James Norris
James Norris is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Existential Safety, Founder and CEO of Upgradable, and Founder and CEO of Survival Sanctuaries, with over 20 years of experience in social entrepreneurship, behavior change, and systems innovation.
James is a pioneering figure in existential safety advocacy, working to catalyze collective action to ensure humanity survives existential risks from artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and engineered pandemics. James has cofounded or helped build 27 organizations that have operated for over 200 cumulative years and generated millions in revenue, with a 59% survival rate.
James articulates 23 major philosophical and strategic positions that guide his work, including his belief that all moral agents should work to help others flourish, his advocacy for an immediate global pause on frontier AI development to prevent human extinction, and his vision for a three-step approach to achieving collective prosperity: scientifically proving AGI can be safely grown, extremely carefully growing AGI, and fairly distributing the benefits to all.
He champions conscious and capped capitalism to solve global inequality, advocates for competency-based political leadership tied to human development metrics, and believes that primary education should focus on teaching youth to design and live optimal lives. His positions reflect deep concern about humanity’s “emergent insanity” in spending more on candy than preventing extinction, while maintaining hope for an extraordinary transhumanist future if civilization survives the current polycrisis.
As Executive Director of the Center for Existential Safety since January 2025, James leads efforts to serve all Existential Safety Advocates globally. The organization maintains existentialsafety.org, which provides a regularly updated list of over 80 concrete actions that individuals, organizations, and nations can take to improve existential safety.
The Center also organizes all-hands calls for the existential safety community, monthly strategy coordination calls for organizational leaders, and collaborative safety calls for frontier AI developers. Read Introducing Collective Action for Existential Safety: 80+ actions individuals, organizations, and nations can take to improve our existential safety.
Since January 2025, James has also served as the Founder and CEO of Survival Sanctuaries, offering solutions for survival in worst-case scenarios, including off-grid villas, emergency bunkers, preparedness training, and supplies. The company commits 100% of its profits to supporting existential safety nonprofits.
At Upgradable, which he founded in January 2018, James leads an applied research lab focused on solving human flourishing through emerging technology, behavioral science, and applied rationality. Upgradable provides “life optimization as a service”, helping clients achieve their highest value goals through a bespoke team of coaches, assistants, and specialists. Upgradable has helped clients build startups valued at over $1 billion, close deals worth over $250 million, and systematically improve various aspects of their lives.
James cofounded Effective Altruism Global in 2015, establishing it as the premier international conference series for the effective altruism movement and the largest conference at the time, which highlighted AI safety. The events collectively hosted 825 participants and 100 speakers across San Francisco, Oxford, and Melbourne, with headliners including Elon Musk, Dan Ariely, and Peter Singer, and key partners such as Google.org, the UN Foundation, and Oxford University. Read Elon Musk, Superintelligence, and Maximizing Social Good: A Weekend at History’s Largest Gathering of “Effective Altruists”.
Through his company, Self Spark (2012–2015), James created the world’s first global lifehacking event series, which held or inspired over 100 events in more than 10 cities, becoming the first to integrate emerging technology and publish all outcome data in depth. Watch Lifehacking: Your Unfair Advantage | James Norris | TEDxStPeterPort.
From 2016 to 2017, James served as Senior Strategist at Stanford ChangeLabs, where he helped develop and test the pioneering “system acupuncture” framework for systemic social change. As the second-ranking member after the Principal Investigator, he led innovation and strategy consulting efforts with ResilientAfrica Network (RAN), an 18-university, 13-country, $22 million USAID-funded initiative. He coordinated a team of 9 members and managed relations with clients including SAP, Hewlett-Packard, and The Nature Conservancy, while codesigning and facilitating multi-stakeholder workshops in California and Ethiopia.
James’s earlier ventures include cofounding Polymath Foundation (2008–2014), a lifelong endeavor to build a university for modern polymaths that prototyped classes online and in person, developing a unique pedagogical approach, and creating a community of over 1,000 students and supporters.
In Singapore, he cofounded Urban Prototyping (UP) Singapore (2012), which held 16 events, including Singapore’s first hackathon for social good, launching 30 new social enterprise prototypes with over S$1 million raised subsequently. He also helped pioneer sustainable aquaculture as a partner at OnHand Agrarian (2011–2012), where they invented a novel Integrated Multi-Trophic Recirculating Aquaculture System (IMTRAS) that became the fourth-largest seafood-producing farm by volume in Singapore.
James earned his Bachelor’s Degree of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin, along with four minors, including Texas Interdisciplinary Plan Concentration in Youth-led Psychotherapy, Bridging Disciplines Program Certification in Ethics & Leadership, Business Foundations Certification, and Emergency Medical Technician-Basic Certification.
His academic journey was marked by his participation in the Senior Pathways Program and Intellectual Entrepreneurship Pre-Graduate School Internship. James has shared that his drive for social change was deeply influenced by his challenging childhood, including his family’s bankruptcy and his mother’s untimely passing when he was 16, leading him to take a vow to do as much good as possible and pledge 90% of his lifetime assets to that end.
Throughout his career, James has served as Principal at Insight Change since 2009, providing consulting, coaching, and speaking services to over 100 social enterprises, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations. He has been a certified Conscious Business Coach through BetterUp and holds certifications in AI Safety Ethics & Society from the Center for AI Safety and AI Safety Governance from BlueDot Impact.
His earlier leadership roles include cofounding and chairing Youth Services at the American Red Cross of Central Texas (2002–2008), where he catalyzed the development of the Youth Services Department, cofounded the Mass CPR Training program that trained 641 people in its first three years with total revenues exceeding $100,000, and mentored founders of Red Cross clubs at multiple universities.
James has been featured as a speaker at numerous venues, including The World Bank, The United Nations General Assembly, and The Royal Society, with other clients including NATO, MIT, Ericsson, Microsoft, SAP, and the BBC. He has published research, including Singapore: Asia’s Social Silicon Valley?, and appears regularly in the media. Listen to Self-Improvement and Behavior Change (with James Norris) | Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg and James Norris: Overcoming Childhood Struggle, Effective Altruism & Adapting to Different Cultures.
James has experienced over 4,040 “life firsts” in a 26-year experiential learning experiment and maintains that work is much more fun than fun. Based in San Francisco, California, he continues his lifelong mission to discover the most effective ways to improve himself and the world.
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