Chief of Staff

Chief of Staff

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AI is reshaping our world. Without rapid action, the result will be a degradation of democracy, human agency, and liberty; immense power concentration; and chaotic destabilization. Unfortunately, rapid action requires politicians and corporations to make decisions which are structurally disincentivized (and for them to give up the possibility of immense power). We must have better ways of making critical decisions that affect society at large, before it is too late.

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Our mission is to ensure that trustworthy democratic processes for making such decisions in the public interest are available and empowered when needed. In particular, we focus on representative deliberations (such as citizen assemblies), which are better incentivized to serve the public interest by design; can act as a powerful complement to our existing democratic systems; and may be designed to improve as AI advances continue — thus enabling us to maintain democracy in a world increasingly transformed by AI.

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For more on the motivation for our work, see this essay.

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You will report to the CEO and help translate our vision into action.

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We have a roughly eight person team, centered in San Francisco (with some remote team members working from Spain to Australia).

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What you will do

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CEO partnership (force multiplier for the CEO)

• Support the CEO’s prioritization, agenda, task management, and overall attention day-to-day to ensure focus on the highest value work (both directly and via improved systems).  
• Serve as a trusted thought partner to the CEO.  
• Improve decision quality by structuring complex tradeoffs clearly and quickly.  
• Distill the CEO's thinking into clear intent, verify understanding and translate to and from the team.  
• Keep initiatives moving forward when the CEO is unavailable.

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Organizational execution (force multiplier for the org)

• Co-design and run the operating cadence for the org (planning, prioritization, key decision-making, and review processes)  
• Ensure cross-functional initiatives deliver on time and with high quality.  
• Develop scalable systems that reduce friction and increase velocity (including AI workflows where helpful).  
• Raise the overall bar for rigor, focus, and execution across the team.  
• Clarify priorities, resolve blockers, and advocate for solutions that best serve the organization.  
• Track commitments and follow through relentlessly so nothing falls through the cracks.  
• Directly manage 1–3 staff across the organization on an interim or permanent basis as the org's needs evolve.

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Strategic projects

• Lead high-priority projects delegated by the CEO — from scoping to execution to close.  
• Represent the CEO to advance internal cross-functional projects and external collaborations.  
• Draft and review high-stakes communications on behalf of the CEO.

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Core competencies

• 0-to-1 operational mastery: You know how to design and run complex systems. You build processes that enable speed rather than slow it down. You are deeply organized, structured in your thinking, relentless about follow-through, and quick to iterate when something breaks or is outgrown. You make sure the trains run on time without becoming bureaucratic.
• Judgment & decision quality: You are a strong independent decision-maker. You are trusted with high-stakes, ambiguous problems. You absorb an executive’s thinking quickly, internalize how they weigh tradeoffs, represent their judgment in rooms they are not in, and improve that judgment through structured analysis.
• High agency & servant leader mindset: You are both biased towards action and prioritize enabling others. Your goal is not to accumulate power — it is to increase the effectiveness of the CEO and the whole system. People see you as extraordinarily patient — and you are also able to gently but effectively push for decisions and actions when needed to drive execution.
• People & management: You have experience managing people with diverse working styles. You have high EQ, set clear expectations, give specific and constructive feedback, and develop the people around you. You can drive alignment and accountability across multi-disciplinary teams, even without direct authority.
• Thought partnership & influence: You contribute substantively to strategic thinking, offering proposals, stress-testing decisions, surfacing critical course corrections, and pushing back constructively, even where others make the final call.
• Communication & stakeholder instincts: You write and speak with clarity and calibration. You can adapt your message and communication style to your audience while maintaining message consistency.
• AI & tech fluency: You have strong AI competence and use AI tools in your own workflows. You track AI capability improvements and limitations and can reason clearly about how emerging AI systems impact programs, governance, and risk; you bring that judgment into updating how the org operates. You are comfortable working closely with technical and research teams.

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Is this role right for you?

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This role is not right for everyone: You will inherit ambiguity and be expected to create clarity. This is a force multiplier role, where you will be aiming to 2-5x the velocity and impact of a CEO who is splitting attention across many competing priorities. You will need to flex between autonomous execution and high-touch collaboration depending on the context. If you are looking for a well-scoped role with predictable rhythms, or a large support structure, this is not the right fit.

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Backgrounds we find promising include:

• Chiefs of Staffs in high-impact non-profits  
• Chiefs of Staffs, founders, and senior operators who have built from 0 to 1 in high-growth tech or mission-driven startups  
• Leaders who have worked at the intersection of policy and technology who enjoy acting as a force multiplier  
• Generalist operators with deep exec-partnership experience from consulting, research management, or similar tracks  

That said, if you are motivated by our mission, and possess most of the qualifications, but your background looks a little different than what we've described above, we still encourage you to apply! (For those with a slightly different experience set, we would also consider a variant of this scope as an Executive Business Partner.)  

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It is a substantive bonus (but not at all a requirement) if you also have significant experience with AI or democratic innovation and are well connected across that ecosystem

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Logistics

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This is a full-time hybrid position based in San Francisco (Mission District), in-person up to 5 days a week (likely starting at 2-4 days a week, but may change as the org rapidly evolves).  

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The salary range for this role is $120,000 to $215,000 annually (depending on relevant experience), with potential flexibility for exceptional candidates. We offer health, dental, and vision insurance, with unlimited paid time off.

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This role is open on a rolling basis, it may close at any time.