The Ezra Klein Show — "What Does It Mean to Give Well?"

Date: December 16, 2025
Host: Ezra Klein
Guest: Elie Hassenfeld, CEO and Co-founder of GiveWell

Episode Overview

Ezra Klein sits down with Elie Hassenfeld to discuss what it truly means to "give well" as a donor — moving from intuition-based and emotionally-driven giving to rigorous, impact-focused philanthropy. They dive into the origins of GiveWell, the challenges of measuring charitable impact, the complicated tradeoffs donors face, and how large-scale events (like major US foreign aid cuts) alter the landscape of global giving. Along the way, they grapple with the emotional, ethical, and practical dimensions of charity, transparency, and the hard decisions that define effective altruism today.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Journey and Intellectual Roots

Timestamps: 03:09–07:57

• Elie’s Background:

  • Studied religion (specifically the Talmud) in college, which taught him "how challenging it is to know anything" and fostered persistent curiosity and intellectual humility.
  • Transitioned into finance via Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund known for its culture of "radical transparency" and argument-driven management.
    • “It was a place where it was more about getting things right and then worry about people's feelings later…just to be taken seriously early in your career was so valuable.” — Elie Hassenfeld (07:02)

• Lessons for Philanthropy:

  • The scrutiny, skepticism, and rigor of investment analysis at Bridgewater influenced GiveWell’s later approach: if your bets are wrong, there are meaningful consequences.

2. Genesis of GiveWell: Bringing Rigor to Giving

Timestamps: 10:00–14:36

• Recognizing an Information Gap:

  • Elie and cofounder Holden Karnofsky started by trying to give away a few thousand dollars, quickly discovering that getting honest, quality data about charity efficacy was almost impossible.
    • “They just didn't have answers. What they actually said was, we don't get questions like these from our million dollar donors.” — Elie Hassenfeld (12:03)

• Treating Charity as an Empirical Bet:

  • Giving should be subject to the same level of scrutiny as any consequential investment—can it fail, and how do we know?
  • “Charitable giving isn't just a nice thing that a donor can do. It's a very practical way to make the world a better place that you can give and save lives. And this has been…clear and demonstrable.”—Elie Hassenfeld (17:33)

3. The Donor's Focus: Self or Outcome?

Timestamps: 18:18–20:07

• Tension Between Charity as Virtue and as Impact:
  • Ezra draws on the Jewish concept of tzedakah — asking whether charity’s true purpose is self-cultivation or real-world impact.
  • Elie makes the case for focusing on outcomes: “When you see [giving] from that perspective, it's critical to think about the effects that the programs have, where you can get as much impact as possible and also how to avoid failure.” (19:19)

4. Shifting from Local to Global Giving

Timestamps: 24:38–29:33

• Why Dollars Go Farther Overseas:

  • Elie describes how early analyses showed that donations could have radically greater effects in developing countries.
    • Anecdote from traveling to Malawi: “The people who we see every day aren’t really closer to us…with 36 hours of flying I can sit as close to them as I’m sitting to you and ask them about their lives…” (26:07)

• On Empathy’s Limits:

  • “It is profoundly difficult as a human being to live as if other people’s lives are as real and as valuable as your own...I don’t think human beings are wired for that, but it does strike me as a genuine, emotional and spiritual challenge.” — Ezra Klein (27:06)

  • Elie’s counterpoint: “If we felt like other people's lives were as important as our own, we wouldn’t be talking about giving 10%. We’d be giving far more...” (27:54)

  • He advocates a realistic, sustainable target (e.g., 10% giving, not everything), recognizing the necessity of balancing ambition with human constraints.

5. How GiveWell Evaluates and Recommends Charities

Timestamps: 31:09–34:46

• Top Charities and the “Blue Chip” Analogy:

  • In 2025, GiveWell directs funds to 70 organizations—but its top recommendations (blue chips) have the strongest evidence:
    • Against Malaria Foundation (malaria nets)
    • Malaria Consortium (seasonal anti-malarial medications)
    • Helen Keller International (vitamin A supplements)
    • New Incentives (cash incentives for child immunization)

• How to Give via GiveWell:

  1. Donate directly to top charities
  2. Donate to the “All Grants Fund” (more flexibility, including newer or riskier bets)
  3. Give unrestricted (highest trust; includes GiveWell’s ops)

6. Limits of What Can Be Measured

Timestamps: 34:46–41:01

• Can We Measure Everything That Matters?

  • Ezra raises critiques about measurability—some interventions (e.g., political advocacy, public health infrastructure) are vitally important but hard to quantify.
    • Elie: "We can be wrong, and we know we can be wrong." (35:21)
    • Sheds light on failed interventions like the “No Lean Season” migration incentives program — evidence seemed strong, but didn’t scale in practice.

• The Value of Feedback Loops:

  • For distant giving in particular, measurement (not just RCTs, but also programmatic and administrative data) is necessary for honesty about efficacy.

7. Risk, Expected Value, and Hard-to-Measure Bets

Timestamps: 41:01–45:12

• High Impact but High Uncertainty:
  • Deworming as example: Strong RCTs but many uncertainties.
    • “It's so cheap to treat a child for parasitic infections…may have an absolutely massive impact.” — Elie Hassenfeld (42:41)
  • Ezra pushes for examples outside clear causal mechanisms—like funding Our World in Data, government technical assistance, and the challenge of quantifying such indirect impacts.

8. The Mechanics and Philosophy of Cost-Effectiveness

Timestamps: 45:12–48:26

• Comparing Apples and Oranges:

  • How does GiveWell compare lives saved to improved income or wellbeing?
    • “What we aim to do…is say if you could use $60,000 and avert the deaths of 10 children, that's a much better decision than...one.” — Elie Hassenfeld (46:16)
  • Uses academic research (“value of a statistical life”), donor surveys, and studies in Africa to anchor subjective trade-offs.

• Role within a Broader Ecosystem:

  • GiveWell does not claim universal truth or cover all moral intuitions—offers its “economist’s approach” among possible ways to give.

9. On GiveDirectly, Tradeoffs, and Opportunity Cost

Timestamps: 48:26–49:54

• Why GiveDirectly Was Demoted
  • Not because unconditional cash transfers aren’t impactful, but because other programs GiveWell supports appear three times as effective per dollar at current margin.
    • “With the limited resources we have, we'd like to see them go as far as they can.” — Elie Hassenfeld (49:03)

10. Radical Transparency and Iterative Learning

Timestamps: 49:54–51:59

• GiveWell’s Openness about Mistakes
  • GiveWell posts all major decisions and errors online:
    • “Transparency is so important because charitable giving isn’t like solving a math problem...There are huge amounts of judgment and values.” — Elie Hassenfeld (50:23)
  • Recent major change: Moving beyond reliance on a single mortality data source, after realizing impact of differing estimates on recommendations.

11. Navigating the Impact of US Foreign Aid Cuts

Timestamps: 53:34–63:36

• Scope and Impact of Cuts:

  • US global health aid halved (~$6B shortfall), accounting for a large portion of resources worldwide.
    • Immediate effects: HIV clinics shuttered, loss of staff, testing gaps ("testing stopped in early 2025" — Elie Hassenfeld at 55:49).

• Response in Philanthropy:

  • Foundations tried to fill gaps but couldn't fully compensate—opportunity for individual donors to “step up.”
  • Changing funding landscapes shift GiveWell’s own recommendations, e.g., now considering HIV and other sectors previously fully funded by government.

• Loss of Data Infrastructure:

  • “One of the most important tools that we and others rely on is something called the Demographic and Health Surveys or DHS…one of the data sets that has gone away…” — Elie Hassenfeld (59:20)

12. Emotion, Motivation, and Sustainable Altruism

Timestamps: 64:00–66:49

• The Role of Emotion in Effective Giving:
  • While data and analytics are crucial, the urge to “do this work comes from the emotional place.”
    • “For me, sometimes that’s people that I meet when I’ve traveled to Africa…It’s so wild that I can just go to the store and pick up this amoxicillin like it’s nothing.” — Elie Hassenfeld (65:35)
  • There is a community of donors for whom cost-effectiveness resonates emotionally, but the field should not ignore the importance of stories and visceral connections.

13. Book Recommendations

Timestamps: 66:49–67:55

1. Factfulness — Hans Rosling (“To prioritize correctly, we need to understand the world accurately.”)
2. Poor Economics — Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee (“An overview of foundational work in development economics, RCTs.”)
3. Behind the Beautiful Forevers — Katherine Boo (“A vivid portrait of poverty in Mumbai; ‘definitely in my top five pieces of nonfiction ever.’” — Ezra Klein)

Selected Notable Quotes & Moments

• “They didn't have answers...we don't get questions like these from our million dollar donors. And like this light bulb went off that, you know, almost no one was asking these questions.” — Elie Hassenfeld (12:03)
• “If we felt like other people's lives were as important as our own, we wouldn't be talking about giving 10%. We'd be giving far more...” — Elie Hassenfeld (27:54)
• “Transparency is so important because charitable giving isn’t like solving a math problem where you can just say, you know, I know the right answer. I've proven it. Therefore, you should listen to me...There are huge amounts of judgment and values that go into the decisions that we're making.” — Elie Hassenfeld (50:23)
• “For me, and I think for everyone that I work with, it's just this knowledge that we're in such a fortunate position and there are so many people who aren't in that position. And yeah, sometimes we have to key on individuals to focus our work, but ultimately what we want to do is just bring those benefits to as many people as we can.” — Elie Hassenfeld (66:08)

Segment Timestamps (Approximate)

• 01:01 — Holiday giving intro; why Ezra gives via GiveWell
• 03:08 — Elie Hassenfeld on studying religion and Bridgewater
• 10:00 — Origins of GiveWell
• 12:03 — Early, disconcerting research into transparency and charities
• 18:18 — The tension between donor focus and impacted communities
• 24:38 — On local vs global giving, and the reality of distant lives
• 31:09 — GiveWell’s top charities and giving mechanics
• 34:46 — The limits of measurement; failed interventions
• 41:01 — Risk, high-variance bets, and hard-to-quantify giving
• 45:12 — The philosophy and challenge of cost-effectiveness
• 48:26 — The GiveDirectly decision and opportunity costs
• 49:54 — GiveWell’s radical transparency & learning from mistakes
• 53:34 — Impact of US foreign aid cuts and GiveWell’s response
• 59:20 — The data crisis in global health analysis
• 64:00 — Balancing emotion and effectiveness
• 66:49 — Book recommendations

Takeaways

• Giving Well Means Accepting Complexity: Effective giving isn’t about “feeling good”; it’s a commitment to learning, updating, and sometimes making tough, impersonal tradeoffs.
• Transparency Is Essential But Uncomfortable: Mistakes are inevitable; what matters is recognizing and communicating them so the field can learn.
• Your Dollar’s Impact Can Be Quantifiable — Sometimes: Some interventions are rigorously measurable (e.g., mosquito nets) while others (like advocacy or data infrastructure) are vital but much fuzzier.
• Cost-effectiveness Multiplies Our Compassion: The same compassion that drives us to give can go exponentially farther if we let evidence, and not just emotion, guide us.
• Personal Connection Still Matters: Even the most analytical donors and organizations are motivated by emotion and stories; the trick is to let that drive us to the most good, not just the easiest good.

This summary reflects the content and tone of the conversation, with notable quotes and clear attributions to both host and guest. Timestamps are included to guide further listening.