Kristian Rönn

Kristian’s journey began at the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) in Oxford, where he worked as a project manager on research into existential risks. With a background in both mathematics and theoretical philosophy, he had the skills and opportunity to contribute to some of the world’s most pressing questions. But reflecting on his marginal impact, Kristian realized that while FHI’s mission was important, his own contribution might be replaceable. That reflection led him to entrepreneurship, where he saw a chance to build something irreplaceable from the ground up.

Launching Normative to Tackle Climate Externalities

The spark came from economics: the idea of negative externalities, hidden costs that fall on society rather than the buyer or seller. Fossil fuels, for example, cause environmental damage that companies and consumers don’t pay for directly — which means there’s no built-in incentive to change.

Motivated by this realization, Kristian co-founded Normative, a company that helps large corporations automatically calculate their climate impact through advanced software. By exposing these invisible costs, Normative aimed to shift the financial incentives that drive behavior.

“To create a sustainable future and reduce global disaster risk, we must change the way we price goods and the way we record economic success. We are in the middle of a mass extinction where one million species are at risk of disappearing, four million people die from air pollution and tens of billions of animals die annually for human consumption. Despite the fact that these phenomena have enormous moral consequences, they are not included in the companies’ balance sheets and income statements.” 

Scaling Impact Beyond the Startup

Under Kristian’s leadership, Normative grew into a leading voice in climate accountability. Its software gave companies a clearer view of their indirect emissions and other hidden impacts, with the goal of turning transparency into action. Alongside this work, Kristian also authored “The Darwinian Trap: The hidden evolutionary forces that explain our world (and threaten our future)”, exploring how human instincts for short-term success often undermine long-term survival.

A New Pivot: From Climate to AI Safety

After nearly a decade at Normative, Kristian once again reflected on where his efforts could make the greatest difference. Normative was now strong enough that others could continue scaling its mission effectively. By contrast, ensuring that advanced AI develops in safe and robust ways felt like an area where his personal contribution was much harder to replace.

In 2024, Kristian joined Lucid Computing, an AI hardware-governance company building the verification rails for export controls — from location-verification of accelerators to policy tooling that targets illicit chip flows. In a year, Kristian surfaced as CEO. For him, the move was not a departure but a continuation of the same mission: confronting the systemic risks that shape humanity’s future.

Kristian’s thoughts about marginal impact

“I thought about whether there was an opportunity cost in my role. Even if a job has a high impact, your marginal impact may be minimal if someone else can do it just as well. If, on the other hand, you are trying to develop a new technology through a start-up, you are almost by definition irreplaceable for a period. If you don’t do it, no one else will.”

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