Mike Schroepfer
Founding Partner, Gigascale Capital. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorexecutiveengineerfounder@schrep ↗LinkedIn ↗gigascale.com ↗Wikipedia ↗Instagram ↗
Mike Schroepfer is best known for serving as Chief Technology Officer at Meta Platforms from 2013 to 2022 after previously leading engineering at Mozilla. Today, he backs deep-tech climate solutions as the Founding Partner of Gigascale Capital and engages in scientific philanthropy through Additional Ventures.
2shows
2appearances
50statements
9resolved
5supported
0contradicted
56%fully supported
7said about them ↓ Everything Mike Schroepfer said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Schroepfer: Customers buy savings, making 'climate tech' a confusing category label
“I would actually say it even slightly stronger, which is we use this word climate tech like it's an actual good definition of a market segment. When we just talked about like, I sell products to consumers that save the money. I'll sell products to consumers th…”
Schroepfer: Well-funded tech companies will build massive power capacity globally
“Underhyped in the sense that I like Respectfully disagree with Nick, which is just look at NVIDIA's earning calls. Like people are buying those chips and powering them up. So, and I think companies are, I spent a lot of time being incredibly creative about fin…”
Schroepfer: Economically viable fusion will produce history's largest companies
“And so I think this is a very binary thing, that if we can actually hit unit economics that are competitive in fusion, It'll create the largest companies we've ever seen.”
Schroepfer: Nature-based carbon removal will hit sub-$100/ton surprisingly fast
“I think we will be shocked at how fast, low cost, particularly nature-based carbon removal systems, and when I say nature-based, I don't mean planting trees. I mean, enhanced rock weathering. I mean, ocean alkalinity enhancement. I mean, biochar. These are sys…”
Schroepfer: Consumer demand response is overhyped due to fragmentation and friction
“I'm gonna say consumer sort of demand response is overhyped. It's just, like, so damn hard to get consumers to sign up for these things, and it's such a fragmented Market that getting to reasonable scales is hard.”
Schroepfer: AI does not solve climate tech's manufacturing scale-up bottleneck
“AI for material science, great for discovering new materials. The manufacturing scale-up is usually the hard part. So great, I've got this new MOF. I've got to make a lot of it very cheaply. The AI doesn't really help me very much with that. Like, in theory, m…”
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: Climate startups must offer cheaper or better products, not green premiums
“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 peop…”
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…”
Schroepfer: Meta's Portal Failed Because Dedicated Video Chat Market Was Too Small
“We built this thing at medical or Facebook at the time called the portal. And it was a video chat device and it was amazing. It was basically center stage before you had it. You could stick it in the corner and video chat with your kids and it would follow you…”
Schroepfer: Geoengineering to lock current temperatures costs ~$10B annually
“About ten billion a year to, like, lock in current, current temperatures.”
Schroepfer: Wave Power Is Probably the Largest Untapped Energy Source
“Wave power is basically concentrated wind energy. And there's a tremendous amount of it out there, and we're harnessing very little of it. So it is probably the largest single untapped energy source on the planet.”
Schroepfer: Climate change is a $10 trillion economic problem
“As I learn more about climate, I'm like, this is a 10 trillion dollar problem.”
Schroepfer: When in doubt, execution speed beats good strategy
“I would say two things. I think generally speaking, when in doubt, I think speed, speed often beats sort of good strategy. I think if you kind of zigzag more quickly, you'll probably get there quicker than there. So I think, you know, when in doubt, go for spe…”
Schroepfer: Meta's 2013 thesis predicted computing moving to AR, VR, AI
“Our analysis was, no, it's gonna both be more integrated into my real world, you know, smart glasses and immersive in VR, and it's gonna be smarter. It's gonna be AI.”
Schroepfer: It is currently a bad time to start an EV company
“It, it's a crowded market. It's hard. It's a bad time to start a new electric car company.”
Schroepfer: China installed more solar in 2023 than total US capacity
“China last year installed more solar in 20, 23 than exists in the United States.”
Schroepfer: Commonwealth Fusion set world record for superconducting electromagnets
“And they set the world record for most powerful electromagnets using superconductors.”
Schroepfer: US National Ignition Facility achieved net energy gain in fusion
“We've done that. We know it works. It releases more energy out than we threw at it.”
Schroepfer: Climate crisis is fundamentally a humanitarian issue, not about the planet
“I think the climate crisis is fundamentally a humanitarian crisis. I think this is the thing that people get wrong. It's like, it's not about the planet. The planet will be fine. It's gonna outlive us. It's about how many people are suffering and are going to …”
The other half of the tape: Mike Schroepfer's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 7 times in 6 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Chris Sacca 3Harry Stebbings 2Ruchi Sanghvi 1Alex Schultz 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 7
2025 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Mike's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founding Partner, Gigascale Capital | 1 | 38 | 57% 4/7 | full record on 20VC → |
 CATALYSTLEDGER | Founding Partner, Gigascale Capital | 1 | 12 | 50% 1/2 | full record on Catalyst → |