthropic infrastructure within the Moskovitz operation was minimal, requiring institutional build-out - Moskovitz and Tuna decided to approach philanthropy with the same research-intensive, evidence-based orientation Moskovitz had applied to startup operations Tuna's journalistic background shaped the approach: rather than making grants based on existing personal networks, the foundation conducted extensive evaluation of charity-evaluation methodologies, eventually identifying GiveWell as the most rigorous operation. Early grants flowed through GiveWell's Top Charities recommendations, providing GiveWell with a much larger funding base than its retail donors alone could produce. ## The GiveWell Partnership (2011-2014) Good Ventures' 2011-2014 partnership with GiveWell was the formative period for both organizations: - **Scale infusion**: GiveWell had been operating on a modest budget with modest grant flows; the Good Ventures partnership substantially scaled its operations - **Cause-area expansion**: Good Ventures' interest in cause areas beyond GiveWell's traditional global-health focus produced the "GiveWell Labs" project that became Open Philanthropy - **Methodological development**: The larger funding base allowed GiveWell to invest in deeper research on each of its recommended charities By 2014, Good Ventures was providing substantial annual funding (~$30-50 million) through GiveWell's Top Charities and through GiveWell Labs' broader cause area explorations. ## The Open Philanthropy Split (2017) In 2017, Open Philanthropy was formally spun off from GiveWell as a separate organization. The resulting institutional architecture: - **Good Ventures**: Holds the Moskovitz-Tuna philanthropic assets; makes formal grant decisions based on Open Philanthropy's recommendations - **Open Philanthropy**: Makes the strategic and grant-level decisions; employs the research and grantmaking staff - **GiveWell**: Focuses specifically on global-health-and-development retail grantmaking; continues as a Good Ventures partner but with operationally distinct infrastructure The three-organization structure allows different specializations: Good Ventures focuses on financial and legal infrastructure; Open Philanthropy focuses on cause-area strategy; GiveWell focuses on the specific retail global-health domain. ## Giving Pledge and Long-Term Commitment (2015) Moskovitz and Tuna signed the Giving Pledge in February 2015, publicly committing to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy during their lifetimes or in their wills. The pledge letter — co-signed by both Moskovitz and Tuna, and among the most detailed Giving Pledge letters — outlines: - Commitment to deploy resources at a rate that fully expends the wealth during their lifetimes - Emphasis on evidence-based evaluation and transparency - Willingness to invest in causes where evaluation is difficult but expected value is high The Giving Pledge is important structurally because it commits Moskovitz and Tuna to continued deployment at scale rather than slowly accumulating resources indefinitely. The timeline commitment is part of what makes Good Ventures' annual grant flows so large — the foundation has to deploy resources at a rate compatible with fully expending a $10+ billion fortune within the founders' remaining lifetimes. ## Cause Areas Through Open Philanthropy, Good Ventures has directed funding across multiple cause areas: - **Global health and development**: Continuing the GiveWell framework at scale; the largest single cause area - **Farm animal welfare**: Cage-free egg campaigns, corporate animal welfare commitments, alternative protein research - **Scientific research**: Specific scientific priorities including biosecurity, pandemic preparedness, and select fundamental research - **Criminal justice reform**: U.S. domestic grants on incarceration reduction - **Potential risks from advanced AI**: The longtermist core; grants to MIRI, OpenAI (the famous 2017 $30M grant), [[Anthropic]], and the broader AI safety research ecosystem - **Global catastrophic risks**: Biosecurity, nuclear security, great power conflict The cause-area portfolio has remained relatively stable across the 2015-2024 period, though the specific weighting between causes has shifted — AI safety and longtermist causes have grown in weight, while some earlier areas (notably criminal justice reform) have reduced. ## Financial Scale Good Ventures' cumulative grantmaking has grown substantially: - **2011-2014**: ~$20-60 million/year (principally through GiveWell) - **2015-2020**: ~$80-200 million/year - **2021**: ~$500 million (including FTX-Future-Fund-coordination grants) - **2022**: ~$400 million - **2023**: ~$500+ million (expanded post-FTX to partially backstop previously committed grants) - **2024**: ~$500+ million Cumulative distributions through 2024 exceed $4 billion. ## Post-FTX Role (2022-) The November 2022 FTX collapse had significant effects on Good Ventures' strategic position: - **Backstop funding**: Good Ventures (through Open Philanthropy) absorbed or backstopped some grants that had been paid or committed by the FTX Future Fund - **Scale dominance**: With FTX Future Fund removed as a major EA funder, Good Ventures became an even more disproportionate share of total EA funding - **Governance scrutiny**: The post-FTX period has prompted expanded reflection on EA governance, with Good Ventures' increased relative scale raising questions about movement diversity ## Governance and Leadership Good Ventures' governance is compact compared to traditional foundations: - **Cari Tuna**: Co-founder and president; principal operational figure - **Dustin Moskovitz**: Co-founder; involved in strategic decisions - **Board of directors**: Including Moskovitz, Tuna, and selected outside advisors - **Operational staff**: Small team handling financial and legal infrastructure; most research and grantmaking staff are at Open Philanthropy ## Connection to the KB Ecosystem - **[[Dustin Moskovitz]]**: Co-founder; source of the philanthropic resources. - **[[Cari Tuna]]**: Co-founder and president; principal operational figure. - **[[Open Philanthropy]]**: Operational grantmaking partner; receives Good Ventures' funding and makes grant decisions. - **[[GiveWell]]**: Long-term grantmaking partner for global-health-and-development cause area. - **[[Holden Karnofsky]]**: Long-term philanthropic strategist; ran Open Philanthropy through 2021. - **[[Effective Altruism]]**: Principal institutional funder of the movement. - **Giving Pledge**: 2015 signatory; explicit commitment to deploy majority of wealth during lifetimes. - **[[Longtermism]] / AI safety funding**: Principal decision-maker for longtermist and AI safety grantmaking at scale through Open Philanthropy. ## See Also - [[Dustin Moskovitz]] - [[Cari Tuna]] - [[Holden Karnofsky]] - [[Open Philanthropy]] - [[GiveWell]] - [[Effective Altruism]]