36 ways industry giants kill climate innovation
Nuclear SMR: historic deal. Personality assessment from Ray Dalio. Every bank is a climate bank. Destroy your company to save it. Are you being unreasonable? (#172)
Welcome to the Entrepreneurs for Impact (EFI) newsletter.
I write about climate tech startups and investment, personal optimization, and conscious leadership — with poor attempts at humor.
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Today’s topics:
500 MW PPA for small modular nuclear reactors.
36 ways industry giants kill innovation.
Podcast — Every bank should be a climate bank.
Destroy your company to save it.
Personality assessment from Ray Dalio and Adam Grant.
Are you being unreasonable?
1.
500 MW PPA for small modular nuclear reactors.
In case you live under a rock (like I do on all things pop culture), here’s the news:
Google signed the first corporate offtake agreement ever with a nuclear SMR provider, Kairos Power: The first reactor deployed by 2030. Additional reactors adding up to 500 MW by 2035.
Why do we care?
It’s 24-7 clean baseload power without the intermittency of solar or wind.
It’s a sign of hope for first-of-a-kind climate projects getting commercial traction.
So what?
To sign a bankable offtake agreement in climate tech, check out this report from my friends at CREO — An Introduction to Climate Offtake Agreements.
Pages 6-13 serve up the most delicious nuggets.
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2.
36 ways industry giants kill innovation.
Here’s the full list to motivate your inner David (you know, vs. Goliath).
Examples include:
“Create innovation theater by starting internal innovation programs with the existing staff and processes.
Confuse buyers and senior leadership by preannouncing products or products that never ship — vaporware.”
Why trust these lists?
They weren’t created by a novice armchair innovator. Instead, they come from Steve Blank — 9x tech entrepreneur and co-inventor of the Lean Startup movement.
So what?
Don’t dwell on the buzzkill above (i.e., the “whiney, no agency” approach).
Instead, focus on his “Innovators Survival Checklist” about 3/4 down the webpage.
Eyes wide open. Full responsibility. There is no try; only do. (Thanks, Yoda.)
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3.
Podcast — Every bank should be a climate bank.
My guest on a recent Entrepreneurs for Impact (EFI) podcast was Ravi Mikkelsen, Co-Founder & CEO of Atmos.
Atmos is a climate fintech company offering savings and checking accounts to help fund the clean energy transition.
Ravi is a 25-year veteran of the clean energy industry, a material science engineer, and a serial entrepreneur.
In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways.
Why the $6 trillion mandate means that every lender should be a climate lender
How they’ve crafted financial products to move tens of millions of dollars into clean energy installations
How he almost got diabetes from working too much on his business
What he means by "experience is what you get when you don't get what you want"
So what?
Listen to the episode and share your thoughts on my LinkedIn post.
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4.
Destroy your company to save it.
Merck, the multinational pharmaceutical company, has a $263B market capitalization.
But it still faces threats to its existence.
“Innovate or die,” as they say.
But innovating doesn’t result from leaders saying:
“Today, I want you to try super duper hard to think outside the box.”
Instead, Merck’s former CEO Kenneth Frazier suggested this:
“Think of ways to kill our company.”
After playing that role, he asked them to think of ways to save the company.
The result?
More innovative ideas.
Why?
Complacency prevents us from taking risks.
The fear of losing something is often greater than the value of gaining something new.
So what?
Instead of asking how you’ll win a contract, ask why your competitors will beat you. Don’t ask why you’ll raise the capital; instead, why another startup will get those dollars. Then, flip the script.
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5.
Personality assessment from Ray Dalio and Adam Grant.
As a refresher…
Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates, the world's biggest hedge fund firm, with $108B.
Adam Grant is a bestselling author and organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
Here’s their new personality assessment — https://principlesyou.com
Why take it?
To “understand deeply how you prefer to think, engage, and apply yourself across the 17 core dimensions of your personality.”
Why?
Because “90% of people live 90% of their lives on cruise control,” unaware of how and why they act.
Who said that?
Richard Rohr — Franciscan monk, author, and speaker known for his work on Christian mysticism. Check out his insightful book I read last week: “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.”
So what?
Duh. Click the link above and take the personality test.
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6.
Are you being unreasonable?
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw (Irish playwright, political activist, and quintessential old wise dude with a white beard and pipe)
So what?
Do you show your team how to be more unreasonable, visionary, and audacious than they thought possible?
That’s all, y’all.
Make it a great week because it’s usually a choice.
~ Chris
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P.P.S. If you’d like to join our private climate CEO peer group or receive executive coaching from me, visit our website: EFI (Entrepreneurs for Impact)