Jacob Trefethen

Some more about these four roles, since I will work closely with everyone we hire into them. (Salary ranges are posted on the job descriptions for these and other roles across the Foundation: t.co/LSnbwIok6Q) First, I am excited to share that, 8 weeks ago, Vidya Vasu-Devan joined the OpenAI Foundation to lead our work in High-Burden Diseases. Before this, Vidya led the investment team for a global health biotech VC fund; before that, she was Chief Strategy Officer at a vaccine company; and before that she was Director of the $2.5 billion portfolio of strategic investments at the Gates Foundation. In an earlier draft of this tweet I wrote two more paragraphs bragging about some of the things Vidya achieved in those roles, but unfortunately for me she doesn’t like being bragged about. Which relates to why you may have a lot of fun working with her if you join our team -- Vidya is unusually humble, has helped protect an unusual number of people from infectious diseases through her work, and most importantly has complementary skills to mine in bar trivia. We are hiring a Program Officer and/or Program Director on High-Burden Diseases. These are open-ended roles with a broad mandate to help solve some of the world's biggest problems in health. They will work with Vidya to figure out: what is newly possible due to AI progress, in tuberculosis drug development? In newborn health, where roughly 2 million infants die each year? In stroke, in hepatitis B, in other diseases facing market failures where we may be able to unlock rapid progress for patients? If you have a scientific or technical background and would like to spend your time thinking about those questions, we would love to receive your application. One of the other two open roles on our team is a Chief of Staff reporting to me. If you've made it this far into a long tweet, that bodes well for your attention to detail, so perhaps you should apply (put "ATN" in the "Anything else?" field on the form). I am looking for someone with excellent judgement and organisational skills who 1) moves fast, 2) is comfortable with ambiguity, 3) takes ownership without waiting to be asked, and 4) enjoys thinking about how teams can operate at their best in the presence of growth + time constraints. I'm open to a range of backgrounds, though some science in your past helps. Vibecoding addiction is a positive too. Finally, we are hiring a Head of AI for Alzheimer's. Our goal is straightforward and extremely hard: help scientists invent new tools to finally prevent and treat Alzheimer’s. We have made some initial investments (t.co/wOkiE78KUo), but much of what we do next remains deliberately undefined. We are seeking a flexible and highly autonomous leader to help us figure out the path. This role is similar to what Nan Ransohoff describes as a General Manager: t.co/9pavjfFt1z. If the role sounds exciting but you are not sure you fit the profile, I recommend reading that essay to see how much you resonate with applying something like it to AI for Alzheimer’s.

I've made it to organoids, danger up ahead. (Great listen so far, recommend.)

corememory.com/p/ai-will-cure…

We are building a team to help define the future of the OpenAI Foundation. This is our first major hiring round, and what we are able to accomplish as an institution will be shaped by who joins now. openaifoundation.org/careers Thread on roles and areas:

In AI Resilience, we are funding efforts to reduce risks that could prevent society from realising AI’s benefits. That includes securing cyber infrastructure, making sure the AI models themselves are safe, preventing biological misuse, ensuring AI’s impact on young people is positive, and more. Solving these problems requires an ecosystem of talented people and capable organisations. We have started to fund some of those organisations over the last five months, and are hiring so that we can do more, quickly:

This first grant from our Civil Society division aims to double hepatitis C cure rates over 2 years, starting in Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, and Massachusetts. The theory behind these grants -- which will range public health and other areas -- is that organisations with local context are best placed to reach people for whom the current system isn't working, and AI can help those organisations do their best work. In many areas/contexts, the tools are ready. So, financial and technical support is powerful in combination:

@mhdempsey great footnoting style

@TheAnnaGat 🙏

In the back half of this episode Saloni and I talk through which drugs we're most hopeful could be repurposed against new diseases, as well as how prizes, patents, grants can be used to get there. Happy anniversary, @salonium! x.com/salonium/statu…

It was fun to be one of the judges for this essay competition, mostly as an excuse to read essays about science, and secondly to reflect on how AI is affecting scientific writing. The essays that read like they were 100% LLM-generated usually didn't contain the best ideas, according to my human judgement. But, some of the best essays were LLM-assisted at the level of sentences (according to Pangram's judgement). Perhaps most surprising for me was that some *good* essays contained LLM sentences AND typos!

Congratulations to the winners:

The owl has landed 🦉 x.com/owl_posting/st…

Keep posting, folks

Big and happy news. Congratulations to @hebebbington and the rest of Frontier. Interesting to read about the progress over the last 4 years from technologists working on different carbon removal paths. Long way to go, but the fog is clearing: x.com/hebebbington/s…

We've opened applications for a new $50M commitment to: * Community Support Services (e.g. accessing legal aid & public benefits) * Community Arts & Cultural Organizations * Community Journalism & Media (e.g. local media, nonprofit newsrooms) Please share with groups who may be eligible and interested:

Here's where we are starting, on AI resilience: * Bio-resilience * Cyber-resilience * AI model safety * AI's impact on young people We are grateful for what we've learned so far from practitioners in each of these fields. Building resilience will take a broad community of people x.com/FoundationOAI/…

openaifoundation.org/news/resilienc…

Saloni and I started Hard Drugs because we like inventors and scientific discoveries. It’s a treat to record our first interview with an inventor of a difficult drug. This episode goes deep on a story that mostly has not been told before. The R21 malaria vaccine will help x.com/salonium/statu…

open.spotify.com/episode/79Foyj…

Welcome to the OpenAI Foundation, Yo! x.com/yonashav/statu…

it's great to have yo

An excellent day at the OpenAI Foundation. Welcome, Bianca! x.com/bianca__martin…