Schmidt Futures

Position Title/Short Description

Full Text of JOE Listing:

Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic initiative, founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, that seeks to improve societal outcomes through the thoughtful development of emerging science and technologies that can benefit humanity.

As a venture facility for public benefit, we invest risk capital in the most promising ideas and most exceptional people across disciplines.

The Economist will work directly with other members of the Schmidt Futures team to design, develop, and implement new initiatives to advance economic opportunity and to expand access to the American middle class through the application of economic principles and analysis. The economist will also help with evaluation of potential grants intended to promote rising wages, better job opportunities, and alternative social safety net programs. The Economist will help shape the vision and direction for the overall strategy of the Schmidt Futures portfolio.

Key Responsibilities

Program Design and Evaluation:
- Generate ideas – both personally and through a pipeline of other experts and partners – for current and future programs that would solve long-standing economic mobility problems (wages, skills, job opportunities, safety net) in new ways through the use of technology;
- Review program proposals in development to identify opportunities to improve effectiveness through the use of economics analysis and tools;
- Build and facilitate a network of economic experts to conduct technical reviews of shared prosperity programs;
- Review program plans and results for economic soundness and significance; and
- Perform research and conduct interviews with experts from other institutions, including potential beneficiaries, to determine whether the problems they are seeking to address would benefit from Schmidt Futures’ approach.

Gift/Grant/Investment Analysis and Evaluation:
- Review gifts/grants/investments in development or underway to identify opportunities to improve their impact through the use of economic analysis;
- Recommend potential strategies, methods, partnerships, and other resources that beneficiaries could use to strengthen their work and its impact;
- Analyze the impact of work completed against our goals of promoting shared prosperity.

Strategic and Operational Planning Support:
- Participate in strategic and operational planning for Schmidt Futures;
- Recommend potential strategies, methods, partnerships, and other resources that Schmidt Futures or beneficiaries could use to strengthen their work and its impact; and
- Analyze the impact of the shared prosperity portfolio against our goals of promoting shared prosperity.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:
- Demonstrated excellence in advanced research and analytical skills, including quantitative modeling;
- Ability to collect, analyze and interpret data using surveys, mathematical models, and statistical techniques;
- Good teamwork ability and record of impact in high-intensity, team-based environments;
- Broad interest in technology, including AI/ML, and its impact on the labor market;
- Exceptional problem-solving skills, for both conceptual and analytical problems;
- Values-based, collaborative working style with demonstrated commitment to the highest standards of ethics and confidentiality; and
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with reasonable ability to use common software tools for word processing, presentation, and spreadsheets (especially Google Docs and Sheets).

Requirements:
- Have at least three years of work experience in business, government, philanthropy, or the military;
- Have demonstrated excellence in the economics field, creative ideas for improving economic mobility, and a passion for driving real-world outcomes; and
- Be based at the Schmidt Futures offices in New York and be able to travel within the U.S. and internationally on a regular basis as needed.