Nicholas Beckstead (born 1985) is an American philosopher and the Chief Executive Officer of the FTX Foundation.

Background

Beckstead majored in mathematics and philosophy at the University of Minnesota and obtained a PhD in philosophy from Rutgers University. As a graduate student, he co-founded the first U.S. chapter of Giving What We Can, pledging to donate half of his post-tax income until his retirement to the most cost-effective organizations fighting global poverty in the developed world (Eng 2010; Muehlhauser 2011).

After completing his studies, Beckstead became a Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute and then a Program Officer for Open Philanthropy, where he oversaw much of that organization's research and grantmaking related to global catastrophic risk reduction.

Research

Beckstead's research focuses on topics related to the long-term future and its normative implications, including existential risk (Beckstead & Ord 2014; Beckstead 2015a), population ethics (Beckstead 2019), space colonization (Beckstead 2014), and differential progress (Beckstead 2015b). His doctoral dissertation (Beckstead 2013), which combines some of these interests, is often credited as an important early contribution to longtermism.