Seth Bannon  👨‍🔬Ovjeren akaunt

Curious to hear your take @mattocko @posamentier @bznotes @jjacobs22 @leepnet @GianaAmador @TheCarbonSink @wdselke @rpmoss

This isn't "clean tech bust 2.0". THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT. Broader perspective, better tech, employees that care, niche of consumers willing to subsidize, and growing amount of aligned capital. Super hopeful and excited to help  push this movement forward @fiftyyears!

Fink says "There will be a significant reallocation of capital...As trillions of $$ shift to millennials over the next few decades, as they become CEOs & CIOs, as they become the policymakers & heads of state, they will further reshape the world’s approach to sustainability."

Finally, investor preferences have shifted since the clean tech bust days. When Larry Fink, the CEO of the world's largest money manager Blackrock, says climate needs to be at the center of investing strategies, you know preferences have shifted in a big way. He puts it well 

Consumer preferences have also shifted since the clean tech bust. Successful products need to appeal to the masses eventually (see our Mr Burns test below), but there's now a niche of consumers willing to pay more initially, before scale is achieved. https://twitter.com/sethbannon/status/1214215295969030148 …

Ask a CEO of a fast growing Silicon Valley startup "why are you not growing even faster?" & the #1 answer is "I just can't hire great people fast enough". Recruiting & retaining top talent is a huge competitive advantage, & sustainability / impact startups will win here.

Employee preferences are radically different vs the clean tech bust days. Millennials want to align their work with their values, so companies solving real problems (like the climate crisis) can out recruit those that aren't. Best & the brightest want to work on these things!

Similar dynamics may be at play in transportation, materials science, and maybe even nuclear! It's the "why is Instacart different than Webvan" question. Mobile penetration enabled Instacart; core tech advancements may enable climate tech solutions that failed previously.

More interesting (for us) is that biology is more of an engineering discipline than it was before. Due to tech like CRISPR, cheap sequencing, on demand DNA synthesis, directed evolution, etc, we can now build bio solutions that were only dreams during the clean tech bust!

There have also been infrastructural technology advancements that make more possible. The easiest to see: cloud infrastructure has made more climate issues (especially around more efficient energy use / distribution) addressable with pure software.

1st we've realized there are many good ways of attacking the climate crisis w/ tech. What was in the old days biofuels & renewable hardware is now: food tech, clean chemicals, transportation, renewable hardware & software, industrial decarbonization, etc  Broader definition!

There are 5 big changes since the old cleantech bust days: 1) broader definition of clean / climate tech 2) technical developments that make more things possible 3) employee preference changes 4) consumer preference changes 5) investor preference changes Why now is different

This was a super fun conversation. We talked climate tech, "the Mr Burns Test", how Silicon Valley culture may be realigning towards societal & environmental impact. And I got pretty vulnerable towards the end discussing some mistakes I made early in my career.https://twitter.com/fiftyyears/status/1224783892327976965 …

Venture capital at its best helps entrepreneurs form and fuel innovative new companies with big societal benefits that wouldn't otherwise exist. VC at it's worst is an extractive industry that rides on the backs of founders and grossly misallocates capital. Huge spectrum!