CARI TUNA

Cari Tuna graduated from Yale in 2008 with a degree in Ethics, Politics and Economics. She went straight into journalism at the Wall Street Journal, where she covered the financial crisis and its aftermath.

She left in 2011 — three years in — after Dustin Moskovitz, who she met through mutual friends, became deeply engaged with the effective altruism movement and they decided to go all-in on philanthropy together. She joined GiveWell's advisory board early on and helped shape what would become Open Philanthropy, which formally launched as a separate organization in 2017 after spinning out from GiveWell.

Open Philanthropy has since become one of the largest and most influential philanthropic organizations in the world, disbursing over $500 million per year by the early 2020s. She and Moskovitz signed the Giving Pledge in 2013, committing to give the majority of their wealth away.

Their combined giving through Open Philanthropy covers global health and wellbeing in lower-income countries, AI safety research, biosecurity, criminal justice reform, and farm animal welfare — all chosen based on evidence of impact rather than legacy or status.

Open Philanthropy is her primary vehicle — a foundation she co-built with Moskovitz and Holden Karnofsky that has become the dominant funder in several research areas including AI safety. Recipients include the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, GiveDirectly, the Against Malaria Foundation, and dozens of other evidence-driven nonprofits.

She has also been involved in Open AI-adjacent philanthropic efforts and supports biosecurity research organizations. Moskovitz's personal wealth comes from his early Facebook stake and from Asana, the project management software company he co-founded in 2008.

Evidence-first grantmaking. Open Philanthropy evaluates causes on three axes: scale (how many lives or how much welfare is affected), neglectedness (how much other funding exists), and tractability (whether money can actually move the needle).

This framework leads them to fund things most foundations ignore — like pandemic preparedness, AI alignment research, and direct cash transfers in sub-Saharan Africa. They run experiments, track outcomes, and update their giving priorities based on what they learn.

Building Open Philanthropy into a credible, evidence-based grantmaking institution that has influenced how major foundations think about impact. Open Philanthropy became the primary funder of the AI safety research ecosystem before it was fashionable — they were backing organizations like the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and Anthropic's early work years before the current AI boom made the field mainstream.

Open Philanthropy's early exposure to FTX and the wider effective altruism-crypto nexus created reputational challenges in 2022 when Sam Bankman-Fried's exchange collapsed. While Open Philanthropy had no direct financial relationship with FTX, the EA movement's links to Bankman-Fried raised questions about whether cause-neutrality can lead you to overlook ethical red flags in funders and allies.

Earn to give, then give effectively. The philosophy is rooted in effective altruism — the idea that doing good is not enough if you are doing it inefficiently.

A dollar spent on a cause with weak evidence is a dollar that could have saved a life through a proven intervention. This sounds obvious.

It is not how most philanthropies operate.

Married to Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook's first CFO and co-founder, now CEO of Asana. The couple met through mutual friends and share a deep commitment to evidence-based philanthropy.

They have children. Both are known for a deliberately modest lifestyle relative to their wealth.

Yale University, BA in Ethics, Politics and Economics, Class of 2008. She worked as a staff reporter at the Wall Street Journal before transitioning to philanthropy full-time.

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