Taking a small detour today from traditional Exchange topics — we’ll get to some IPO news later on — to talk briefly about climate, climate tech and pessimism.
Last week on the podcast, the Equity crew spent a bit of time digging into the planetwide impacts that our warming world will endure in the coming years — and the role that startups can play in combating climate change. There are some encouraging companies in the mix, including DroneSeed, which we all rather liked.
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Then again, who doesn’t like the idea of shooting seed pucks from drones to reseed forests? If you have ever taken part in a tree-planting day, using a drone instead of your hands sounds like a superbrilliant idea. I have done the work by hand and can’t really recommend it.
TechCrunch’s own Kirsten Korosec wrote a long and rather good dig into the climate tech space, which I recommend reading if you want to get a bit deeper on the subject.
All this is to say: Some startups are working on building companies that can profit while helping combat the rising tides, more frequent fires and more powerful storms that appear set to come our way in the coming decades. Which is to say that kids are going to have a tougher go of life than what you or I have enjoyed. Especially if you are older than I am.
It was in that particular mindset that I ran across a bit of commentary from former Y Combinator boss Sam Altman over the weekend that dug into the climate change issue from the lens of conversations with some younger folks.
Here’s the set of tweets:
There are a few threads in there worth tugging, but we’re focusing our attention on the youth-pessimism element for now.
Per Altman’s notes, smart college students are worried about climate change, which they view as both unstoppable and pressing. Per the OpenAI boss, college students are taking personal action — not having kids — over pushing for the sort of change that might arrest or reverse climate change. Structural change, I would say.
Altman’s thread makes me crumple up my face a little in annoyance. Not that he is wrong that optimism is something to be encouraged; rather, I am irked about where we find his locus of concern — that he’s worried about students over the folks who actually have the power to make changes to today’s economy and pollution landscape during these critical years.
College kids these days don’t have much economic power; they are often in debt and face a job market that isn’t famously lucrative for recent grads.
Students getting STEM degrees can do rather well if they have the correct credential set, but the companies mostly offering large comp packages aren’t working to combat climate change. Facebook famously pays well, perhaps in part to convince folks to hold their noses and sign an employment agreement at the company. But there aren’t a plethora of highly paid jobs that would allow college kids to take on their personal debts while also working to improve the world.
That’s because it’s not very good business today to tackle climate change. Consider the major industries in the world that are key contributors to climate change. And then consider the array of businesses that are on the other side of that coin. Looking to the kids of the world to gin up optimism and run straight into the maw of, say, the energy industry is a rather steep ask for kids who are probably sharing an apartment to lower their costs and worrying about their impending debt repayments.
I worry a lot more about the already rich and powerful maintaining their business operations to hang onto money and power than kids facing paltry starter salaries amid punishing housing costs.
Should we expect more from companies? I mean, yes? But we don’t. Because it’s almost poor form to ask a company to do something that won’t be accretive to its long-term earnings per share. More simply, too much bullshit that is bad for the planet gets shrugged off under the protective armor of preserving shareholder value.
There is a way forward, however, that could help square this particular circle: Lots more folks with lots of money putting that capital to work in climate tech startups, and especially those looking to hire younger folks who have the most to lose from climate change and the most to gain from tackling it.
But I don’t see that many climate-focused funds. Or that many startups raising piles of money to take on the problem.
I do see a lot of money going into startups that aren’t going to do a fucking thing for the planet, which is fine. But I figure it’s a good idea to keep our eyes and fingers directed at those who have power, who have money and are doing either nothing at all or not very much to really shake up the status quo.
Among the less powerful, smaller steps will be taken — limiting commercial flights, having fewer children. If we want to break the cycle of pessimism that I think Altman correctly observes, changing the driving forces of that pessimism would be a good place to start. So, rich fuckers of the planet, put that money and influence to work. And then complain that the kids aren’t all right.