Great Things family office pledges 20% of profits to charity as AI returns roll in

The Great Things family office is operating on a simple but unusual rule: at least 20% of annual net realised profits must go to philanthropy, and the giving happens now rather than decades down the line. Giorgos Tsetis, the co-founder of hair-growth supplement business Nutrafol, launched the vehicle to put that philosophy into practice at pace.

Over the past 18 months, Tsetis says he has invested nearly $40 million through Great Things and committed roughly $7 million to nonprofits through gifts and pledges. The model is deliberately fast-moving, which sets it apart from the generational, slow-burn approach most family offices take.

Where the 20% rule comes from

The giving minimum was not plucked from the air. Gabriel Cooperman, Tsetis’ financial advisor and a managing director at UBS Wealth Management who helped structure the family office, says it was drawn directly from the economics of venture capital and private equity, where a share of profits is routinely paid out to fund managers.

‘Basically what he’s done is just turned the profit-sharing interest into a charitable-sharing interest,’ Cooperman said. ‘We know it works. We know it’s very sustainable.’

To make the model work in lean years, Great Things uses a donor-advised fund as a buffer. If investment profits in a given year fall short of the firm’s charitable commitments, the fund covers the gap. Great Things typically makes three- to five-year pledges, supporting causes such as an after-school boxing academy in the Bronx and Every Cure, an organisation that repurposes existing drugs to treat rare diseases.

Tsetis told CNBC he hopes the structure becomes a blueprint others adopt. ‘As innovation is creating this extraordinary amount of wealth, what we’re designing is a model to share those windfalls,’ he said. ‘And there’s restlessness with that. It’s like we need to do it now.’

AI returns fuelled the early momentum

The artificial intelligence boom gave Great Things its financial runway. Tsetis says the firm made a seven-times return on Anthropic in 18 months through a secondary exit, the kind of rapid liquidity that most long-term investors rarely see. That pace of return is what made the philanthropy commitment feel achievable from the start rather than aspirational.

Great Things formally launched nearly a year ago, shortly after Tsetis sold his remaining stake in Nutrafol to Unilever at a $3.5 billion valuation. Tsetis, who is 41, says he knew from that point that his next chapter would involve a substantial amount of giving.

If the firm continues investing at its current rate, Tsetis expects to deploy another $60 million within two years. Decisions move quickly because the firm has only two people making them: Tsetis and his partner, Roman Kalantari.

Cooling on AI, but not stepping back entirely

The bullishness on AI startups has faded, though. Kalantari, who started his career during the dot-com bubble and served as chief experience and technology officer at Nutrafol, is applying that historical perspective to what he sees now.

‘Anyone who tells you there’s not going to be a slowdown or a correction of some kind has really bought into the hype machine,’ he said. ‘When I look at these AI companies, I really try to think about who’s going to survive that correction.’

Great Things is responding by shifting towards late-stage rounds, which offer more liquidity, and away from startups built on top of existing AI platforms such as OpenAI or Anthropic. Kalantari says the firm is now prioritising companies with their own technology and a durable value proposition. One recent reinvestment, Lila Sciences, fits that description: the three-year-old startup runs its own AI model and builds automated robotic laboratories designed to make scientific research faster and less expensive.

The portfolio also includes Polymarket, the prediction-market startup that Tsetis acknowledges is controversial. He frames the position as a deliberate test of the model’s own logic: generate returns from a contested investment, then direct those returns towards causes the firm believes in, while continuing to watch how the company develops. Because Great Things is not a long-term holder and demand for Polymarket stakes is high, Tsetis says the firm can exit via the secondary market without difficulty if needed.

The broader ambition remains to prove the model is replicable. ‘We’re just trying to do what’s right for us so we can make the model sustainable and make it work in an extraordinary way for others as well,’ Tsetis said.