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agucova

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I’m a generalist and open sourcerer that does a bit of everything, but perhaps nothing particularly well. I'm also the Co-Director of Kairos, an AI safety fieldbuilding org.

I was previously the AI Safety Group Support Lead at CEA and a Software Engineer in the Worldview...

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agucova

I’m a generalist and open sourcerer that does a bit of everything, but perhaps nothing particularly well. I'm also the Co-Director of Kairos, an AI safety fieldbuilding org.

I was previously the AI Safety Group Support Lead at CEA and a Software Engineer in the Worldview...

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Kairos has raised $50M to build talent infrastructure for AI safety (and we're hiring!)

TL;DR: Kairos has raised $50 million from Coefficient Giving for two years of funding, one of the largest commitments they’ve made towards AI safety fieldbuilding to date. We’re using this to make an ambitious push for growing Kairos, broadening our portfolio of talent infrastructure projects and incubating new organizations. We’ve doubled in size in the last six months, and we plan to double again in the next six. We now have open hiring rounds for ten roles on our team across events, group support, incubation, and special projects. Two years in Kairos was founded mid-2024 with the goal of creating infrastructure to get more strong talent into the field of AI safety. Our portfolio has grown over time: we started with a focus on seeding and supporting university groups through Pathfinder, then took over SPAR, the largest research training program in the ecosystem. Since then, we’ve launched the Generator Residency, a program supporting generalist talent, in partnership with Constellation, and taken over the Global Challenges Project (GCP), a series of workshops to accelerate people’s transition into careers in AI safety and biosecurity. Through most of Kairos’s history, we’ve had a very small team: in January 2026 we were only three people, and our high-level strategy was focused on scalable talent infrastructure: that is, building programs with low marginal cost per participant (such as SPAR and Pathfinder). This strategy succeeded and let us quickly grow our programs: Pathfinder went from 15 organizers per semester to over 100, and SPAR has quintupled in size since we adopted it (we expect to accept well over 500 mentees this round). All this growth has happened in parallel to iterative improvements to these programs, raising our bar for executional quality each round. In a recent shallow retrospective, we were able to identify around 80 people who got into full-time roles in core AI safety organizations following participation in our programs[1]. For a very la

AI Safety's Biggest Talent Gap Isn't Researchers. It's Generalists.

Kelsey Piper's recent interview of SBF

AI Safety University Organizing: Early Takeaways from Thirteen Groups

Kairos has raised $50M to build talent infrastructure for AI safety (and we're hiring!)

TL;DR: Kairos has raised $50 million from Coefficient Giving for two years of funding, one of the largest commitments they’ve made towards AI safety fieldbuilding to date. We’re using this to make an ambitious push for growing Kairos, broadening our portfolio of talent infrastructure projects and incubating new organizations. We’ve...

What 27 AI Safety Generalists Are Building This Summer

This is a cross-post of the EA Forum post here. This summer, 27 residents came to Berkeley for the first cohort of the Generator Residency, a three-month program for AI safety generalists run by Kairos and Constellation. Residents receive mentorship from experienced generalists and researchers and are working on projects...

agucova's Shortform

AI Safety's Biggest Talent Gap Isn't Researchers. It's Generalists.

by Topaz, agucova, Alexandra Bates, and Parv Mahajan

This post was cross posted to the EA Forum TL;DR: One of the largest talent gaps in AI safety is competent generalists: program managers, fieldbuilders, operators, org leaders, chiefs of staff, founders. Ambitious, competent junior people could develop the skills to fill these roles, but there are no good pathways...

SPAR Spring 2026: 130+ research projects now accepting applications

TL;DR: SPAR is accepting mentee applications for Spring 2026, our largest round yet with 130+ projects across AI safety, governance, security, and (new this round) biosecurity. The program runs from February 16 to May 16. Applications close January 14, but mentors review on a rolling basis, so apply early. See...

Dec 19, 2025•22

Register for SPAR Demo Day on Saturday, Dec 13

by Topaz and agucova

Registrations are open for SPAR Demo Day on Saturday, Dec 13! Register Now! SPAR is a research mentorship program helping aspiring researchers contribute meaningfully to frontier AI safety work. This year's virtual Demo Day (hosted in Gather Town) showcases 90+ technical and governance projects developed over 3 months by this...

Dec 10, 2025•7

Kairos is the new home for the Global Challenges Project, and we’re hiring for a GCP Director

by Topaz and agucova

We’re excited to announce that Kairos is taking over the Global Challenges Project! After running a successful and cost-effective program, GCP’s former leadership has accepted other opportunities. Kairos will serve as the new institutional home for GCP, and we’re excited to add this program to our portfolio to ensure GCP...

Nov 18, 2025•6

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