Great work. Do you have specific countries you work with? How are health partners selected? Would love to introduce some doctor friends of mine in Southern Africa. Every now and then they have some cases where we end up just pooling as friends and send to them. Again, great work!
Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
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Re: Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
#42I have been a Universal Fund member since 2014. Watsi has this Impact page where you can see every person you've helped — their photo, their story, the country. I visit it more often than I'd like to admit. I have been building a startup since the last couple of years and as we all know it is relentless. There are weeks where nothing seems to work, where you question every decision. In those moments, pulling up that…
> I have been a Universal Fund member since 2014.
I couldn't remember when I joined, but it turns out 2014 too. From that date and dang's comment below, I found the HN submission that motivated me to join:
Re: Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
#43Thank YOU Chase :) (I work at Watsi) If you'd like to see an example of what Watsi's about, check out Philip's profile: https://watsi.org/profile/2286cb03a5bd-philip Also, fun fact: 619 of our current "Universal Fund" monthly donors first made a donation 10 or more years ago, and I'm pretty sure many of those were/are Hacker News readers. If you're interested, see https://watsi.org/universal-fund
I've long played around with the thought of what would happen if someone started something like the universal-fund you mentioned, but had it snowball like a sovereign fund? (ie, instead of spending the in flow, invest it and only spend the profits from the investments, for example) ... Particularly for basic needs like housing,food,clothes... Like what if instead of giving a charity $100 we created 41c per month? of…
Love the idea and have long wanted something like this to exist. One other twist is you could let ppl vote on where to donate the profits.
Re: Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
#44I basically only trust GiveWell on global aid, have you been evaluated by them?
We'd love to have GiveWell evaluate Watsi. They often recommend global health interventions because every dollar goes incredibly far in saving lives. In the meantime, here's what a few (independent) experts have said about investing in access to surgery:
• A review across 23 LMICs found that low-complexity surgeries (e.g., appendectomy, hernia repair) cost as little as $17 per Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) averted (Mengistie et al., 2025). Overall, 89% of surgical procedures studied were cost-effective, and 76% were “very cost-effective” based on GDP thresholds (Ifeanyichi et al., 2024). • Essential surgery often achieves costs per DALY well below standard willingness-to-pay thresholds and can be more valuable than essential drugs or vaccines on a per-DALY basis (Mengistie et al., 2025). Low-complexity surgical interventions compare favorably to—and are sometimes more cost-effective than—interventions such as HIV antiretroviral therapy, family planning, and TB vaccinations (Ifeanyichi et al., 2024).
Re: Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
#45:) Even saving 1 life is worth celebrating.
Much more, 33,241.
Re: Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
#46Great work Chase! I remember meeting you back in the shared office with Teespring. You are right, we are not our startups, but there is a lot to be proud of, an impact is always the goal, for profit or non. Onward!
The old Teespring office, those were the days!
Re: Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Counterfactual number of lives saved" is not the normal sense of the phrase "save a life". By that logic, each person's life can only be saved once, which is not how people normally use the phrase. Your definition may be useful for cold hard utilitarian calculus, of the sort that hospital directors need to do if they've run out of fundraising opportunities. However, "effective altruism" – which I suspect you're allu…
You're right; I should've been more precise. However, we have tools for dealing with this—that's what quality-adjusted life-years are for! I don't contest that surgeries often significantly increase QALYs, and may do so pretty cost-effectively.
Yes they are surprisingly cost-effective in the countries Watsi operates in, which isn't intuitive for those of us who live in places where surgeries are very expensive.
"A review across 23 LMICs found that low-complexity surgeries (e.g., appendectomy, hernia repair) cost only about ~$17 per DALY, whereas even complex procedures were often cost-effective" (Most surgeries on Watsi are low-complexity)
"Reports from the WHO and Lancet Commission consistently emphasize that investing in surgical capacity has high value, in many cases, more than essential drugs or vaccines on a per-DALY basis"
Both quotes from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12893-025-03204-0
Re: Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
#48I have been a Universal Fund member since 2014. Watsi has this Impact page where you can see every person you've helped — their photo, their story, the country. I visit it more often than I'd like to admit. I have been building a startup since the last couple of years and as we all know it is relentless. There are weeks where nothing seems to work, where you question every decision. In those moments, pulling up that…
> I have been a Universal Fund member since 2014. I couldn't remember when I joined, but it turns out 2014 too. From that date and dang's comment below, I found the HN submission that motivated me to join: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7550005
That’s a very long time - thank you both!
Re: Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
#49Great accomplishment, congrats. YC acts different and glad they helped make something happen.
Lots of ways to keep score and count returns to investors.
Re: Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives
#50Chase,
I was an early donor and had forgotten about Watsi — thank you for the reminder and congratulations! You should be super proud. Plus, the experience you got here will serve you in good stead if you decide to do a commercial venture — scaling a non profit is much, much harder than a commercial company with some compounding finances.
That said, I have a pitch for you on Watsi - I continue to think Donor Advised Funds are underutilized financial tech in the US today. Watsi could set up a DAF that takes your cohort’s startup stock, gives them a tax deduction, mandates a 2-5% annual disbursement to the general fund if not otherwise allocated, and privilege the Watsi general fund. My team did a bunch of research on these a few years ago including some legal work, and I’d be happy to share if you think you might be interested in taking another crack at getting Watsi a large fund to back what it’s doing.
Either way - helping 33k people is incredible.