Schroepfer: Customers buy savings, making 'climate tech' a confusing category label
Mike Schroepfer · Catalyst Live at SF Climate Week · May 1, 2025 · at 14:15
Former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer discusses why climate companies must deliver direct functional or economic value to succeed rather than marketing environmental benefits.
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“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 that make their life better in the kitchen, you know, trash or peating water. I, you know, sell products to businesses that save the money, sell products to businesses that help them grow. Like those are businesses like, and they'd be tech, hard tech, or others. So I think that like adding the word climate on it actually confuses the equation because at the end of the day, somebody is paying you for this and they have to pay you for it. Because they really want it, because it saves them money, makes them lives easier, solves a problem for them. You can put whatever word you want in front of it, but it's a business. And so so I think that that is the thing that you just can't lose the threat on is that, that at the end of the day, you have to deliver that value. Otherwise people aren't gonna pay for it.”
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