2363 - Maximizing Impact Through Effective Altruism with Amstadd's Claus Geissendoerfer

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0:46Visit podverify.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, it is Klaus G. Klaus, you are the director and founder of Amstad. You're found on the web at amstad.com. But you are also an ambassador, an official ambassador for Giving What We Can. And that's found on the web at givingwhatwecan.org. And we're actually going to talk a lot about that today. But Klaus, it's great to have you with us.

1:19Claus Geissendoerfer:Great. Great to be on the show, Josh. Looking forward to it. Yeah, yeah. And listen, I always do this. I love finding out what high-level leaders, people have achieved some professional success, usually are very multi-passionate and I love just learning what people are into. And I understand you have a passion for sailing. Yes, exactly. I love sailing. I'm a certified sailor. I live in London, so I'm with RYA, the Royal Yachting Association, so to speak. And just actually two weeks ago, So I went to a sailing trip around Gibraltar in the Mediterranean. So we sailed from Gibraltar to Spain, then to Northern Africa.

2:00Claus Geissendoerfer:There's a Spanish enclave called Ceuta. It's actually Spain, but it's on the continent of Africa. So we literally sailed from Europe to Africa, spent the night in Africa and sailed back to Gibraltar. My goodness. How large of a vessel are you sailing? There was a 40-foot boat, so good-sized boat. We had eight people sleeping on the boat, so we all sleep on the boat. We sail during the day. We go to a pub. We go to a bar afterwards, have a great dinner, and I usually sleep on the boat in the marina. Oh, my goodness. That just sounds so divine. What is something that someone who does not – like you've described it, and I think in our minds, we're probably envisioning what that's like.

2:46What are some aspects of it, either positive or, well, if you're going to do this, maybe like a consideration that you found that might be surprising for someone who's not actively in the sailing scene?

3:02Claus Geissendoerfer:Yeah, I guess two things. One is the engineering and the technology behind it. For example, a plane is comparable to an airplane wing. It's like the way the air is sucked in and the way the boat moves forward. there's a lot of engineering involved and speaking of being a bit of a geek I really try to learn a lot about that technology in the sailing but also just I think the second part is just being connected with nature is so beautiful when you're out there you don't have self-service you're disconnected no you're not getting a call you're really connecting with nature and for example on a recent trip we had some dolphins swimming along and then they were jumping back and forth in front of the boat like you don't see that very often in real life Josh It's very rare to see something like that.

3:45Claus Geissendoerfer:No, certainly not in my home office. I'm looking out my window. No dolphins. No dolphins. Exactly. Same here. No dolphins in London. No, that sounds absolutely gorgeous. Thank you so much. Again, in my mind, I'm imagining what that time must be like for you and just those lifetime memories that you create. So thank you so much for sharing that. Well, Klaus, tell me about, before we start talking about your philanthropic work and your advocacy. Can you give us maybe just a quick overview of your background and your success and in your work with Amstad? Yeah, I'm very happy to do so. So I actually lived in the States for five years.

4:25Claus Geissendoerfer:I got a scholarship to study at SUNY Albany. I got my MBA there. Then I went into consulting. And shortly after, I started my own business in IT consulting, website development, also done quite well with real estate. I think I just got lucky by the right real estate at the right time and um i don't want to i don't want to show off josh but i think i've done somewhat well for my life i'm not like a billionaire so i'm not ultra rich but i have enough to go sailing in gibraltar for a long time to do so and then um covid happened a couple of years ago i went through a divorce and things were just a little bit um challenging for me and i went through a midlife crisis and i'm sure some of your listeners can resonate if you're a little bit like in your 30s or 40s, maybe your kids.

5:12Claus Geissendoerfer:My daughter's 18 now, so kids are a little bit older. And then during my midlife crisis, I was like, what's the point of life? What am I doing here? I'm just consuming, trying to grow my business, five figures, six figures, just going from one personal development and business growth event to the next. And then I was like, I want to leave some impact. I really want to do some good in the world. And that's when I discovered giving what we can. It's part of a big ecosystem. And that's what I do now. I'm an ambassador for effective giving. Can you share a bit more about your experience? And especially, I'm sure, you know, in your experience and kind of going through that transition into the way I like to think of it, I think Richard Rohr has a pretty good, you know, kind of metaphor in the way he explains it, you know, kind of going into this second stage of life.

5:57And you're absolutely right. You know, my experience is I think we spend the first half of our life largely living for other people or We're largely living for output. And I think that many of us, hopefully, you know, especially if we've done things in a certain way, we may have more bandwidth to start now truly not as, you know, living for ourselves. Right. Or, you know, like what matters? Why am I here? Can you share maybe some of your insights about that journey? Because I have talked with so many people, a lot of men in particular, you know, who I think early, you know, absolutely had some professional expectations placed on them in a way.

6:41And again, I'm probably projecting here where there was expectations on who I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to do.

6:49Claus Geissendoerfer:And then you finally, you know, hopefully get to a phase where you're like, you know, I'm kind of done with that. But I would love your take on this because you went through the entire journey. yeah i did i think one part was for me and when i went through my divorce was actually burning man i'm not sure if you know the festival in nevada like this big festival where you go and you're you're silly you dress up you're you it's a massive party so i've done that and then i've yeah what's the point of life just partying spending money going somewhere being clubbing and then i honestly i hit some some rough patches especially in in europe in in the winter it's cold it's dark and there's definitely a bit of depression involved and I think at some point it just clicked to me it's like I'm not just here to consume I'm here to to give and I think the advice that tip for I have for everybody is just try out different things like I did I did motorcycling I'm sailing rhino actively I tried partying I really tried a lot of a lot of different things and I think you just grow experience you need to get out of it you need to get up get up from your ass get out of your house and actually do things try things out I think that's the most important thing just just don't don't be afraid to try things out and you see what you like at the end and what sticks i i think that is probably one of the best pieces of advice that that i know from my my experience with this too is just testing things you may not stick with it and that's okay right we won't know until you you know it's like you do the thing and you know see if it connects with you you and i were talking about cooking before we started recording that's one of the things that you know during covid i you know just like listen i've always wanted to be a good cook Like I can get stuff done normally, you know, but it's so, just so fun for me to just start everything from just absolute scratch, you know, all my, you know, and just really explore what's possible, learning a music instrument, you know, learning Spanish now, you know, here I am in my young fifties, you know, learning Spanish for the very first time.

8:47Yeah. Yeah. And it's just, it's, you know, and we, you know, I feel like there's also too, And one last question before we kind of get into your more of your your philanthropic work. And that is, you know, I have a belief and this has always been my philosophy. It's like, you know, when we start when we stop growing, I feel like that's when we start kind of dying a little bit. When we get maybe a little bit too complacent, we don't challenge ourselves anymore, which is easy to do. Right. Especially like, you know, maybe professionally things can get a little bit on routine and autopilot a little bit.

9:21But I know for me, that ends up feeling a little, long term, that ends up feeling a little uncomfortable for me. And you actually mentioned that, like you can only vacation so much, like, you know, I've interviewed a lot of people that have had a successful exit, that usually lasts for a month, maybe two. And then they're like, yeah, no, I need a little bit more. What's your take on that?

9:43Claus Geissendoerfer:exactly yeah no no 100 100 um i think for me it's i've tried out everything let's see what sticks and and um what i what i really enjoy doing is also um i'm coaching and mentoring others so i'm now a non-executive director for two local charities here i'm supporting local organizations growing young people and and just helping them to to to um to enjoy and to learn and to take the next step in the career and really being there and like you said um some people really like partying and golfing and other things but it just it just wasn't for me i've done a lot of personal development as well i think tony robbins speaks about it we're like a plant but like a flower right we either grow or we perish there's nothing in which if you stop growing you stop developing you stop you you you perish you age quicker when you want to look at health related things like you said, you learn a new language.

10:37Claus Geissendoerfer:That keeps you young, growing, trying out, learning new things. That's what keeps you young. And I felt the same. Yeah. Well, Klaus, share with us your work now with Giving What We Can. The website is givingwhatwecan.org. Give me an overview of exactly what this organization is doing. Absolutely. Yeah. So it started around 2009 in Oxford University. So just outside here of London and a few very smart people, philosophers, PhD students and professors, they got together and said, isn't there a better way to do philanthropic work, to do donation? A lot of it is currently based on feeling, what you feel, how you feel, who you know.

11:21Claus Geissendoerfer:And what they did is they basically applied ration, mathematical formula, metrics, logic to philanthropic work. So for example, I think you had an episode, a couple of episodes ago with somebody, Peter, Peter van Bergh, who spoke about how he implies science to human behaviors. If you do a financial investment, you talk to a financial advisor, you get input and advice on that. If you have a business, like a lot of you guys are business owners, right? You run a business, you calculate your cost of customer acquisition, your lifetime value, you have metrics to calculate how well the business is doing.

12:01Claus Geissendoerfer:And what these guys did in Oxford, they said, hey, can we apply the same rigor that you use in financial investment in your business to apply it to philanthropic work and say, how can we do the most good per dollar spent? And they spent a lot of time refining and refining an approach. And I'm just so, Josh, I'm just so passionate about this. And the reason is that there's enough money out there that nobody has to go hungry. hungry. There's enough money out there so everybody can get a vaccination if they want to. It's just not distributed very well. And by using the most effective ways to distribute charity and philanthropic work, I think we can save a lot of people in this world.

12:41I had an opportunity a number of years ago to attend, and I'm dating myself based on this, is that my wife and I got to attend a taping of the Oprah Winfrey show in Chicago. And in on that episode, Bono and Alicia Keys performed and Bono spoke to the audience in between. So during the commercial breaks, you know, a lot of times they'll just kind of riff with the audience or whatever. And Bono said something to me and he said he was talking to the crowd, but it was like everybody else in the room disappeared. And this was back before I started my other company, Savings Angel, which we share values in this.

13:26And it's kind of anyway, what he shared is he said, you know, I believe I'm not going to try to do an Irish accent. I believe that we will one day get to a point where we will look at poverty and famine and we will and we will look to we'll look around at each other and we'll say, how did we let that go on so long? These are big problems, but they are easy to fix if everybody just does just a little bit. Like if everybody just does, you know, 1 % more collectively, we can wipe out all of these issues that plague us, you know, plague humanity right now. And that's when they were introducing Project Red at the time.

14:19But yeah, it was like when he shared that, it's like everybody else in the entire studio and audience disappeared. And he was talking right to me. And then we ended up creating Savings Angel and facilitated tens of millions of dollars of giving collectively through what we created there. So I'm just, Klaus, I'm just so grateful that you're advocating for what you are. Any thoughts on, you know, kind of my story there, your observations around that topic about, you know, because you had already said these are solvable problems for the most part. Exactly. Yeah.

14:54Claus Geissendoerfer:You know, for example, what you just mentioned, these are solvable problems. And a lot of times, so what giving what we can is part of a bigger ecosystem called effective giving, effective altruism. There's Dustin Moskovitz from one of the Facebook founders. He donated some money. So there's some really massive backers behind with like billions and billions of pounds, but dollars. But it's also small people like you and I who just denied 1 % or 10 % of their income of their earnings. And maybe two examples, Josje, if I may. One of them is called the Malaria Consortium. It's part of the Giving What We Can Effective Giving ecosystem.

15:33Claus Geissendoerfer:And what they do is they distribute malaria nets in sub-Saharan Africa. And malaria nets are so cheap. It's literally just a piece of plastic. It costs like$5 to produce. You distribute malaria nets, then people will not conceive malaria. It's so cheap. It's so incredibly cheap. And what they calculated statistically, with$3 ,500, they can save one human life, statistically. I mean, that's nothing. $3 ,500 to save one human life in Sub-Saharan Africa. I just, I feel like this is so important for people to know. And that's why I wanted to share this with you and your audience. It doesn't cost a lot of money to statistically.

16:12Claus Geissendoerfer:And again, these are very smart people who use randomized control studies, who use metrics, who use numbers to back this up. They publish their data. They have open data to say, yeah, this is what we think is the cheapest way to save a human life. And I think it's just such an important message. So anybody who is doing philanthropic work, who is donating money, looking into how can we do the most good with the least amount of resources, Josh. uh so klaus our friend that's listening right now um obviously they can go to giving what we can that org um but do you mind maybe just kind of maybe sharing some next steps where they go from here where they can learn more about how this works how they can take the giving pledge there's various um you know their charities their their pledges that they can agree to including the 10 pledge the trial pledge and so forth exactly yeah so i'm i think two things one thing is I can offer if anybody wants to have a chat with me, I think you're linking my LinkedIn profile.

17:13Claus Geissendoerfer:I'm not doing this to make money, Josh. I have a good portfolio. I'm doing well. But if anybody's unsure, wants to talk to somebody, I think that's the first step. I can, as an open invite, reach out to me, grab 15 minutes. If you're unsure, if you have any questions about this. Secondly, then yes, go to givingandwhatwecan.org and just familiarize yourself with the website. Make sure this all looks good to you. And like you said, this is a massive, massive ecosystem. There are probably 20, 30 different organizations. There are charities, then there are organizations that evaluate charities. But I think what I like about giving what we can, they put everything together.

17:51Claus Geissendoerfer:There is a fund you can invest. You can say, I take my money. I invested in a charitable fund. And then that fund will decide what's the best allocation. So they also look into things like AI safety. Do we need to think about AI safety? Another one that I just mentioned really briefly is called LEAP. They look into eliminating lead in paint worldwide. So there are still 100 countries where lead is legal to have lead in paint. And lead is extremely poisonous. In France, it was forbidden in 1903. And there are still 100 countries worldwide. So what this organization does, they basically just work with countries and say, hey, have you thought about making this illegal?

18:35Claus Geissendoerfer:Have you thought about reformulating your paint? And it's just such a simple thing. And you get one country to change, you impact millions and millions of people. So again, they're looking into what are the most impactful things we can do with a given amount. So yeah, my suggestion is go to givingwhatwecan.org. I think for the US and the UK, they're tax efficient set up. So they save taxes through that as well. But yeah, look at the website. And like I said, the second option I can suggest is reach out to me if you have any questions. I'm happy to put you in touch with people, maybe locally, their local support groups, their local groups.

19:10Claus Geissendoerfer:But I think it's just such an important message, Josh. Yeah. Thank you so much. Klaus G., again, you're an official ambassador for Giving What We Can, the website givingwhatwecan.org. Of course, your personal website is amstad.com. And again, I've got that direct link in the show notes for this episode. Klaus G., thank you so much for a great conversation. Thank you so much for the good you're doing in the world. Fantastic, John. Great to have you on the show. Great to have been on the show. Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. If your goal is to grow your business, increase revenue, and build authority without gimmicks, this show is designed for you.

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