Fellow Climate Warriors,

Welcome to the very first Myers Minutes, or Matt’s caffeine-infused digital prose encapsulating his learnings from Climate Tech Cocktails podcast guests and/or brainstorms with semi-buzzed Happy HourS attendees.

OK, glad that intro’s over with and the last time I’ll refer to myself in the third person. Ready for my first crack at Myers Minutes? Here we go!

💪Government won’t solve the problem, YOU+ME will. While we need government to do everything it can to address the climate crisis, we can’t rely on Congress alone to solve the problem. Government should just support climate tech innovation and infrastructure writ large with as much money as it can muster, and then get out of the way.

💰Entrepreneurship and capitalism need to be embraced. People shouldn’t be shamed for wanting to get rich from helping solve the climate crisis. In fact, they should be encouraged. Who cares if climate tech valuations get bubbly? Sure, there will be lots of failures and money lost, but we’ll get many more “Teslas” on the other side. Look at the creative destruction from the internet bubble as an example. In other words, let’s not discourage climate tech wealth creation.

😎Young people are transitioning from traditional tech to climate tech. The high turnout for Climate Tech Cocktails Happy HourS has been shocking and interesting, interesting because there are so many new young people who have either gotten into or want to break into the climate tech space.

🤯Fusion is the holy grail. There will be a pre- and post-fusion world. Imagine a world after we push a button and produce clean, grid-scale energy from water. 👀 Looking at you, Communwealth Fusion Systems. HOWEVER, we’re 10+ years away from commercialization, if that, so let’s continue to bet big on technologies that work NOW, as well.

🧫Biology holds the key. Biology-based climate solutions are going to blow our minds over the coming years. Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are just the tip of the iceberg. Want to keep tabs on early-stage innovation in the space? Track groups like IndieBio and New Harvest.

🤖ML/AI is here to help us. A very positive application of machine learning is to help climate tech researchers fail faster. AI won’t create the solutions, but it’ll make us smarter. Companies such as Aionics are doing just that.

Until next time! Keep crushing it with a cool beverage in hand.

Warmly,

Matt