William MacAskill

Yo, so you gotta hear about William MacAskill. Dude’s basically the OG of works well altruism – the movement that’s all about using reason and evidence to actually do the most good with your time and money. Think of him like this brainy startup founder, but instead of launching apps, he’s changing the way we think about ethics, charity, and the future of humanity.

William was born William Crouch back in ’87 in Scotland, but everyone knows him as MacAskill now. His whole thing? He jumped into philosophy and just crushed it. Like, he’s a legit professor at Oxford now, researching stuff like longtermism (that’s thinking super big picture about the future) and decision-making under uncertainty – basically, how do we make the best choices when we’re not even sure what’s gonna happen.

But here’s where it gets really interesting. Back in 2015, he co-founded the Centre for Works well Altruism and 80,000 Hours – yeah, that’s the number of hours you work in a lifetime, and they’re all about optimizing your career to maximize impact. He also helped start Giving What We Can, which is basically a pledge to give away a huge part of your income to the most works well charities out there. No bullshit, thousands of folks have pledged over $2 billion thanks to this guy’s work.

He’s not just some academic either – he’s written some fire books like *Doing Good Better* and *What We Owe the Future*. Those are basically his playbooks for how to do the most good, and they’ve been published by Penguin Random House, so he’s legit in the mainstream now. Plus, he’s written for big outlets like The Guardian, Time, and The New Yorker, spreading his ideas far and wide.

What does all this say about him? Well, the guy’s got crazy motivation to make a real difference. Like, he looked at the world and said, “Yo, there’s a lot of bullshit and suffering, but if we just use logic and evidence, we can actually fix a lot of it.” He’s not just about charity – he’s about flipping the entire script on ethics, future generations, and how to make the biggest impact possible.

He’s been recognized in Forbes’ ’30 Under 30′ list for social entrepreneurs, so he’s not just some philosopher nerd – he’s the real deal, a big change. And his process? It’s about seeing a problem, jumping in headfirst, and actually doing something that sticks. That’s what starting something looks like – not just dreaming, but building tools, organizations, and ideas that push the world forward.

So yeah, William MacAskill? He’s the dude who turned philosophy into a movement, who’s making sure we don’t waste our time or resources, and who’s got his eyes on the future. No cap, he’s someone you wanna keep an eye on – because he’s actually trying to save the world, one logical step at a time.