What I'm writing

Climate tech is fascinating.

Cutting-edge science. Saving hundreds of millions of lives. Trillion dollar markets. Unknown answers. Brilliant teams. Tons of patient capital. It's exciting!

Having said that, climate tech can be hard to get into.

Lots of startup people explore it, then give up and do something else. Honestly, it's hard to know where to get started.

Where are the real opportunities? Which technologies are viable? Do you need a chemistry PhD to have an impact? How does carbon capture work? Didn’t I hear something about fusion? Why did not-the-best science win in solar photovoltaics and batteries? What is a heat pump? Will lab grown meat work? What is a green premium? Are funds really divesting from fossil fuels? Why is the IPCC report 4,000 pages? What is an “IPCC”, anyway?

It’s questions like these that I’ve been aiming to learn. There are a lot of resources to learn about the big picture science and policy, and many great blogs that cover the day-to-day. But, there’s often context missing. Where is value being created? What is the history of the industry? Where is it going?

I recently left my job to explore climate tech. I’ve been early at three decacorn/unicorn startups (Clubhouse, Faire, Opendoor), and most recently was the VP of Operations at Clubhouse. I’ve spoken to hundreds of founders and VCs within climate tech in the past year and have learned a lot. My goal is to blog to solidify and share my thoughts as I’m exploring ideas.

Follow along if you want, and please reach out to dan@dashton.org if you have feedback or want to share your ideas. I'm always excited to meet new people in climate, or to talk to people looking to make the jump.

Onward!