Schroepfer: Climate startups must offer cheaper or better products, not green premiums
Mike Schroepfer · Mike Schroepfer: Former Meta CTO on "Why The Best Leaders are Like Music Conductors" | E1158 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 29, 2024 · at 26:35
Mike Schroepfer, former Meta CTO and Founder & Partner at climate fund Gigascale Capital, outlines his core investment thesis on commercial traction in climate tech.
0:00 / 0:19exact quote · 19.2s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“When I invest, I'm like, I'm a capitalist. I'm like, your pitch to your customers is we are cheaper or we are better. And they're like, oh, by the way, we're good for the environment is like the little asterisks at the end. Because my thesis is like, most people are busy. Most enterprises are busy. You can't lead with the like, we're better for the environment, but we're more expensive or this or that.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Mike Schroepfer
Schroepfer: Cheap clean energy access is humanity's primary rate limiter
“Availability of cheap, clean energy is probably the biggest rate limiter to human progress right now.”
Schroepfer: Team organization trumps individual talent quality
“I think people way, way undervalue this sort of coordination and optimization. I've seen the difference between a well-organized team and a not well-organized team, and it, I think it often trumps the, like, quality of the individuals.”
Schroepfer: Meta's early AI lab built the skills that powered Llama
“We built an AI lab at Meta and it was kind of like, huh, this AI thing is going to be pretty big. Let's like start building the skill set. And that's why you see Meta doing Lama now and a bunch of other things, because they, we had all the people, we had all t…”
Schroepfer: Abundant clean energy is achievable within a decade
“I don't think in the next few years we will have, like, unlimited clean energy. I think in the next decade we have a really good shot at it.”
Schroepfer: Commercial nuclear fusion power will arrive in the 2030s
“I think we got a couple credible shots on goal on fusion. And I'm like, that shows up in the 20 thirties.”
Schroepfer: Self-driving cars will be ubiquitous in 10 to 15 years
“I think self-driving cars went through a huge boom, and then like, now everyone thinks they suck, and like, they kind of miss that they actually work now, and so like, I think in 1015 years, it's going to be like, whoa, you drive your car? That's weird. I thin…”