Shara Ticku
Co-founder and CEO, C16 Biosciences · 1 appearance on the record.
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Shara Ticku is the co-founder and CEO of C16 Biosciences, a biotech company producing sustainable alternatives to palm oil using microbial fermentation. She previously worked at Goldman Sachs, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, and the United Nations.
23statements → 21claims → 15claims resolved → 80%fully supported → 4/5average certainty → 1.52/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →
12 supported 2 partly supported 1 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 4 not checkable as stated how the 21 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
3 predictions · 18 assertions · 2 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 21 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 15 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Shara argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Their most notable contradicted claim
Palm Oil Is in Half of All Supermarket Shelf Products
“It is in 50% of products on supermarket shelves, and like you said, every person touches it every day, including me, who tries not to, but it's ubiquitous, and it is in everything from soaps and shampoos
To lipstick and laundry detergent, to most of the foods …”
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Shara Ticku on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Shara Ticku said on How I Built This that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Major Consumer Brands Are Failing Their Sustainable Palm Oil Pledges
“The, some of the largest consumer products companies in the world had made these commitments, but every one of them was failing because there was no viable alternative.”
Palmless Launch Brought 100 Brands and Major CPG Companies Into C16's Pipeline
“We have, and one of the things that happened with this launch was we had about a hundred brands fill up our pipeline. So we currently have basically every major consumer packaged good company.”
C16 Biosciences Is Already Gross-Margin Positive in the Beauty Market
“In our first market, we're already gross margin positive, so in the beauty industry, we've got people willing to pay high prices for this, because they love the story, they love the innovation, and they love the product, and they'll pay high prices, and we hav…”
Indonesia and Malaysia Burn Rainforests for Palm Oil Plantations
“Our neighbors in Indonesia and Malaysia, essentially they're burning forest, they're clearing tropical rainforest to convert that land into oil palm plantations to make this vegetable oil called palm oil.”
The Palm Oil Market Will Continue to Grow Over the Next 30 Years
“It's efficient, it's productive, so we can make a lot of it, but the reason that it has grown so explosively and will continue to grow over the next 30 years really comes down to the performance of palm oil as compared to other vegetable oils.”
Palm Oil's Unique Fatty Acid Profile Cannot Be Replicated by Other Oils
“The fatty acid profile of palm oil is broader than any other vegetable oil, and it's unique because it's sort of half saturated and half unsaturated fats, and you just can't replicate that with any other fat and oil”
Tracing Palm Oil Supply Chains for Deforestation Is Nearly Impossible
“It's really hard to confirm that the palm oil in your product has been grown sustainably. And it just comes down to these very complicated supply chains, where if you were buying, you know, a bag of potato chips, it's nearly impossible to trace that palm oil a…”
Less Than 20% of Global Palm Oil Is Produced Sustainably
“Palm oil can absolutely be produced sustainably. Most of it is not. Less than 20% of it is, and it's really been capped at that amount, and it's really hard to have confidence if it has been produced sustainably.”
Why the Food Industry Is a Difficult First Market for Bio-Oils
“There's a long regulatory pipeline for getting your product approved for use in the food system or green, green-lighted to get in the food system. The customers in the food industry are highly risk-averse and slow, and the cost and the margin of products are q…”
The Global Vegetable Oil Market Will Near $1 Trillion by 2050
“The global vegetable oil industry is going to be almost a trillion dollars by twenty-fifty.”
C16's Palmless Oil Will Enter Food Products Within Two Years
“By the end of this year, we'll be in a handful of other personal care products, so think skin care and body care products, and other brands featuring Palmless as the sort of innovator, and within two years or so, we will be able to be in food products.”
Palm Oil Is in Half of All Supermarket Shelf Products
“It is in 50% of products on supermarket shelves, and like you said, every person touches it every day, including me, who tries not to, but it's ubiquitous, and it is in everything from soaps and shampoos
To lipstick and laundry detergent, to most of the foods …”
Slashing and Burning Peatland for Palm Oil Emits Billions of Tons of CO2
“And so to meet this growing demand, growers have been slashing and burning tropical rainforest, burning both the trees and the peatland, which is full of carbon that emits billions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions into the air, which is problem number one.”
The Global Palm Oil Industry Was Valued at $60 Billion in 2016
“It was a sixty billion dollar industry, palm oil alone, in 2016 when we met.”
Over 200 CPG Companies Pledged Against Conflict Palm Oil by 2016
“When we started looking at this problem, there were over 200 large consumer products companies, and there were nine countries which had made Public commitments to their stakeholders that they were going to stop using this conflict palm oil, which engaged in de…”
C16 Biosciences Relies on Naturally Oleaginous Yeast Rather Than Genetic Modification
“So instead of sort of finding the DNA responsible for producing oil in the oil palm tree and then importing that and genetically inserting it into a yeast, we actually found a yeast which could naturally make the oil that we wanted.”
C16 Biosciences Ferments and Extracts Bio-Palm Oil in Just Six Days
“Our process today, we can start a, we call it a production run, and in six days we can extract oil.”
C16 Biosciences Raised $4 Million Within Two Weeks of Y Combinator Demo Day
“We made enough oil, got up on stage for two minutes, held it up, and gave our pitch, and in about two weeks, we were able to raise four million dollars to get the company started.”
Palm Oil in Beauty and Home Care Is a $7 Billion Market
“And then when we looked at the beauty and personal care industry, and also the home care industry, it's still massive. It's a massive opportunity. It's Five to seven billion dollars for palm oil alone today.”
C16's Palmless Oil Sold Out in Three Hours With Zero Ad Spend
“That being said, we launched this product. We spent zero dollars advertising it, and it sold out in three hours, and it was a limited launch.”
Indonesia Produces 60% of the World's Palm Oil Supply
“They make 60% of the world's palm oil supply.”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Saving the f#$%ing rainforests with Shara Ticku of C16 Biosciences | Jun 15, 2023 | 24m |