Ozzie Gooen and the Art of Measuring Impact

Reimagining How We Measure Doing Good

Effective altruism has always been about using evidence and reason to do the most good possible. But for a long time, the movement struggled with a practical problem: how do you actually measure the impact of abstract, long-term, or indirect work? This is where Ozzie Gooen’s work becomes so important. Rather than just accepting vague notions of ‘making a difference,’ Gooen has spent years developing tools and frameworks to turn fuzzy ideas about impact into something more concrete, testable, and actionable.

His approach doesn’t rely on perfect data or unrealistic precision. Instead, it’s about using structured uncertainty, probabilistic thinking, and simple models to guide decisions when perfect information isn’t available. This kind of thinking is especially valuable in areas like AI safety, global priorities, and community building, where outcomes are uncertain and timelines are long.

From Career Advice to Quantified Uncertainty

One of the earliest ways Gooen engaged with effective altruism was through 80,000 Hours, the organization that helps people choose careers that maximize their positive impact. While many contributors focus on writing guides or coaching individuals, Gooen’s contribution was more technical: he helped think through how to estimate the value of different kinds of work, especially work that doesn’t produce immediate, visible outcomes.

For example, what’s the value of helping someone change their career path? Or of building a community that later produces important research or organizations? These aren’t easy questions, but Gooen’s work suggests that we can still make reasonable estimates by breaking them down into components: how many people are affected, how much their actions change, and how those changes propagate over time.

This kind of thinking later evolved into his work on quantified uncertainty and probabilistic forecasting. Instead of saying ‘we don’t know,’ the goal becomes ‘here’s what we know, here’s what we’re uncertain about, and here’s how that uncertainty affects our decisions.’

Building Tools for Better Decision-Making

One of Gooen’s most distinctive contributions is his focus on creating tools that help people think more clearly about impact. This includes:

• Simple models for estimating the value of community-building activities
• Frameworks for thinking about indirect effects, like how one person’s career change might inspire others
• Experiments in using structured prediction and forecasting to improve decision-making in EA-adjacent spaces

These tools aren’t meant to replace judgment or replace deep research. Instead, they’re designed to complement them. A model that says ‘this activity might be worth 10–100x more than a direct donation, but with high uncertainty’ can help a donor or organizer decide whether to invest time in that area, or whether to gather more information first.

For instance, in community-building work, it’s common to hear things like ‘this event helped a lot of people get more involved.’ Gooen’s approach would push further: How many people? How much more involved? What kinds of actions did they take afterward? And how does that compare to other uses of time and money?

Community Building as a Leverage Point

Another major theme in Gooen’s work is the idea that community building can be a high-leverage way to create impact. This isn’t just about hosting events or writing blog posts; it’s about creating environments where people can connect, collaborate, and go on to do important work.

He’s been involved in projects that explicitly try to measure the downstream effects of community activities. For example:

• Estimating how many people become more engaged in effective altruism after attending certain events
• Modeling how increased engagement leads to more donations or more people working on high-impact career paths
• Thinking about how to allocate resources between direct work (like research or operations) and community-building work

One insight from this work is that community building often has long time horizons. The value of an event might not be visible for years, when attendees go on to found organizations, publish research, or influence policy. This makes it hard to evaluate in the short term, but also potentially very high-leverage if done well.

Quantifying the Unquantifiable

One of the biggest challenges in effective altruism is that many of the most important problems—like AI safety, long-term future risks, or institutional reform—are extremely hard to measure. Traditional metrics like lives saved or dollars donated don’t capture the full picture.

Gooen’s work in quantified uncertainty tries to address this by:

• Using ranges and distributions instead of single-point estimates
• Explicitly modeling uncertainty and sensitivity to assumptions
• Comparing different types of impact on a common scale, even if that scale is imperfect

For example, instead of saying ‘this AI safety project is worth X lives saved,’ a more nuanced model might say:

• There’s a 10–30% chance this project reduces existential risk by 0.01–0.1%
• That reduction in risk is worth roughly Y QALYs (quality-adjusted life years) over the long term
• Given the cost, this comes out to roughly Z QALYs per dollar, with wide uncertainty

This kind of analysis doesn’t give a definitive answer, but it does make the trade-offs clearer and helps avoid treating all uncertain work as equally valuable (or equally worthless).

From Theory to Practice: Real-World Applications

Gooen’s ideas aren’t just theoretical. They’ve been applied in several real-world contexts:

• Helping organizations estimate the value of their community-building efforts
• Designing experiments to test which types of outreach or content are most effective
• Contributing to challenges that ask people to quantify the impact of top career paths in effective altruism

One notable example is his involvement in a challenge to quantify the impact of 80,000 Hours’ recommended career paths. In that context, he helped think through how to model things like:

• How many people follow those career paths
• How much more impact they have compared to counterfactual alternatives
• How that impact scales over time and across different domains (e.g., global health vs. AI safety)

These models are necessarily imperfect, but they provide a starting point for discussion and improvement. They also help organizations prioritize between different types of work and allocate resources more effectively.

Shaping the Culture of Effective Altruism

Beyond specific tools and models, Gooen has also influenced the culture of effective altruism in subtle but important ways. He’s helped normalize the idea that:

• It’s okay to be uncertain, as long as you’re explicit about it
• Simple models can be useful even if they’re not perfect
• Community building and indirect work can be high-impact, but they should still be evaluated seriously

This cultural shift matters because it makes the movement more robust. Instead of swinging between overconfidence in simple metrics and paralysis in the face of uncertainty, there’s a growing middle ground: structured, transparent, and iterative thinking about impact.

It also encourages more people to engage with the technical side of effective altruism. You don’t need to be a professional economist or statistician to use basic models or think in probabilities. Gooen’s work shows that even rough estimates, when done thoughtfully, can be more useful than no estimates at all.

Lessons for Others in the Movement

For people interested in effective altruism, Gooen’s work offers several practical lessons:

• Embrace uncertainty, but don’t ignore it. It’s fine to say ‘I don’t know,’ but it’s better to say ‘I don’t know, but here’s my best guess and why.’
• Use simple models as thinking tools. You don’t need a PhD to build a basic model of how your work creates impact. Even a back-of-the-envelope calculation can clarify your assumptions.
• Think about indirect and long-term effects. Many of the highest-impact actions are those that enable others to do important work later, like mentoring, community building, or creating useful tools.
• Focus on tractability and leverage. Not all problems are equally solvable, and not all interventions are equally scalable. Gooen’s work encourages thinking about where small inputs can lead to large outputs.

Challenges and Open Questions

Of course, there are still many open questions in this space:

• How can we make quantification more accessible to non-technical people?
• How do we avoid over-relying on models that are too simplistic or misleading?
• How do we balance the need for rigor with the need for speed and action?
• How can we better measure the long-term effects of community building and movement growth?

Gooen’s work doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but it does provide a framework for asking better questions and making more informed decisions. That, in itself, is a significant contribution to the effective altruism movement.

FAQs

Who is Ozzie Gooen?

Ozzie Gooen is a researcher and entrepreneur known for his work in effective altruism, quantified uncertainty, and impact modeling. He has contributed to organizations like 80,000 Hours and the Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute, focusing on how to measure and improve the impact of community building, career choices, and long-term projects.

What is quantified uncertainty?

Quantified uncertainty is an approach to decision-making that uses explicit models, ranges, and probabilities to represent what we know and don’t know. Instead of ignoring uncertainty or treating it as a reason to do nothing, it treats uncertainty as a key input into decisions.

How does Gooen’s work relate to 80,000 Hours?

Gooen has collaborated with 80,000 Hours on impact modeling and community-building evaluation. He’s helped think through how to estimate the value of career changes, community events, and other indirect effects that are central to 80,000 Hours’ mission of helping people have more impact with their careers.

Why is community building important in effective altruism?

Community building is important because it creates environments where people can connect, collaborate, and go on to do high-impact work. Many organizations, research projects, and career changes in effective altruism trace back to community interactions, making it a potentially high-leverage area for creating long-term impact.

Can anyone use these quantification methods?

Yes. While some of the more advanced models require technical skills, the core ideas—like using ranges, thinking in probabilities, and breaking down complex problems—are accessible to anyone. Many effective altruists use simple versions of these methods in their personal and organizational decision-making.

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Medha Deb

Medha Deb is an editor with a master's degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of Hyderabad. She believes that her qualification has helped her develop a deep understanding of language and its application in various contexts. Medha specializes in the areas of beauty, health, sports, and wellness and is committed to ensuring that the content on the website is…