Farewell Google, Hello Charity Entrepreneurship

I’m leaving Google – yesterday was my official last day after 15½ years, though I’ve had the last month off to reorient, travel, entertain the kids, write blog posts, etc.  On announcing my resignation, I received a mixture of surprise, baffled looks and praise when I told colleagues that I was going to “join a startup incubator program, but not for tech startups – it’s for charity startups, ones that strive for highly cost-effective impact”. Eyebrows raised further when I didn’t have a straightforward answer to “So what’s your charity going to do?”.

In this series of posts, I’ll provide a view into my new path with Charity Entrepreneurship, my thinking underlying it, and a few things that I learn along the way. I write with an anticipated audience of folks that I’ve worked with at or in partnership with Google, others in Big Tech, and anyone else who is curious and may be interested in a similar change themselves.

The last 15 years in a sentence: Building Google’s technology partnerships, from pre-smartphone apps (Google Maps befores phones had GPS, or touchscreens), through web search & ads syndication, a dabble in Google Analytics, then early Android (v1.6 Donut was the latest hotness) on phones (good times with Sony Ericsson), onto Automotive from ~2013, first with Android Auto, then Android Automotive OS, then Google Automotive Services (Polestar 2 being a pretty awesome launch device!).

Looking ahead: Charity Entrepreneurship (CE) is a meta-charity (realizing positive impact indirectly through others) that fosters creation of new charities with a strong focus on highly cost-effective measurable impact. CE conduct extensive research into high-potential niches for new charities to maximally save/improve lives for a budget.  They target problems that are significant in scale, reasonably tractable, yet neglected by existing governments, charities and other organizations. With a shortlist of strong opportunities, Charity Entrepreneurship identifies individuals who, with significant training and support, can co-found organisations to put the ideas into action. I’m one of those aspiring co-founders, starting the CE Incubation Program next month in a cohort focused on Global Health & Development.

One might reasonably question what qualifies me to start a new charity. Clearly there are going to be significant gaps in my expertise in the domain of Global Health and Development. To turn it around however, how many people do have cutting-edge expertise in, say oral rehydration solution distribution networks or advocacy for funding development of new antimicrobials, _and_ the broader skills, drive & circumstances to build an organisation to address these neglected needs? CE’s approach is to start with generalists and support them with lessons learned from previous charitable endeavours, and networks of domain experts, mentors, funders, etc. Their excellent track record really emphasizes the strength of the model and the awesomeness of the opportunity!

So the next months are pretty clearly mapped out – the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program – but beyond that, much is uncertain. “Plan A” is to establish a co-founder match with one of the 9 other program participants and mutually with one of 6 charity ideas; build-out a detailed plan and proposal for funding; then within the month post-program successfully pitch-for and receive seed funding to cover the first year. Of course it may not work out quite that way: I’d be lying if I claimed to have a well-formed Plan B at this stage, but I hope, if applicable, to discover aligned opportunities during/after the program that don’t pivot too far from the high impact Plan A path.

More why I’m doing this, what the Incubation Program entails, and other reflections in subsequent notes.