#101: Food waste startup get $100M (delicious!)

5 bullets on climate tech, startups, productivity

Good morning, folks.

In today’s 3-minute read, we’ll cover these 5 juicy nuggets below — as satisfying as the silence on a snow top mountain. (Wait, what about the thoughts inside my head?)

Climate Startups & Investment

• #1 — 🎙️ $100M to Create Chemicals Using Light: Trevor Best, CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics

• #2 — 🎤 Impact Investing with $8 Billion Under Advisement: Nick Flores, Managing Director at Caprock

• #3 — 📣 $100M for food waste startup: Harry Tannenbaum, CEO of Mill

Productivity & Living the Good Life

• #4 — 🤔 Fact vs story. Which is it?

• #5 — 🍀 What caused your success: Luck or skill?

Onward and upward,

Chris

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#1 — 🎙️ $100M to create chemicals using light: Trevor Best, CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics

Syzygy Plasmonics is commercializing a deep-decarbonization platform dedicated to cleaning up the emissions-heavy chemical industry.

They use breakthrough technology pioneered in the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University to harness energy from light to power chemical reactions.

This new technology has the potential to partially or fully electrify the chemical industry, shifting it to renewable electricity, and cost-effectively reducing its carbon footprint.

⭐ In this podcast from Entrepreneurs for Impact, we talked about:

• How CEO Trevor Best raised over $100M to fund the company

• What photocatalysis means

• How a case of beer and rare astronomical phenomena were key in deciding the company name

• Their work in ammonia cracking, blue hydrogen, and dry reforming

• The projects they’re launching this year with multinational companies from Asia and the US

• The massive cost, energy, and carbon savings made possible through their technology

• What the children’s movie Frozen has taught him

• How his love of science fiction translates to lessons in startup leadership

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#2 — 🎤 Impact investing with $8 billion under advisement: Nick Flores, Managing Director at Caprock

⭐ In this podcast from Entrepreneurs for Impact, we talked about:

• Their work helping 299 families invest $8B across six asset classes with a rigorous approach to impact investing

• How they select fund managers to invest in

• His origins outside of the world of wealth and how that affects his investment outlook

• What impact intentionality means

• The misconception that impact investing means below-market returns

• What a theory of change is all about

• The biggest gaps in impact investment fund managers across asset classes

• Advice he would give his younger self

• His love of stoicism

• Tools he uses to speed up his typing

• Recommended books

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#3 — 📣 $100M for food waste startup: Harry Tannenbaum, CEO of Mill

Did you know this?

“Emissions of agriculture as a whole, about 25% of our emissions.

And then a bonkers thing is that we throw away about 40% of the food we grow.

Emissions for food waste are between eight to 10%, which when you look at it as a country, would be the third-largest country on the planet.

And actually households are the single largest slice there. I think the number is about 43% of the food waste that is produced comes from the residential sector, effectively us.”

Cody Simms at My Climate Journey recorded a great podcast with Mill’s CEO.

⭐ Fun fact — The previous company that Harry and his co-founder, Matt Rogers, led was Nest, the smart thermostat creator, which sold to Google in 2014 for $3.2B.

Food waste unicorn, here we come? 🦄

Also, interesting to note. They don’t lead with climate change as their selling point to mainstream households.

There's a lesson in here — We gotta meet customers where they are, not where we want them to be.

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#4 — 🤔 Fact vs story. Which is it?

Sometimes we remember facts — i.e., unarguable truths based on our five senses.

Other times we tell stories — i.e., our interpretation of facts, laden with emotion and judgment.

If we were watching a video, we might imagine the difference between the ultra-rational Spock from Star Trek (“fact”) vs. a valley girl accent (“story”).

Also, there are many possible stories — those that we could construct or that others could imagine.

As we fall in love with our own “story” about the “facts”, here’s a fun question:

How could the opposite of our own story be true?

Knowing the difference between “fact vs story” can get us off the drama treadmill and make clearer decisions.

Shout out to The Conscious Leadership Group for their work on this topic.

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#5 — 🍀 What caused your success: Luck or skill?

This question came up in my recent podcast with Sarah Richardson, co-founder and CEO of MicroByre. (Yet to be released. Stay tuned!)

And it’s a question that Guy Raz, host of the How I Built This podcast on NPR, asks his guests.

If you answer “skill” — You’re correct. But maybe not the most humble.

If you answer “luck” — You’re also correct. But perhaps too humble.

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That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week, because it’s usually a choice.

Cheers,

Chris

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P.S. Quote to ponder

“Can you love people and lead people without imposing your will?”

— Tao Te Ching

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Chris Wedding
Founder, Entrepreneurs for Impact

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