Cari Tuna
Cari Tuna is a philanthropist whose work directs money toward AI safety. She studied political science at Yale, reported for The Wall Street Journal, and moved to full-time philanthropy in 2010. With Dustin Moskovitz, she founded Good Ventures and joined GiveWell’s board; the GiveWell Labs partnership later became Open Philanthropy, which separated in 2017. She also speaks about strategic giving and donor collaboration, including at Stanford’s 2025 Philanthropy Innovation Summit. As of October 2026, she chairs Coefficient Giving, whose AI safety work includes evaluations of dangerous capabilities such as cyberoffense and biological research.
Timeline
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By 2008
From Yale into reporting
She studied political science at Yale and worked on the college paper before starting business journalism in 2008.
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2010
Leaving the newsroom
In 2010, she left her Wall Street Journal reporter job to develop a giving strategy full-time with Dustin Moskovitz.
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2011
A foundation with a research habit
She co-founded Good Ventures with Dustin Moskovitz and led its philanthropic learning; as its president, she joined GiveWell’s board in April 2011.
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2015
Funding AI safety early
She recalled that Open Philanthropy began funding AI safety in 2015, when the field was small and many people saw its risks as speculative.
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June 2017
Separating from GiveWell
GiveWell Labs later operated as Open Philanthropy, which became independent from GiveWell in June 2017; Tuna stayed on GiveWell’s board and held a governance role at the new LLC.
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March 2025
Bringing donors into the room
At Stanford’s 2025 Philanthropy Innovation Summit, she spoke about strategic cause selection, limits of impact measures, and bringing donors together to tackle lead poisoning.
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2026
Testing AI systems for risk
She described Coefficient Giving’s AI safety work as including evaluations of dangerous capabilities such as cyberoffense and biological research.
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As of October 2026
Leading a broader funder
She chairs Coefficient Giving, the philanthropic funder and advisor she co-founded with Dustin Moskovitz.
Sources and credits
Photo: Joi Ito, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY 2.0. Source: commons.wikimedia.org. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.
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