| So here's a simple framework for this: 1) Learn the things that are most likely to actually move the needle on climate change. There are a bunch of frameworks for thinking about this, but I think https://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/intro is pretty simple. Each wedge is a viable chunk of a huge path to mitigating climate change. 2) Search for companies that solve each of these problems individually. A company that sets out to solve "climate change" is unlikely to succeed in my view, but a company that sets out to make it easy to switch from coal plants to natural gas plants by bringing together the right financing and tech transfer might be easy. 3) Rank those places in terms of your likelihood in moving the needle for them. Nuclear power plant? Maybe they really could use an excellent software engineer, maybe they've already got a great set of people or it's not that important for their business. But maybe those same nuclear power plants desperately need an excellent quantitative person for their sales team, which is really what will move the needle for them. I'd also suggest sourcing the companies through some of the VCs that have had success having world transforming success. Despite not loving Peter Thiel's political leanings, Founders Fund has funded Space X, The Climate Corporation and Oculus that each have/had a real shot at knocking out a wedge by themselves. Some places have a great track record for backing ambitious moon shots. (Disclosure, I used to work for The Climate Corporation. I did go to work there because Peter Thiel talked about it in his Stanford Startups class though, so I think that counts as taking my own advice.) |