Introducing Our New Managing Director of Public Policy, Caleb Watney

About Caleb

Before joining Coefficient Giving, Caleb was the co-founder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress (IFP), a nonpartisan think tank dedicated to accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress. Caleb managed IFP’s work on metascience, high-skilled immigration, and AI. We were an early supporter of IFP and think they have an incredible track record of counterfactual policy impact across the areas in which they work. We’ve long been impressed with Caleb’s policy entrepreneurship, knowledge of the policy landscape, and eye for talent and impactful projects.

Prior to co-founding IFP in 2022, Caleb was director of innovation policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, a technology policy fellow at the R Street Institute, and a graduate research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he also received an M.A. in economics. He has written on topics in science and technology policy for The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Politico.

Here is what Caleb says on joining Coefficient Giving:

Coefficient Giving took an early bet on IFP as we were just getting off the ground, and now I’m excited to help scale what we learned across the broader policy ecosystem. AI may be the most consequential technology transition in modern history, and meeting the moment will require wise, capable institutions — many of which don’t exist yet. Philanthropy has a critical role to play in cultivating them: making sure there are well-vetted ideas on the shelf and thoughtful people in the room to debate the tradeoffs. That work takes a rare balance of ambition and pluralism, and I can’t think of a better place to do it than Coefficient Giving, which has been making early bets on neglected problems for over a decade.

And I’m equally excited to reunite with my former IFP colleague Matt Clancy on the Abundance & Growth Fund; he’s assembled a terrific team, and I’m eager to help them go even further, faster. From an institutional perspective, good outcomes are correlated: almost every policy goal you might care about, from AI to housing to energy to science, runs through wiser, more capable institutions.

Matt Clancy, program director of the Abundance and Growth Fund, adds:

I can’t think of a better person to lead Coefficient Giving’s U.S. policy work than Caleb. There are very few people with such extensive national policymaking expertise bridging frontier AI and the work we do at the Abundance & Growth Fund. It’s great to be working together again.

Looking ahead

Caleb has already hit the ground running on building a team of grantmakers, operators, and policy entrepreneurs to work on U.S. AI policy. He’s actively hiring for his team – learn more about open positions here.

Luke Muehlhauser previously ran the U.S. AI policy portfolio as part of his “AI Governance & Policy” team. He helped recruit Caleb to take U.S. AI policy off his plate, and Luke has renamed his team “AI Governance & International Policy” to make the distinction with Caleb’s team clear. Luke and his team may still do some U.S. AI policy grantmaking, but our hope is for Caleb to own all of it over time.

We’re so excited to see what Caleb achieves at Coefficient Giving!