WEBVTT - Shomik Dutta on Climate Tech Investments 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:06.000 This is Master's in Business with very Rid Holds on 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:08.240 Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:12.320 This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.720 show Meek Data, co founder and managing partner at Overture 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:23.200 Climate VC, focuses on all sorts of fascinating startup and 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:28.560 climate change technology, from concrete to energy production, to storage, 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:33.400 to carbon capture, to material science to well turning the fuels. 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.159 This is really a fascinating discussion about some of the 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:41.400 latest greatest technology that's going to help the world get 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.880 to a carbon neutral status and maybe even a carbon 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.640 negative status to roll back the impact of two hundred 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.640 and fifty years of burning fossil fuels. I found this 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:58.280 conversation to be absolutely fascinating, not just because show Meek 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.480 has a little bit of a political background and had 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:08.119 worked in both of Obama's campaign where he was frequently 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.240 fired by the soon to be president but still managed 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:15.560 to maintain his job, but because of his deep and 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:20.920 broad knowledge of the technologies behind climate change. He said, 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.039 this isn't a green investment so much as a money 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.840 making economic investment, and if you're not paying attention, you're 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.160 going to miss the opportunity. With no further ado, my 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.280 conversation with Overture Climate VCS show mc dadda. 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:37.720 Erry, thanks for having me. 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.920 So, what was the original plan? Was it politics or finance? 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:43.080 Where were you thinking of going? 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.240 It was always politics. I grew up a political junkie, 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.360 worked on Senate races and governor's races, and had the 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:52.680 really good fortune of linking up with Barack Obama in 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:54.640 two thousand and seven. I was one of the early 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.240 staffers on that campaign, and it ended up obviously being 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.040 this incredible rocket ship'll kind of start up in his 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.320 own right, And it was that experience that convinced me 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.840 that it's really possible to do big, daring, hard things. 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.320 Watching the president sort of go from a US senator 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:10.519 who's still paying off his law school loans to stepping 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.840 into the most important job in the world was an 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:14.560 inspiring and crazy experience. 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:16.520 What did you do for the campaign in eight and 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:17.840 then what'd you do in twenty twelve? 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.080 I was his fundraiser, so I oversaw the mid Atlantic states, 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.720 about nine states. I was twenty four years old, cocky 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:25.400 and a little bit insane. I'd read a lot of 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:26.840 books about rom and Manuel, so I thought you were 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.480 supposed to swear at people and yell and push hard, 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.079 which I did and proud to say that we outraised 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.320 Hillary Clinton from the very first day that I joined. 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.520 I turned down an offer from Hillary Clinton at the time, 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.920 which you know, my father's a risk averse immigrant, so 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:42.919 his two pieces of advice to me were to work 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.440 at Lehman Brothers from investment banking, good call, and to 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:47.920 work for Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama. But those are 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:49.640 the only two things I've ignored his advice on. 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:51.200 And your dad's O for two. 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:54.639 My dad's one thousand for one thousand and two. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:03:00.320 But that's great. So how did you go from working 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.440 in the campaign to working at both the White House 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:04.239 and the FCCI. 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:06.519 You know, you could say a lot of it was 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.480 political nepotism. Candidly, I was a you know, coffee boy. 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.080 I was Greg Craig, the White House Counsel's special assistant, 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.400 and as puffed up and important as I thought I 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:16.120 was on the campaign, when it turns to governing, it 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.080 turns out you need some specialization. So I quickly realized 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.519 that I didn't have a sort of path to being 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:23.960 the National Security Council Advisor at any point. So I, 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.239 you know, after serving coffee for about a year working 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.280 on a Supreme Court nomination, shifted to go work for Julius, 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.560 who is the FCC chairman. And that's when I realized 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:32.720 that a lot of the smartest guys in the room 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.080 are actually in business more often than not, and got 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.120 really interested in shifting my career that that direction. 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.480 So someone interested in doing work in politics, how do 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:44.560 you get a foot in the door? 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.560 You know, it really starts with picking a campaign. And 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:50.600 a campaign is like a lot like a startup, with's 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.800 a really flat organization. You have to raise an unbelievablemount 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:55.760 of money and spend it in a short period of time, 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.240 and you have this discrete objective that everyone's nailed towards. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.040 And so for a young there's no better experience than 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.960 working on a campaign, where if you can get something done, 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.080 there is a job for you. And so that's where 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.560 I really cut my teeth, working on campaigns, getting stuff done. 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:13.680 And you know, no better boss than Obama. 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.920 So venture capitalists are notorious for having this really in 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:24.480 depth network of high performing, plugged in people. How similar 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.080 is that to what takes place in the world of 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:28.120 political networking. 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:30.760 It's fine. I heard doug Ley Owne, the founder of 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:33.760 the managing partner at Sequoia, have this great phrasing, there's 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.000 many paths to heaven, And it seems in venture capital 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.400 there are many paths to heaven. Right. You can have 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.600 a really well networked media executive, as was Mike Moritz 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.480 at the time. You can have drilled down operators who 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.760 have run businesses. There are many different ways venture capitalists 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.200 can add value. And it was my observation in climate 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.320 investing that there were no venture capitalists that deeply understand 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.520 government and regulatory risk, despite the fact that the government's 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.240 playing this central casting role in the energy transition. And 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:01.960 so I thought this might be a pathway to heaven 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.240 for us, observing Tusk Ventures in New York doing this 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.960 quite successfully for coinbase and draft Kings and Uber. I 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:11.240 just don't really care about sports betting, but I really 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.760 thought that I could add value to these startups as 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.279 a venture capitalist that deeply understood government, and so that 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:17.320 was my path to heaven. 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:19.960 So you grow up in Chicago, you moved to DC 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.520 after college. Was it for a political campaign or was 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.080 it just a coincidence? Hey, this local business seems pretty 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:28.200 pretty fascinating. 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:31.440 No, explicitly for campaigns, and so, you know, moved around 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:33.840 zip codes in a lot of sort of post industrial 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.840 wasteland places. I lived in Baltimore working for Martin O'Malley's 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.360 first governor's race. I lived in Rhode Island working for 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:41.680 a Senate race, and then in two thousand and seven 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:43.760 got recruited into Obama and that's when I moved to DC. 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:48.800 Huh, so your campaign staff during Obama's re election campaign? 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:53.400 What were you doing with the Biden administration when they 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:54.800 were running in twenty sixteen. 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.560 I built an impact venture fund that you referenced called 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.120 Higher Ground Labs. It was our others that you know, 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.240 Trump had benefited from a lot of new technology, and 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.360 Democrats were still campaigning with number two pencils and spreadsheets. 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.719 Now, let me ask you. That's I'm gonna interrupt you 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:15.400 right there, because I very vividly recall reading a Wired 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:21.440 piece from Wired magazine about how cutting edge the Obama 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.800 campaign was with iterative changes and a B testing and 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.359 they just were raising more money, faster for more people. 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.680 You're telling me by twenty sixteen that's already out of 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:35.279 date and fallen way behind. 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.320 You're exactly right, it's exactly the insight that actually led 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.240 us to start Higher Ground Labs. Campaigns are like big 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.680 startups and you raise a billion dollars, as was the 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.080 case with Obama, you build cutting edge technology, and after 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:51.080 election day, the lights go off, everybody leaves, the email 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.640 addresses go off, and you start anew in four years. 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.640 As though none of that mattered, and there was no longitudinal, 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.040 inherent inheritance of learnings and data and technology. And so 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.039 we wanted to build for profits startups that could build 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.200 longitudinally compounding innovation and standing as free standing entities that 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.159 could be even profitable for investors so that we could 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.120 raise more capital for them. And so we did that. 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.760 We built companies like Mobilized, which ended up shifting all 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.320 of the volunteer action in the Democratic Party, sold to 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:20.240 an Insight backed the private equity fund insights backed company, 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:22.560 and so things like that can both compound returns for 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:24.880 investors but also compound innovation to the party, so you 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:26.760 don't have to start from zero every four years. 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.160 So on your LinkedIn, I see you got an NBA 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.840 from Wharton around the same time as the election. Please 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:35.560 don't tell me you would do both at once. 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.600 I did both. It is not recommended. It was a 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.880 lot of pounds and gray hair. But you know, my 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.640 deal with my dad, who came to this country with 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.840 you know, a big dream, came his country about two 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.800 hundred bucks in his pocket. He worked as a security 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.080 guard at Harvard Business Schools and attended Harvard Business School 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.640 at the same time. You know, there's that line Obama 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:57.840 has that every son wants to be live up to 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.240 his father's expectations or to be something as father is not. 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.520 It definitely fell in the first category. And so my 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:04.120 dad would always point out, like, look, I came to 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:06.360 this country with two hundred bucks, and he ultimately became 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:07.880 the president of the United Airlines and it was like 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:08.800 an incredible career. 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.560 And so your dad was president of the United Airlines. 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.760 He was as an immigrant who arrived essentially with a 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:16.400 handful of monops. 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.080 With working as a security guard at night at HBS, 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.320 and so you know, those were big shoes to fill. 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:23.080 And the thing that I always took away from him 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.679 was that, look, the thing that inspired him about building 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.720 big businesses and running them was not power. It was 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.240 not money, though the money is nice. It's the ability 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.800 to just help so many people he said, like his 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:35.920 heroes were always people that could provide a lot of jobs, 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.800 businessmen and businesswomen that can provide jobs. And so it 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.160 was that narrative that was always in my head and 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:42.920 the need to sort of live up to his big 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:44.480 expectations at something to business school. 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.840 Huh really really interesting? So what'd you study at Wharton? 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.120 And is any of that appleable to what you do now? 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.319 You know, thankfully there was no great disclosure at Wharton. 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:55.920 I can't tell you very much of what I don't 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:57.760 think any NBA can really tell you what they learned. 0:08:58.360 --> 0:08:59.760 But what I took away from it was an amazing 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.000 network in some signaling value to say, hey, maybe this 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.680 guy has half a brain for business, which I'm not 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:05.720 even sure is true today. 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.240 Really really interesting. So you have a quote I really like. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.920 You said you felt much closer to Governor Martin O'Malley 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.760 than he felt towards me. Isn't that true? How it 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:24.760 is in all campaigns everybody is looking and sponsoring and 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:29.360 loving the candidate, but they have to distribuliviate their affection 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:31.320 to millions of supporters. 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.240 Yeah, you know, there's there's a right and wrong reason 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.800 to get involved in politics. One of the wrong reasons 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:38.240 I think that a lot of people end up doing 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:40.520 is that it's a pathway to being closer to power. 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.000 And I observed it, you know, probably succumbed to some 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:46.960 of it myself. But it's the wrong reason to be 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.319 doing the work. And so I was, you know, kind 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.480 of making fun of myself for that, but yeah, you're right. 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:53.400 You know, these campaigns, you end up liking a lot 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:54.800 of hours with these folks. You know, I was. I 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:56.720 was Obama's call time manager and fundraiser. 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.000 You're again, you're anticipating my next question. How much time 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.080 time did you spend with Obama? And did you not 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.520 feel the love reciprocated or because he seems to be 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.920 kind of an unusual guy in politics. 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.560 A little more removed, a little more ascetic and monkish. 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:15.280 You know, yeah, I think he tried to fire me 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.560 a few times for being too aggressive in fundraising from 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:18.000 his friends. 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.080 But oh really, I'll just say, you know, wait, you were, 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:25.199 you were? Obama said, Hey, that dutt a guy. Can 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:25.839 we lose him? 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.720 This guy at least at least twice. Though, My favorite 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.120 moment was in the Dungeons of two thousand and seven 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:33.920 when you know, doldrums of two thousand and seven. We 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.400 were forty points down to Hillary Clinton and I was 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.400 still producing multimillion dollar fund raising outcomes for him. And 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:41.959 so one time we dropped him off at the you know, 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.120 he'd start event saying, who do I have to apologize 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:45.840 to in here for you, Shamik, and I'd be like 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:47.840 that guy, that guy, that guy. So we dropped him 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:49.760 back at his apartment and he doubled back to the 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.160 car and he said, Shimik, keep doing what you're doing. 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.200 I'll keep apologizing. It's worth it. And it was like 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:55.480 the highlight of my career. 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:57.400 Is that your Obama is that as good as a guest? 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:02.240 WHOA how are you? I can't help but notice that 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:07.960 President Obama was probably the first president to take a 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:12.080 very strong stance on climate change. How much of your 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:16.760 work with the Obama campaign inspired you to start investing 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:17.320 in the space. 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:22.280 I think the experience from the Obama world was that everybody, 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.400 you know, there's this big, great Bill Gates line, that 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.400 everybody underestimates what they can do in ten years and 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.800 overestimates what they can do in one year, and taking 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.880 a long term path to doing something really big and 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.640 grinding on it for a long time can produce extraordinary outcomes. 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.960 You know, the president was the architect of the Paris Accords, 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.960 which is the framework that the IPCC now uses to 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.319 ensure that the world is driving to a net zero future, 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.080 and so there is a you know, the sparkle I 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.319 take away from the Obama days was a challenge from him, 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.400 which is that we should do big things, and if 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.679 you focus and execute every day for a long period 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.520 of time, most people probably underestimate what they can accomplish. 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.880 So we just kind of wrapped up the Climate Accords. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.920 Surprisingly in the Middle East, sponsored by a big oil 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.360 producing nation. How do you look at those events? Are 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.640 these just photo ops or does something substantial come out 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:12.400 of them? 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.920 I think there was a great deal of heart palpitation 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.640 about this COP in part because, as you correctly note, 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.120 the head of the largest oil and gas company in 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.600 Abu Dhabi was the same man in charge of the COP. 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.120 And yet all one hundred and eighty countries left with 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:33.240 a firm commitment to decarbonize and to transition away from 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:40.720 fossil fuels and oil and gas, with an emphatic agreement 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.280 around that big daring idea that's the first time this 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.200 has ever come out of a cop and I think 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:49.280 the US government's leadership in this, particularly on methane, is 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.280 going to start reverberating through the market in a really 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:51.920 positive way. 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.040 So I've been reading a bunch of stuff on mething lately. 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.960 Not only is it a notorious noxious waste that contribute 0:12:59.960 --> 0:13:03.240 to the greenhouse effect and all sorts of other issues. 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:07.200 We just burn off tons of it in flares. Another thing. 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.400 Not too long ago, Sixty Minutes had a episode where 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:16.920 they showed a company was essentially capturing that flare, using 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:21.720 it to generate electrical power and running data service centers 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.040 right there on the oil field. 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.280 Called Crusoe Energy. I'm actually an investor in that company. 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:27.400 Tell us a little bit about that. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.319 That's quite fascinating, you know, the two the twin problems. 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.000 We're going to realize in the near future that we'll 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.400 have these stranded energy assets that are often leaking methane. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:39.920 We have oil and gas wells that have sustained casing 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.840 pressure that are bubbling methane. We need to seal those 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.360 wells permanently or make use of the methane because the 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.040 methane has a great deal of economic value. The second 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:50.520 challenge we have is that our next generation compute is 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.760 going to be incredibly electricity intensive, far more than what 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:56.880 we experienced today, and so data centers are going to 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.760 become opex pain points for a lot of companies. And 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.920 what CRUSO wants to do is resolve those two challenges. 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.600 Take strained energy assets, utilize that energy creatively, and also 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.559 ensure that we can decarbonize data centers, which are increasingly 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.280 a large pain point in emissions. There's another company to 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.160 mention we invested in recently called bio Squeeze, which has 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.320 invented a new way of permanently sealing oil and gas wells. 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.320 Some of these operators, like Halliburton, are spending millions of 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.680 dollars sealing and resealing oil and gas wells with no success. 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.240 And so these guys have invented a biomineralization technology that 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:30.960 is stronger than cement, that can shoot into these wells 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.280 and permanently seal them, which may one day even replace 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:36.720 cement in all infrastructure one day, is what we hope. 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:39.160 There's some exciting things happening around methane. 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:43.360 So this year's cop Conference of Parties about Climate change 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:48.200 ends up with governments making a number of commitments and 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:52.200 a lot of nonprofits joining in in those commitments to 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.960 get towards a carbon neutral But it kind of raises 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.000 the question is that as effective as what you do 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.800 in entire terms of venture capital and startups that are 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:10.280 looking to in the private sector combat climate change for profit. 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.680 It's all required. Every single aspect of society will be 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.760 impacted by climate change, and so every single aspect of 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.480 society has something to contribute, and every asset class of capital, 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.760 from private equity to growth to debt, will have to 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.600 play a role. The reason governments are so centrally important 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.520 is that it's not enough for us to look at 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.240 business pain points caused by climate of which there are many, 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:39.640 by the way, supply chain disruption, extreme weather events. But 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.120 you also need to start creating sticks at the same 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.640 time to push fossil fuels off a cliff. And so 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.440 I'm encouraged by the fact, for example, that internal combustion 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:49.840 engine vehicles will be banned all together in the state 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.240 of California in ten years. Similarly, France has banned all 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.200 internal combustion flights within its own borders in the next 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:58.960 ten years, and so these sticks are also important to 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.800 intersect with the care that help new technologies mature fast 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.680 enough to replace them, and there will be a fundamental 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:07.920 rewiring of the economy that takes place as a result. 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.440 When you think of every single aspect of industry, steel making, 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.920 fertilizer that you know, ten trillion dollars of ebidel will 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.120 be at stake in this turnover, and so there's an 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.440 enormous prize for those that can innovate quickly and help decarbonize. 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:24.680 You mentioned the company that seals up well heads. Bloomberg 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.440 had an article not too long ago about what a 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:33.280 massive carbon footprint concrete manufacturing has. Tell us a little 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:38.120 bit about that technology that theoretically you might replace concrete 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:38.680 in the future. 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.120 You know, one of the central insights here is that 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:46.640 industrial heat is the key input to manufacturing just about anything. 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.720 If you think about steel making from iron, if you 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.320 think about concrete, if you think about a lot of 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.840 food and ethanol methanol production, all of it requires in 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.520 the United States alone, one hundred and forty billion dollars 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:01.920 worth of industrial heat, almost all of which comes from 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.200 natural gas or coal. And to get really high temperatures 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.119 from that heat, is sometimes difficult, and so there are 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.879 breakthrough technologies. We're excited about one called Antra in particular, 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.160 financed by Bill Gates and Chris Sokka and by Overture, 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.480 and these three Stanford PhDs have figured out a way 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.480 to take grid connected renewable electricity and produce industrial heat 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.560 above eighteen hundred degrees celsius. And when you think about 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.399 the hardest to decarbonize industries, you know, about ninety five 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.719 percent of all industrial manufacturing can be decarbonized with that 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.680 kind of heat. And what's amazing about this company is 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.920 they're not going you know, it's called the mister Burns test. 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.720 I can go to a conglomerate who does not care 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.359 a lick about climate change and convince them that I 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:47.240 can save them opex with this decarbonized solution. It has 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:49.360 nothing to do with climate change in their minds, and. 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.040 They just still want investment of money saving opportunity for 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:53.359 companies in the space. 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.400 So the coke industries is behind this company has taken 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.480 them to a lot of their conglomerates and it's a 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.560 really exciting technology because it is just beating natural gas 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:03.800 at its own game. And that is you know, a 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.200 theory of change for us is that if you can 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.840 beat natural gas at its own game and save conglomerates 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.639 and big businesses money, they will adopt your technologies. It 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.639 becomes more challenging when you're bringing them green premiums and 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:16.840 things that are a little more expensive. 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.040 So correct my ignorance, if you will. I look at 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:25.240 natural gas as a transitional energy source from oil and 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:30.760 coal to ultimately renewables. Tell me where that thesis is wrong. 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.639 It was correct. It was absolutely a better source of 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.560 fuel than coal, which you know produces black suit and 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:39.080 all kinds of problems and diesel. 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:43.080 Now the what about clean coal? The case face. 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.520 The key is to now transition from natural gas. You know, 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:49.200 natural gas is a is a nice word for methane. 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.560 It's primarily methane, and methane is about eighty times more 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.840 warming than carbon dioxide. And so if carbon dioxide is 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.080 one blanket thick to keep the earth warm, you can 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.440 think of Lebron James height blanket to trap the molecule 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:04.760 traps far more heat and doesn't allow our sunlight to 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.760 radiate back to outer space as it should. And so 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:12.600 the key now is that renewables have this extensive runway 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.000 since we thought of natural gas as a bridge fuel, 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:20.760 And candidly, the lowest costs of energy today are solar 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.359 and wind, and so businesses can make rational decisions to 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.639 adopt them. And the key is to now sort of 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.159 transition us off this sticky drug that we've been addicted 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:30.880 to for some time. 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:35.200 That wasn't true a couple of years ago. Renewable energies 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:40.960 like solar and wind were pricier than natural gas and oil. Today, 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:46.440 the price of solar and wind just keeps falling and falling. 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.800 Is it accurate to say on a per kilowatt basis 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.680 they are now cheaper than carbon based fuel. 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.199 They are absolutely the cheapest forms of electricity available in 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.160 most places in the world today. A staggering statistic. The 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.399 capex of a new solar plant is today cheaper than 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.480 the opex the annual opex of a coal plant real 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:10.520 and so these things, you know, the human mind is 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:15.399 some sometimes bad at tracking exponential change. The logarithmic drop 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.720 in solar and wind prices continually surprises even the most 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.800 bullish analysts. And I think the same is now coming 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:25.120 true for lithium ion and a lot of these other 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:29.280 technologies and so we are dropping down these logarithmic cost curves. 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.000 And what's interesting is I think there's a geopolitical reality 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:35.879 today in a global contest for power with China, the 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.560 countries that are able to have the lowest cost of 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.520 plentiful energy that does not require any kind of foreign inputs, 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.080 that has a domestic supply chain underneath it, that can 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.639 produce that energy on their own, that will be one 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.560 of the key key drivers to global heged demonic success 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:54.040 in this new world, coupled with next generation compute that's 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.040 also within our own supply chain. And so the last 0:20:57.040 --> 0:20:59.919 time we saw a great power struggle like this was 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:05.240 in the semiconductor boom, where where Faild, Fairchild, semiconductors, Intel 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:09.159 Texas instruments were built. Those were not like the bits 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.879 that are traded in software today. Those were atoms. It 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.240 was hardware investing that governments were deeply involved in. So 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.440 the fifty percent of the revenue of Fairchild in the 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.719 early days came from the Pentagon. Similarly, TSMC when it 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.720 was built, fifty percent of that CAPEX was handled by Taiwan, 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:27.400 And when Samsung went into semiconductors, the same proof true 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:29.359 of the South Korean government. The same is going to 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.480 be true of climate investing today. A lot of the 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:35.080 innovative hardware must be built today and that will require 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:41.120 intense government involvement. And that's why overtures thesis is that 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.520 investors that deeply understand and can navigate government and regulatory 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.800 complexity can actually produce alpha for their investors. Because it's 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:49.880 a bit like in World War Two, if you knew 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:51.800 what the US government needed, if they were going to 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:55.359 need to pay betting manufacturers to make parachutes, you know, 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.199 that's an important insight to be able to drive the 0:21:58.200 --> 0:21:59.200 best investments through. 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:03.360 Really really very interesting. So let's talk a little bit 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:08.000 about what you look for in a climate investment. Is 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.560 this about looking for companies that are going to be 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:14.679 casual and positive right away or are you willing to 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.320 be a little more long term in your thinking? 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:20.640 Venture capital is an incredibly patient game, right on average 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:23.480 ten to twelve year positions you're taking, as we saw 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:25.760 with Union Score Ventures is first fund. I think it 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:28.600 took them almost sixteen years from start to finish. 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.080 So it's an incredibly that worked out pretty well, didn't. 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.359 Worked out great. It's an incredibly patient, deeply liquid game. 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:37.199 But you know, to radically oversimplify what we look for. 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:41.320 We're looking for visionary, unbelievable founders. Founders are the soul 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:46.080 of startups, and we're looking for unbelievable founders with deep 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:51.760 expertise in what they're building, coupled with differentiated technology that 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.119 can help unlock gigantic markets. And so to give you 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:58.600 a couple of examples, we're investors in a company called Dextmat, 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:03.200 which has invented a carbon nanotube technology that is stronger 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:06.880 than steel, lighter than aluminum, and more conductive than copper. 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:09.640 Copper is going to be one of the most important 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:12.800 metals in all of electrification. Aluminum is in every aircraft 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:16.480 and every airplane, a lot of phone poles and wires, 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:21.159 and steel is steel. This technology might fully decarbonize in 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:25.119 a carbon negative way a metal that is stronger, more conductive, 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:29.040 and lighter. And so those are our moonshot examples of 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:31.159 what we're looking for, and that require a lot of 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:34.119 technological and go to market innovation to be successful. But 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:36.800 if they are, I think there are trillion dollar rewards 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:37.520 on the other side. 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:42.160 So you're looking to replace the skin of aircraft, perhaps 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:47.640 the body of automobiles, the wires on interstate or local 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:54.440 electronic transmission, electricity transmission, and even things like telephone wires 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:58.240 and internet wires or is it am I overstating that 0:23:58.240 --> 0:23:58.640 that's right? 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:02.520 And the company today is, you know, the production of 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:06.960 their of their metal is so expensive that only ultra 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:12.520 advanced defense manufacturers and companies testing R and D can 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:14.880 afford it. The bet is that they can drive down 0:24:14.920 --> 0:24:17.520 the cost by one thousand, you know, one one thousandth 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:20.879 the cost over time and produce something that is just 0:24:21.040 --> 0:24:24.600 better than the industrial inputs that have very carbon intensive 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:27.239 emissions footprints, as we've mentioned before. And so if you're 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:30.119 an aircraft and can find something lighter than aluminium that 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:33.800 can help your aircraft travel farther, that's a money saver 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:34.480 for the company. 0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:38.359 And so those does material science have the equivalent of 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:39.240 a Moore's law. 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:44.240 It does, And interestingly a lot of the materials today 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:48.959 are reaching that high point. Right at some point, semiconductors 0:24:49.040 --> 0:24:51.879 are reaching the theoretical limits of how many transistors you can 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:54.920 wedge in. And so that's why innovating with ferro electric 0:24:55.040 --> 0:24:58.520 materials and using AI to be able to optimize all 0:24:58.560 --> 0:25:00.880 of the dizzing different kind of material combinations we can 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:03.320 consider is what we need to do for this next 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:06.400 layer of industrial revolution. So when you consider just the 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:10.960 ten trillion in ebidah, start considering every manufacturing process today 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:14.160 as we do it, every food production process, the way 0:25:14.200 --> 0:25:17.280 we move ourselves with transportation, the way we grow food 0:25:17.280 --> 0:25:20.000 in agriculture, all of this is going to have to 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:22.639 reorient in about fifty years. If you believe the science 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:27.000 and old conglomerates, large scale conglomerates aren't usually not the 0:25:27.000 --> 0:25:30.040 places that drive innovation, and that's what makes venture such 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:32.480 an interesting catalytic. A SI class to me in climate. 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:34.879 I am not doing this out of the goodness of 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:37.119 my heart. I candidly kind of missed the Internet. I 0:25:37.160 --> 0:25:39.439 was so involved in politics. And if you consider some 0:25:39.480 --> 0:25:44.640 of the megacycles software eating the world, China opening up 0:25:44.920 --> 0:25:47.200 ultra low cost interest rates, I think this is another 0:25:47.560 --> 0:25:50.200 megacycle coming and I don't want to miss it. And 0:25:50.520 --> 0:25:52.960 like all megacycles, being early is the same as being wrong. 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:55.680 And so a lot of our job is timing our 0:25:55.720 --> 0:25:59.000 bets to make sure where can technoeconomics just beat fossil 0:25:59.000 --> 0:26:01.200 fuels invest behind that right now? 0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:04.919 So let's talk about some of those different spaces. I 0:26:04.960 --> 0:26:07.240 want to throw out some broad topics. You tell me 0:26:07.800 --> 0:26:10.680 what you think about those and what sort of investments 0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:14.160 you would be looking at or have already made in those. 0:26:14.840 --> 0:26:18.679 And let's start with carbon capture. You know, some people 0:26:18.680 --> 0:26:22.840 have said we can solve climate change by just taking 0:26:22.880 --> 0:26:26.679 all this excess carbon that's in the air. What do 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:28.320 you think about carbon capture? 0:26:28.880 --> 0:26:32.640 I think if you believe the science, the IPCC has 0:26:32.680 --> 0:26:36.760 stated we're going to need to remove ten billion tons 0:26:36.880 --> 0:26:40.439 of carbon every year by the year twenty fifty. And 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:41.919 if you look at what we did last year, we 0:26:41.920 --> 0:26:44.440 did about six thousand tons. So there's a two million 0:26:44.600 --> 0:26:46.879 x scale up that has to happen, or a seventy 0:26:46.880 --> 0:26:49.360 four percent cager, which is twice the growth of software. 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:52.359 So there's an enormous undertaking. The question for us is 0:26:52.960 --> 0:26:56.640 what is the lowest cost, most scalable, more most efficient 0:26:56.760 --> 0:27:00.320 version of this. Direct air capture today still pencils around 0:27:00.359 --> 0:27:04.800 sixteen hundred dollars per ton, enormously electricity intensive. We have 0:27:04.920 --> 0:27:07.760 drifted a little bit more towards two categories. The first 0:27:07.800 --> 0:27:10.440 is enhanced rock weathering. We're investors in a company called 0:27:10.520 --> 0:27:14.719 ion that has pulverized a certain silicate rock called olivine 0:27:14.920 --> 0:27:18.800 that can help basically grow more crops for farmers. They're 0:27:18.920 --> 0:27:21.879 very familiar with it. It's basically a form of fertilizer, 0:27:22.040 --> 0:27:25.240 while it also sucks carbon out of the atmosphere permanently. 0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:28.240 Very excited about technologies like that. We're also investors in 0:27:28.280 --> 0:27:31.640 a company called Climate Robotics that is similarly taking agricultural 0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:34.480 waste and pyalizing it, basically cooking it in an oxygen 0:27:34.520 --> 0:27:37.800 free environment and producing something called biochar, which is an 0:27:37.880 --> 0:27:42.080 excellent soil amendment. It helps crops grow more, Farmers crave biochar, 0:27:42.359 --> 0:27:45.280 but it also sequesters carbon for at least a thousand 0:27:45.320 --> 0:27:47.240 years according to a new white paper. And so we're 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:49.440 really excited about companies and technologies like this. 0:27:49.640 --> 0:27:53.040 Huh, really interesting. What about just straight up energy production? 0:27:53.600 --> 0:27:59.600 It seems like it's been mostly incremental improvements in the 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:05.000 cost of solar and winds, but not so much the productivity. 0:28:04.760 --> 0:28:09.360 They've also been very very gradual. Do we need an 0:28:09.520 --> 0:28:14.239 order of magnitude improvement in the production of energy or 0:28:14.320 --> 0:28:16.280 is it just something we're going to grind away at 0:28:16.320 --> 0:28:17.600 for decades at a time. 0:28:17.800 --> 0:28:21.000 We need a paradigm shift and energy production. You know, 0:28:21.040 --> 0:28:23.600 if you're gonna electrify everything, think for a moment about 0:28:24.040 --> 0:28:28.040 electrifying every form of vehicle transportation. You're not gonna have 0:28:28.080 --> 0:28:30.159 gas stations anymore. You're gonna have to charge them. And 0:28:30.200 --> 0:28:32.680 so that estimates are that the United States is gonna 0:28:32.720 --> 0:28:35.960 have to triple its energy product, its electricity production, and 0:28:36.080 --> 0:28:39.680 its borders alone over the next fifteen to twenty five years. 0:28:39.680 --> 0:28:42.640 An enormous undertaking. Right this we're talking about trillion dollar 0:28:43.120 --> 0:28:46.480 capex required to be able to reinvent the grid. And 0:28:46.600 --> 0:28:48.520 at the heart of this is where can you dry 0:28:49.160 --> 0:28:51.920 drive the lowest cost electricity and have it to be 0:28:52.040 --> 0:28:55.840 available plentifully and infirm power twenty four to seven and 0:28:55.920 --> 0:28:58.400 so storage and I think batteries will be there. 0:28:58.400 --> 0:29:01.200 That's my next question is, you know, I don't believe 0:29:01.200 --> 0:29:04.600 lithium ee on is the end game in battery storage. 0:29:04.840 --> 0:29:07.520 They're just too big and too heavy and they have 0:29:07.600 --> 0:29:11.680 a fairly short life cycle. What's the next phase in 0:29:11.800 --> 0:29:14.480 batteries that are going to be lighter, are going to 0:29:14.600 --> 0:29:18.640 improve range, allow you to use smaller batteries, and aren't 0:29:18.720 --> 0:29:23.800 gonna start dying after a thousand full charges and discharges, 0:29:24.200 --> 0:29:26.560 but have a lifespan of ten thousand or one hundred 0:29:26.560 --> 0:29:27.400 thousand charges. 0:29:27.720 --> 0:29:30.680 You know, there are a lot of interesting things happening 0:29:30.760 --> 0:29:32.920 in fusion right now that we're tracking. We have not 0:29:32.960 --> 0:29:36.480 made an investment, but I think the rate of exponential 0:29:36.480 --> 0:29:39.840 improvement and possibility in fusion is coming much faster than 0:29:39.840 --> 0:29:40.760 people realize. 0:29:40.960 --> 0:29:43.440 And in the nuclear fusion like what drives the sun 0:29:43.520 --> 0:29:45.560 and stars at the universe. 0:29:45.640 --> 0:29:49.840 Correct, So commonwealth fusion companies like Avalanches, which are in 0:29:49.840 --> 0:29:53.080 the lower carbon portfolio, incredibly exciting. In the interim, there's 0:29:53.200 --> 0:29:56.400 interesting innovation for grid scale storage coming from companies like 0:29:56.440 --> 0:29:59.600 form Energy and hopefully and Torah in our portfolio is 0:29:59.600 --> 0:30:02.320 also going to to provide a huge storage buffer. And so, 0:30:02.360 --> 0:30:05.200 as you correctly note, lithium ion is ill suited for 0:30:05.280 --> 0:30:07.760 long duration storage, right for forty six hours, If you 0:30:07.760 --> 0:30:10.160 need to slam something quickly, it's perfect. And so we 0:30:10.200 --> 0:30:13.440 think lithium ion will continue to power most electric vehicles, 0:30:13.680 --> 0:30:17.440 electric aircraft, but for grid scale, long duration storage, you're 0:30:17.440 --> 0:30:19.680 going to require innovation, and that innovation is going to 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:22.240 have hundreds of billions of dollars of reward waiting. On 0:30:22.280 --> 0:30:22.959 the other side of it. 0:30:23.200 --> 0:30:27.200 You mentioned fusion. What about I keep reading about the 0:30:27.280 --> 0:30:32.040 smaller scale traditional fission nuclear plants. We haven't built a 0:30:32.080 --> 0:30:36.000 new nuclear plant in the United States for decades. That 0:30:36.240 --> 0:30:38.240 seems to be changing now there are a few small 0:30:38.280 --> 0:30:42.000 scale plants coming online. How do you look at nuclear? 0:30:42.440 --> 0:30:44.520 You know, I'm a bit of more of a skeptic. 0:30:44.600 --> 0:30:46.440 I think in the tech communities you get a lot 0:30:46.480 --> 0:30:48.120 of folks who roll their eyes and say, just build 0:30:48.200 --> 0:30:51.400 nuclear and you'll be fine. The cost overruns in nuclear 0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:54.760 have been astronomic, and in building the grid scale plants, 0:30:54.840 --> 0:30:58.240 everyone is different. Whereas the South Koreans are stamping out 0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:01.480 units and learning from them increasingly over time, we don't 0:31:01.520 --> 0:31:04.760 have those learnings here and so on average, a nuclear 0:31:04.760 --> 0:31:07.080 plant is taking twenty years to build. Way too, it 0:31:07.120 --> 0:31:09.880 is going three hundred percent over cost, and so I 0:31:09.920 --> 0:31:12.920 am excited about the miniaturized nuclear applications. We're going to 0:31:13.000 --> 0:31:15.520 need a lot of energy to do things like electrolyzed hydrogen, 0:31:15.880 --> 0:31:18.760 and that's going to be incredibly electricity intensive and potentially 0:31:18.800 --> 0:31:22.240 power direct air capture. So I think there's certain use 0:31:22.280 --> 0:31:24.360 cases there, But again to learn that, you have to 0:31:24.440 --> 0:31:27.320 modularize and build a factory method that allows you to 0:31:27.360 --> 0:31:30.120 iterate and improve on your production, not build these one 0:31:30.120 --> 0:31:32.520 off plants that are all looking different, all running out 0:31:32.560 --> 0:31:33.760 of money, all over cost. 0:31:33.960 --> 0:31:38.640 I remember about a decade ago the Great reactor hope 0:31:38.640 --> 0:31:42.800 with thorium kind of fell of the off the front pages. 0:31:43.160 --> 0:31:45.640 What's going on in that space? You know? 0:31:45.800 --> 0:31:47.920 I think a big challenge here is that there's real 0:31:48.040 --> 0:31:51.120 national security issues around building nuclear plants. And if you 0:31:51.120 --> 0:31:53.640 talk to the national security community, you know they're very 0:31:53.720 --> 0:31:56.600 worried about being able to take enriched uranium and build 0:31:56.640 --> 0:32:00.000 dirty bombs out of it. And so if you couple 0:32:00.520 --> 0:32:03.120 the amount of intense regulatory scrutiny out of the nuclear 0:32:02.800 --> 0:32:05.800 regulatory world, which is the most brutal place if you 0:32:05.840 --> 0:32:09.920 want to talk about regulatory risk, national con security considerations, 0:32:10.000 --> 0:32:13.080 costs over runs, time, and a lack of deep specialization 0:32:13.160 --> 0:32:16.160 in this country, I think candidly we're better off investing 0:32:16.200 --> 0:32:20.680 in wind water through hydroelectric power, solar and batteries. Those 0:32:20.720 --> 0:32:23.200 are scaled and ready to be deployed right now. And 0:32:23.280 --> 0:32:26.200 fusion already happens right We're already harnessing the energy of 0:32:26.200 --> 0:32:28.840 the sun in our solar panels. And so I am 0:32:29.040 --> 0:32:32.200 personally more bullish on that as a method of deployment. 0:32:32.600 --> 0:32:35.960 What do you think is the most exciting climate innovation 0:32:36.120 --> 0:32:38.320 that we'll see come out in twenty twenty four. 0:32:40.800 --> 0:32:44.040 I think a lot of the IRA incentives, the inflation 0:32:44.080 --> 0:32:47.480 reduction X incentives, have yet to be realized in the market. 0:32:47.720 --> 0:32:51.160 There's a provision in the IRA called forty five X, 0:32:51.680 --> 0:32:53.920 and what forty five X does is, for the first 0:32:53.960 --> 0:32:57.120 time since World War Two, pays OEMs to make things. 0:32:57.160 --> 0:32:59.280 So back to my betting analogy, if you are a 0:32:59.320 --> 0:33:02.240 betting manufacturer and the government wanted you to make parachutes, 0:33:02.480 --> 0:33:04.480 they would just pay you to make those parachutes before 0:33:04.480 --> 0:33:06.840 they even bought the parachute, and so you were going 0:33:06.920 --> 0:33:09.560 to see a staggering scale of deployment. We're investors in 0:33:09.600 --> 0:33:12.560 a company called Harbinger, which is an electric mid duty truck, 0:33:12.880 --> 0:33:15.400 one of the most important vehicles on the road the 0:33:15.440 --> 0:33:18.400 workhourses that drop off all of our e commerce delivery equipment. 0:33:18.760 --> 0:33:21.240 There is nobody building a good mid duty truck today. 0:33:21.480 --> 0:33:24.040 Harbinger is building a mid duty EV truck that is 0:33:24.080 --> 0:33:27.840 going to beat ice trucks at their own game. Before incentives, 0:33:28.280 --> 0:33:30.560 and when you factor in things like forty five x 0:33:30.840 --> 0:33:33.560 this company Harbinger could have negative cogs. And so when 0:33:33.560 --> 0:33:36.160 you think about what that means for the scale of deployment, 0:33:36.360 --> 0:33:39.280 I would say the big surprise is not a particular technology. 0:33:39.280 --> 0:33:40.880 It's just going to be the speed and scale of 0:33:40.920 --> 0:33:43.400 deployment is going to singd your eyebrows. It's going to 0:33:43.400 --> 0:33:45.760 be incredibly exciting. You know this. We're talking about a 0:33:45.800 --> 0:33:48.360 trillion dollar wall of money coming from the US government 0:33:48.360 --> 0:33:50.720 from the Infliction Reduction Act, the Chips Bill, and the 0:33:50.720 --> 0:33:53.680 Infrastructure Bill to scale the deployment of a lot of 0:33:53.680 --> 0:33:57.080 decarbonized technologies to remake the world as we've described it. 0:33:57.080 --> 0:33:58.719 And so that's what gets me really excited. 0:33:58.960 --> 0:34:01.640 Yeah, that sounds really really interesting. So one of the 0:34:01.680 --> 0:34:04.880 things I wanted to ask you about. You had referenced 0:34:05.280 --> 0:34:08.799 how in a lot of technologies the government is the 0:34:08.840 --> 0:34:14.879 big mover, and we could talk about everything from railroads 0:34:14.920 --> 0:34:19.200 and the telegraph to more recently semiconductors. The one thing 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:24.680 we didn't mention is how the government essentially has driven 0:34:24.719 --> 0:34:28.040 the creation of the Internet through everything they did with 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:34.600 DARPA and having a essentially hardened response to a nuclear 0:34:34.640 --> 0:34:41.320 attack is effectively where the Internet came from. 0:34:40.080 --> 0:34:43.600 You know, surprised to learn every single component of the 0:34:43.640 --> 0:34:47.280 iPhone from the touchscreen on down has an origination story 0:34:47.360 --> 0:34:48.840 from US government programs. 0:34:49.360 --> 0:34:50.719 I mean, if you look at what came out of 0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:53.720 the moon landings and NASA, it's everything from the microwave 0:34:53.760 --> 0:35:00.239 oven to arguably tang But I think we underestimate the 0:35:00.320 --> 0:35:04.479 impact of that private public partnership. Tell us a little 0:35:04.520 --> 0:35:06.319 bit about what you see in that space and what 0:35:06.320 --> 0:35:08.520 it's going to mean for climate transition. 0:35:08.640 --> 0:35:11.120 You know, I just watched Oppenheimer with my business partner 0:35:11.160 --> 0:35:12.319 to me, and I don't know if you've seen that. 0:35:12.600 --> 0:35:16.560 Oh fantastic sensational and it's such a terrific example of 0:35:16.719 --> 0:35:19.400 how the US government can do things so much faster 0:35:19.800 --> 0:35:22.400 when it puts its mind to it, and in emergencies, 0:35:22.440 --> 0:35:24.480 and I believe climate change will be an emergency that 0:35:24.560 --> 0:35:26.680 every will affect everybody, and we'll all have to spend 0:35:26.719 --> 0:35:30.239 the rest of our lives solving together. There is no 0:35:30.800 --> 0:35:34.120 entity large enough that can scale innovation quickly enough to 0:35:34.200 --> 0:35:36.120 hit these net zero targets, and that's what makes it 0:35:36.160 --> 0:35:38.800 such an important place. And you know, these national labs 0:35:38.800 --> 0:35:42.000 started their origin from the Manhattan Project and they gave 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:44.920 us fission right. Ultimately, our nuclear plants came out of 0:35:44.920 --> 0:35:47.520 the Manhattan Project, and it's a good example of what 0:35:47.640 --> 0:35:49.640 happens when you get a lot of buying and a 0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:52.279 lot of focus from government unlock things, which is what 0:35:52.520 --> 0:35:54.279 the period of time we're about to enter right now in. 0:35:54.280 --> 0:35:57.400 Clim So what other technologies do you find interesting? What 0:35:58.200 --> 0:35:59.960 types of companies are you looking at? 0:36:00.920 --> 0:36:03.440 So the heating and cooling of big buildings is a 0:36:03.440 --> 0:36:07.239 place of major focus. The built environment buildings are responsible 0:36:07.239 --> 0:36:07.840 for that. 0:36:07.560 --> 0:36:10.840 That doesn't sound sexy and exigning that sounds like it 0:36:10.880 --> 0:36:15.560 should be basic efficiency and blocking and tackling. But every 0:36:15.640 --> 0:36:17.759 large you know, you look in a city like New 0:36:17.840 --> 0:36:22.160 York or Chicago, it's an immense amount of energy consumption. 0:36:21.719 --> 0:36:25.600 An immense amount of fossil fuel energy, using natural gas, 0:36:25.640 --> 0:36:28.440 still using diesel, still using coal in some cases as 0:36:28.480 --> 0:36:31.560 parts of the world, and yet everybody's urbanizing, we're building 0:36:31.600 --> 0:36:34.920 bigger buildings, and it's becoming an opex headache in some cases. 0:36:34.920 --> 0:36:37.319 And so we're investors in a company called Bedrock that 0:36:37.360 --> 0:36:40.200 I'm excited to announce. This is a technology founded by 0:36:40.280 --> 0:36:42.880 Joscelyn Lai and her co founder Sylview, who is a 0:36:42.920 --> 0:36:45.239 chief scientist of Baker Hughes, and he's basically taken a 0:36:45.239 --> 0:36:48.680 lot of ultra advanced oil and gas rig technology and 0:36:49.120 --> 0:36:52.680 invented a miniaturized rig that can drill subsurface to the 0:36:52.680 --> 0:36:56.120 depth required to unlock heating and cooling for huge buildings. 0:36:56.400 --> 0:36:58.640 So CI am the largest asset owner America with a 0:36:58.640 --> 0:37:01.600 million square feet on her ownership invested in this technology. 0:37:01.880 --> 0:37:05.080 And this sounds like geothermal, It is geothermal heating and 0:37:05.120 --> 0:37:08.640 cooling which is previously inaccessible to big buildings because of 0:37:08.680 --> 0:37:11.480 the depth required to drill would meet a rig that 0:37:11.520 --> 0:37:15.080 can't operate in urban environments. And so the magic of 0:37:15.120 --> 0:37:17.440 this company is they can go to companies and say, look, 0:37:17.800 --> 0:37:20.799 I can beat your heating and cooling bills with a 0:37:20.840 --> 0:37:23.880 decarbonized solution that will save you money and op X 0:37:24.280 --> 0:37:26.279 and get you an unbelievable amount of credits from the 0:37:26.360 --> 0:37:28.839 US government. And so those are technologies we get really 0:37:28.840 --> 0:37:31.560 excited about. Built environment is forty percent of global emissions 0:37:31.600 --> 0:37:34.000 forty percent, So it is not a sexy sounding thing, 0:37:34.040 --> 0:37:35.920 but it's very important. If you want to think about 0:37:35.920 --> 0:37:38.239 some of the more interesting sort of risk on parts 0:37:38.239 --> 0:37:41.520 of our portfolio. There's an unbelievable company called Linean Labs 0:37:41.520 --> 0:37:44.880 we recently invested in alongside Union's coare Ventures and a 0:37:44.880 --> 0:37:49.200 bunch of other unbelievable funds. They're building sustainable aviation fuels. 0:37:49.440 --> 0:37:53.440 Sustainable aviation fuels can take industrial CO two waste and 0:37:53.520 --> 0:37:56.720 repurpose it and remake it using a Fisher trough process 0:37:56.719 --> 0:37:59.520 and a reverse water gas shifter to then produce sustainably 0:37:59.520 --> 0:38:01.960 aviation fuels. And we think this company can do it 0:38:02.040 --> 0:38:05.080 cheaper ultimately than what jet fuel a costs in the 0:38:05.080 --> 0:38:07.880 market over time. And so when you consider United Airlines, 0:38:07.920 --> 0:38:10.640 in these companies, all of which have made commitments to 0:38:10.719 --> 0:38:13.920 use half of their fuel mix for jet for sustainabiliation fuel, 0:38:14.200 --> 0:38:16.800 there's a software like scale up a thousand x increases 0:38:16.800 --> 0:38:18.640 we're gonna need to see in the coming years. And 0:38:18.680 --> 0:38:21.080 so that gets really exciting. If you can beat jet 0:38:21.080 --> 0:38:24.000 fuel at their own game and produce something cheaper, why 0:38:24.040 --> 0:38:25.839 wouldn't an airline want to use that? 0:38:25.920 --> 0:38:28.360 And so so it's funny funny you mentioned airlines. So 0:38:28.440 --> 0:38:34.759 when we look at ethanol, they're notoriously subject to they're 0:38:34.800 --> 0:38:38.640 they're not as stable as petroleum. If you put them 0:38:38.680 --> 0:38:42.759 in marine engines, especially in a salt water environment, there's 0:38:42.800 --> 0:38:45.120 a problem with with they tend to gunk up and 0:38:45.480 --> 0:38:49.960 they don't do well. And the tolerances in aviation fuel 0:38:50.480 --> 0:38:57.799 are even more stringent than maritime or or automotive. You 0:38:57.880 --> 0:39:00.880 can come up with some form of av fuel that 0:39:01.200 --> 0:39:05.880 is able to fit those demands, and that incredibly high 0:39:05.920 --> 0:39:08.280 requirements from the aviation industry. 0:39:08.680 --> 0:39:11.359 Yes, think of being able to drop something into their 0:39:11.400 --> 0:39:15.200 existing engines molecularly identical to jet fuel, a that happens 0:39:15.200 --> 0:39:18.160 to be entirely carbon neutral, something that is actually derived 0:39:18.200 --> 0:39:21.880 from captured CO two, either atmospherically or otherwise. And so 0:39:22.040 --> 0:39:24.359 this is what gets us excited, right. Hydrogen aircraft would 0:39:24.360 --> 0:39:26.680 require you to invent a new aircraft. I think about 0:39:26.680 --> 0:39:29.680 how long FAA approvals take. Electric aircraft will be great 0:39:29.680 --> 0:39:32.359 for short distances, but for long haul aircraft, we don't 0:39:32.400 --> 0:39:34.400 see a path given the weight and density of those 0:39:34.440 --> 0:39:37.160 lithium ion batteries that you mentioned. And so if you 0:39:37.239 --> 0:39:40.520 can provide the multi you know, hundreds of billions of 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:44.000 dollars of jet fuel that is consumed every year with 0:39:44.120 --> 0:39:47.480 something fully decarbonized, it's going to be a much attractive 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:49.880 and more easier path for airlines to adopt. 0:39:50.200 --> 0:39:53.920 So you would mentioned how complex the regulatory environment is 0:39:53.960 --> 0:39:59.400 for nuclear How much have the recent legislation the IRA, 0:39:59.600 --> 0:40:02.680 the same Doctor Acting Infrastructure Bill. How much has that 0:40:03.000 --> 0:40:06.360 allowed things to happen more quickly than they have in 0:40:06.400 --> 0:40:09.480 the past in terms of regulatory approval. 0:40:09.640 --> 0:40:13.920 It's hard to overstate how staggering and ambitious and exciting 0:40:13.920 --> 0:40:17.240 the Inflation Reduction Act is. This is the single most 0:40:17.840 --> 0:40:22.560 comprehensive and aggressive climate bill ever produced by any country anywhere. 0:40:23.120 --> 0:40:27.160 And what this is doing is allowing OEMs and asset 0:40:27.160 --> 0:40:30.880 owners to pull forward innovation because it is simply making 0:40:30.920 --> 0:40:34.560 these things cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives because of these 0:40:34.600 --> 0:40:38.000 eyewatering incentives. And so interestingly, I'll give you an example. 0:40:38.000 --> 0:40:40.360 We actually have a company and a software company called Crux, 0:40:40.600 --> 0:40:43.600 which is a marketplace for tax credits generated by the IRA. 0:40:44.000 --> 0:40:46.960 The ITC and PTC tax credits will be about eighty 0:40:47.040 --> 0:40:49.600 three billion dollars per year according to Credit Suites, which 0:40:49.680 --> 0:40:52.719 is about seventeen percent of total corporate tax liability. And 0:40:52.760 --> 0:40:55.239 so this will have to flow from the producers of 0:40:55.280 --> 0:40:59.040 those credits to big banks, family office places like where 0:40:59.080 --> 0:41:01.440 you work. That connecttion you monetize those credits and help 0:41:01.480 --> 0:41:04.600 their client. Your clients save money today on taxes, and 0:41:04.680 --> 0:41:07.680 so these software marketplaces will be really an interesting way 0:41:07.680 --> 0:41:11.720 of demonstrating how giant the IRA opportunity is today. 0:41:12.080 --> 0:41:17.080 So, what's the big obstacle that this form of investing faces. 0:41:17.160 --> 0:41:20.920 This has been pushed back to ESG and the concept 0:41:20.960 --> 0:41:26.160 of greenwashing. What you're really talking about is innovation on 0:41:26.239 --> 0:41:30.000 the level of basic science as a physics, chemical chemistry, 0:41:30.320 --> 0:41:34.879 material science. Tell us a little bit about what sort 0:41:34.920 --> 0:41:36.160 of skepticism you face. 0:41:36.920 --> 0:41:38.880 Well, for one, we can never bend the laws of 0:41:38.880 --> 0:41:41.839 physics or chemistry, and so we are taking engineering risk, 0:41:41.880 --> 0:41:44.400 but we don't take science risk as a fund. I 0:41:44.400 --> 0:41:48.240 think the two hardest things to bet on are sticks 0:41:48.239 --> 0:41:51.040 that come from the federal government that will actually, you know, 0:41:51.160 --> 0:41:54.120 put a price on carbon and ultimately ban a lot 0:41:54.120 --> 0:41:57.720 of fossil fuel alternatives. And second, higher interest rate environments 0:41:57.719 --> 0:42:00.920 are going to be enormously punishing for capital and teens transitions. 0:42:00.960 --> 0:42:04.560 And so I think the two obstacles we face today 0:42:04.920 --> 0:42:07.560 are thankfully not technology, right, A lot of the technology 0:42:07.560 --> 0:42:09.399 we need to do this transition is here. The two 0:42:09.440 --> 0:42:12.680 obstacles are one, what's the regulatory environment that will force 0:42:12.719 --> 0:42:15.520 fossil fuels off a cliff. And then two, how do 0:42:15.560 --> 0:42:17.759 we ensure that this isn't more expensive? Because if you 0:42:17.800 --> 0:42:20.440 go to working class Americans and a bunch of you know, 0:42:20.520 --> 0:42:25.080 a feat over educated coastal elites say take this electric vehicle, 0:42:25.080 --> 0:42:26.600 take this heat pump, it'll be better for you, and 0:42:26.640 --> 0:42:29.480 it ends up more expensive, that will break the Democratic 0:42:29.520 --> 0:42:32.839 Party apart. And so we need to really focus on 0:42:32.880 --> 0:42:34.279 how do we do this as what they call a 0:42:34.440 --> 0:42:37.160 just transition. How do you help you know, working class 0:42:37.160 --> 0:42:39.279 Americans actually save money on their bills, how do you 0:42:39.280 --> 0:42:42.560 produce give them something that is not just better but cheaper. 0:42:43.080 --> 0:42:45.920 The median you know, savings account in America right now 0:42:46.000 --> 0:42:48.600 is four hundred dollars of total savings. And so if 0:42:48.600 --> 0:42:50.239 you go to someone say I need ninety percent of 0:42:50.239 --> 0:42:52.600 that for a heat pump today, that's going to be 0:42:52.640 --> 0:42:53.120 a problem. 0:42:53.360 --> 0:42:58.600 What do you think of products like the Ford Lightning 0:42:59.120 --> 0:43:01.799 one point fifty, which I think the base price is 0:43:01.840 --> 0:43:05.640 something like forty thousand dollars that looks like a truck 0:43:05.680 --> 0:43:07.200 that could find it. Did it go up? 0:43:07.200 --> 0:43:09.160 It's fifty thousand dollars expensive. 0:43:09.400 --> 0:43:12.680 It started originally at forty, maybe it's fifty now, Like 0:43:12.719 --> 0:43:15.440 the cyber truck started at forty at sixty now, but 0:43:15.680 --> 0:43:18.960 the lightning seems to be sort of that looks like 0:43:19.040 --> 0:43:21.880 a regular truck, but you could power your house with it. 0:43:22.520 --> 0:43:26.040 Are these things going to be useful in our energy transition? 0:43:26.400 --> 0:43:27.960 You know? One of the tensions I have, just to 0:43:27.960 --> 0:43:32.080 speak plainly, is that Americans like to drive big things. 0:43:32.200 --> 0:43:35.400 But from a climate perspective, ultimately it is kind of 0:43:35.440 --> 0:43:37.839 a joke to say, like the EV hummer is good. 0:43:37.880 --> 0:43:39.920 You know, you're actually better off driving a used F 0:43:39.920 --> 0:43:43.399 one to fifty Ford Ranger than buying a new EV 0:43:43.520 --> 0:43:45.880 hummer because of the you know, carbon intensity of the 0:43:45.880 --> 0:43:50.120 manufacturing process. And so that's the thing we need to missauge. 0:43:50.160 --> 0:43:52.280 We do need to make this transition. You should probably 0:43:52.320 --> 0:43:56.360 surprise in the like customers, but buying giant heavy vehicles 0:43:56.360 --> 0:43:58.120 that are not traveling very far and don't need to 0:43:58.120 --> 0:44:01.360 be as giant and heavy is not the ideal outcome. 0:44:01.440 --> 0:44:04.120 Though probably this sort of consumer taste is here and 0:44:04.120 --> 0:44:04.960 we need to fulfill it. 0:44:05.000 --> 0:44:07.440 What we need to do is take like a nineteen 0:44:07.560 --> 0:44:11.320 eighties era portion nine to eleven and convert those. 0:44:11.120 --> 0:44:12.959 To who we're talking. Yeah, that can be my gift 0:44:12.960 --> 0:44:15.320 after doing this podcast if you wanted to tend that 0:44:15.400 --> 0:44:15.600 to me. 0:44:16.160 --> 0:44:19.040 So let me jump to my favorite questions. We'll only 0:44:19.080 --> 0:44:22.560 have you for a few minutes, starting with tell us 0:44:22.640 --> 0:44:25.800 you mentioned Oppenheimer. Tell us what you're watching or streaming, 0:44:26.000 --> 0:44:27.320 what's keeping you entertained. 0:44:28.160 --> 0:44:33.320 There's an unbelievable TV show about the French intelligence service 0:44:33.400 --> 0:44:36.439 called The Bureau that is a must watch and it's 0:44:36.440 --> 0:44:40.440 sort of the like what a US allied intelligence service? 0:44:40.480 --> 0:44:42.799 How they dealt with Syria, how they dealt with a rock, 0:44:42.840 --> 0:44:44.920 how do they dealt with the United States from their perspective? 0:44:45.480 --> 0:44:46.080 Must watch. 0:44:46.960 --> 0:44:49.600 I just finished The Bodyguard, which was very interesting, and 0:44:49.640 --> 0:44:52.680 it's the UK. And anytime you get to see how 0:44:52.719 --> 0:44:56.879 a different country, even the entertainment, how they portray their 0:44:58.120 --> 0:45:02.600 national security and police, it is always fascinating. Tell us 0:45:02.600 --> 0:45:05.360 about your mentors who helped shape your career. 0:45:05.880 --> 0:45:08.920 You know, my father, who is still the closest person 0:45:08.960 --> 0:45:11.480 to me in my life apart from my wife, was 0:45:11.520 --> 0:45:13.400 my earliest mentor and I couldn't be lucky to have 0:45:13.480 --> 0:45:15.719 had him. And he was the one that always challenged us. 0:45:16.040 --> 0:45:18.040 Let us said, you can do anything, but whatever you 0:45:18.120 --> 0:45:21.759 do be the best at you know, push yourself and 0:45:21.800 --> 0:45:23.520 do something big and help a lot of people. And 0:45:23.560 --> 0:45:25.799 so that is the sort of challenge that continues to 0:45:25.800 --> 0:45:28.120 push me today. I was also really lucky to work 0:45:28.160 --> 0:45:33.320 for Governor Martin O'Malley, really closely with President Obama and 0:45:33.680 --> 0:45:36.560 learn from them. And then guys like Julius Genakowski, who 0:45:36.600 --> 0:45:38.960 is the FCC chairman, who's a partner at Carlisle now 0:45:39.000 --> 0:45:41.520 an investor in overture, has been a long time mentor 0:45:41.560 --> 0:45:43.840 and friend to me. And I'm also mentored by my friends. 0:45:43.840 --> 0:45:46.360 You know, they say, to be happy, make friends that 0:45:46.360 --> 0:45:49.080 are less successful you to be successful, make friends more 0:45:49.080 --> 0:45:51.160 successful than you. And all of my friends are more 0:45:51.160 --> 0:45:52.919 successful than me. I learned from them all the time. 0:45:52.960 --> 0:45:55.319 And although you know what's like gorviy doll line, every 0:45:55.360 --> 0:45:57.200 time a friend succeeds, a small part of me dies, 0:45:57.640 --> 0:45:59.000 you might still feel a little bit of that. 0:45:59.000 --> 0:46:01.799 But such a terror terrible I mean, I'm familiar with 0:46:01.800 --> 0:46:05.600 the quote. It's such a terrible, terrible perspective. I had 0:46:05.640 --> 0:46:09.080 a buddy from grad school who was wildly successful, and 0:46:09.120 --> 0:46:12.239 people always ask me, doesn't it kill you how great 0:46:12.280 --> 0:46:12.919 Jeff is doing? 0:46:12.960 --> 0:46:13.920 I got a root for your friends. 0:46:14.840 --> 0:46:16.600 He's one of my favorite people in the world. No 0:46:16.600 --> 0:46:19.920 one deserves it more, and no one believed me, absolutely 0:46:20.120 --> 0:46:25.160 absolutely nobody. Nobody believed me. So tell us about some 0:46:25.200 --> 0:46:27.360 of your favorite books. What are you reading right now? 0:46:28.160 --> 0:46:30.719 Books to recommend to the listeners. The Ministry for the 0:46:30.760 --> 0:46:32.759 Future is the probably the best book on climate I've 0:46:32.760 --> 0:46:33.200 ever read. 0:46:33.239 --> 0:46:34.840 It's Ministry for the Future. 0:46:34.840 --> 0:46:37.440 Ministry for the Future. It's a climate dystopia of you know, 0:46:37.520 --> 0:46:41.120 the first chapter involves twenty million Indians dying in a 0:46:41.160 --> 0:46:43.400 heat wave and we are going to start seeing thermal 0:46:43.640 --> 0:46:45.680 temperatures around one hundred and fifty five degrees, which has 0:46:45.719 --> 0:46:48.680 got clocked in Tehran, and so imagine what happens to 0:46:48.760 --> 0:46:51.080 human life? How does human life flourish in those temperatures? 0:46:51.760 --> 0:46:54.480 And then every other chapter is a scientific sort of 0:46:54.520 --> 0:46:57.760 examination of the underlying sort of science transition. So Ministry 0:46:57.760 --> 0:47:02.280 for the Future is fantastic. Just read David Wallace Wells's 0:47:02.280 --> 0:47:07.000 book The Uninhabitable Earth, which is excellent. You'll need a 0:47:07.040 --> 0:47:08.600 shot of whiskey after reading it. 0:47:08.680 --> 0:47:11.560 Oh, really a little depressing, a little tough. 0:47:11.719 --> 0:47:13.239 But you know, he has this sort of line that 0:47:13.280 --> 0:47:14.560 our kids will look at us in the eye one 0:47:14.600 --> 0:47:16.799 day and say what were you thinking? Or were you 0:47:16.840 --> 0:47:18.560 even thinking at all? Which kind of haunts me. 0:47:19.480 --> 0:47:24.040 There is a fascinating book that was very early in 0:47:24.280 --> 0:47:28.680 energy investment called Windfall, and it's really fascinating because it 0:47:28.800 --> 0:47:33.840 goes to the various investment banks and funds and talks 0:47:33.920 --> 0:47:36.840 about whatever's hot's going to get hotter, whatever's what's going 0:47:36.920 --> 0:47:40.160 to get wetter? And here are all these companies and 0:47:40.280 --> 0:47:45.839 technologies that climate is almost secondary their for profit, and 0:47:45.920 --> 0:47:48.560 some of them have done exceedingly well. Really, really was 0:47:48.600 --> 0:47:51.280 a fascinating book. And now we're down to our last 0:47:51.280 --> 0:47:54.760 two questions. What sort of unless you have more books? 0:47:54.760 --> 0:47:58.120 Did I interrupt the book? Fly? All right? What sort 0:47:58.160 --> 0:48:00.880 of advice would you give to a recent college grad 0:48:01.400 --> 0:48:08.279 interested in a career in either climate change investing, venture investing, 0:48:08.680 --> 0:48:09.480 or politics. 0:48:11.480 --> 0:48:14.400 I think a startup is the equivalent of a campaign, 0:48:14.640 --> 0:48:19.520 which is incredibly flat, incredibly labor intensive, and so my 0:48:19.560 --> 0:48:21.480 advice to anyone that wants to get involved in politics 0:48:21.560 --> 0:48:23.520 or in climate is go work at a startup, or 0:48:23.520 --> 0:48:26.480 go work in a campaign, and just be the person 0:48:26.520 --> 0:48:28.719 they can turn to if you figure that out, if 0:48:28.719 --> 0:48:30.080 you can be a person that I can turn to, 0:48:30.200 --> 0:48:33.000 or any leader can turn to and know that they 0:48:33.040 --> 0:48:35.120 are going to handle that task. Well, you know, there's 0:48:35.160 --> 0:48:36.200 a really quick ramp. 0:48:36.080 --> 0:48:39.279 Rate for you. And our final question, what do you 0:48:39.280 --> 0:48:42.799 know about the world of venture investing today? You wish 0:48:42.800 --> 0:48:44.959 you knew ten twenty years ago when you were first 0:48:44.960 --> 0:48:46.160 getting started. 0:48:46.680 --> 0:48:48.279 That it would have been better to get started ten 0:48:48.360 --> 0:48:49.280 years ago than today. 0:48:50.160 --> 0:48:52.360 So that wasn't too early ten years ago. 0:48:52.239 --> 0:48:53.960 No, I think ten years ago it was still a 0:48:54.000 --> 0:48:56.680 little bit more of a cottage industry with ultra low 0:48:56.680 --> 0:48:59.960 cost interest rates and the zero interest rate environment allows 0:49:00.360 --> 0:49:05.240 folks to take rewarding bets that you know, delayed revenue 0:49:05.280 --> 0:49:08.400 recognition for ten years because it was a quick, effectively 0:49:08.440 --> 0:49:11.480 free and so that was a heyday. I wish I 0:49:11.520 --> 0:49:13.640 had been doing venture more consciously then. 0:49:14.000 --> 0:49:16.279 You know, it's funny I say the same thing about 0:49:16.360 --> 0:49:19.200 running an investment firm, because I see these firms have 0:49:19.320 --> 0:49:22.319 been around thirty forty years and it's like, God, if 0:49:22.360 --> 0:49:24.680 I would have started in you know, eighty two, we'd 0:49:24.719 --> 0:49:27.319 be a trillion dollars. I can't. I feel like I'm 0:49:27.400 --> 0:49:30.399 late to the party. I recognize the same thing with you, 0:49:30.760 --> 0:49:33.320 but it's never too you know, ten years ago was 0:49:33.400 --> 0:49:36.280 always the best time to do something, and the second 0:49:36.320 --> 0:49:37.200 best time is right now. 0:49:37.200 --> 0:49:39.760 There is a Chinese proverb the best time to plant 0:49:39.760 --> 0:49:41.520 a tree was one hundred years ago, but the second 0:49:41.560 --> 0:49:45.080 best time is today. Perfect. But I will say, you know, 0:49:45.520 --> 0:49:48.400 I do think in climate is one of these mega 0:49:48.480 --> 0:49:51.000 trends that is going that is just here and it 0:49:51.040 --> 0:49:54.320 doesn't you know, it is probably the easiest arbitrage investment 0:49:54.440 --> 0:49:57.440 I can imagine, which is to bet on scientists or 0:49:57.640 --> 0:50:00.480 you know, an opinions that editor at the wall Stree Journal. 0:50:00.800 --> 0:50:03.760 And so, you know, I just recommend to the listeners 0:50:03.800 --> 0:50:05.560 to really start paying attention to this. Once you start 0:50:05.600 --> 0:50:08.359 looking at it, the investment opportunity, the opportunity to make 0:50:08.440 --> 0:50:11.879 money is eyewatering. In addition to being able to sleep 0:50:11.920 --> 0:50:12.359 all night. 0:50:12.640 --> 0:50:15.880 That's great. We have been speaking with show Meek Dutta, 0:50:16.160 --> 0:50:20.359 co founder and managing partner at Overture Climate VC. If 0:50:20.400 --> 0:50:23.000 you enjoy this conversation, well, be sure and check out 0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:26.000 any of the previous five hundred or so we've done 0:50:26.120 --> 0:50:31.200 over the past nine years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, 0:50:31.560 --> 0:50:35.480 wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Sign up from my 0:50:35.600 --> 0:50:38.719 daily reading list at Ridhelts dot com. Follow me on 0:50:38.760 --> 0:50:41.560 Twitter or x or whatever you want to call it. 0:50:42.200 --> 0:50:45.160 Hopefully it's still around by the time this broadcast. At 0:50:45.239 --> 0:50:49.360 Ridholt's follow all of the Bloomberg Family of podcasts at 0:50:49.600 --> 0:50:52.319 podcast I would be remiss if I did not thank 0:50:52.360 --> 0:50:55.720 the crack team that helps me put these conversations together 0:50:55.920 --> 0:51:00.239 each week. My engineer this week is Kayleie Lapara uh 0:51:00.239 --> 0:51:02.680 A tick of Al Brown is our project manager. Sean 0:51:02.800 --> 0:51:06.480 Russo is my head of research. Anna Luke is my producer. 0:51:07.160 --> 0:51:11.120 I'm Barry Ritolts. You've been listening to Masters Business on 0:51:11.239 --> 0:51:12.760 Bloomberg Radio.