This Week in Startups - How Big Funds Change the Startup Ecosystem (VC Sunday School) + Climate: Include Ventures' Taj Ahmad Eldridge | E1407

Episode Date: March 13, 2022

Sunday double-header. First, Jason and Molly discuss the impact of large funds on the startup ecosystem, how fund size influences firm strategy and why big funds often seed smaller funds (2:21). For the This Week in Climate Startups segment, Molly chats with Taj Ahmad Eldridge from Include Ventures (29:42). They discuss: 1. How Taj's experience with negative health impacts from pollution helped guide his investing focus 2. Include Venture's unique fund of funds and direct investment strategy 3. Why Taj is not afraid of hardware investing (and how it's paying off) 4. How government branches can support climate tech progress Show Notes: (0:00) Jason and Molly introduce VC Sunday School + Taj from Include Ventures (02:21) VCSS, Molly asks Jason if big funds are ideal (11:30) Bubble - Get one month free of a no-code plan at https://bubble.io/twist (12:57) Can a fund become too big to manage? (18:20) Big funds seeding small funds and Jason's falling out with Marc Andreessen (21:43) Coda - The All-in-one doc for teams, get a $1,000 credit at https://coda.io/twist (23:00) Building relationships in venture (28:10) LinkedIn Marketing - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at https://linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups (29:42) This Week in Climate Startups with Taj Eldridge of Include Ventures (37:28) Taj's first-hand experience with the negative externalities of pollution (51:46) Can software investing really help solve the Climate Crisis? (1:05:31) The latest from TWIST and Launch Check out Include Ventures: https://www.includeventures.com/ FOLLOW Taj: https://twitter.com/Econoahmad FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood

Hey, everybody, welcome. Welcome. We have another Sunday edition of this week in climate startups for you. Get your coffee, snuggle into your bathrobe. Today, I sit down with Taj Eldridge if you want. If you want, I sit down with time if you're doing the carb thing. Tage Eldridge of Include Ventures recently raised $250 million to invest in, yeah. So pretty big fun. We're going to talk more about that. But to invest in black and brown fund managers and founders with a focus on clean tech, health tech, fintech. and media. All right. But first, it's time for V.C. Sunday School, every Sunday we've been doing this. And you can go back into the archive, just look at the Sunday episodes to get this really just great combo. VC Sunday school, where we talk about different questions Molly has on her journey to become a legendary venture investor.

And I look into my 11 years of experience and see if I can help her. Today, we're going to talk about these giant funds and the dynamics of these mega crossover funds. And I give a little bit of. historical background on the mark and Drason blocking beef that I've had for the last decade. Stick with us. I like how you call it a little bit of historical background and not like dish the dish. No, it's like a little history.

It's a tiny bit of tea. It's a tiny bit of tea. I did notice when we were recording this some notice asking, if you go to our YouTube page, YouTube.com slash this week in, there is in fact a playlist of all of the this weekend climate startups and VC Sunday school segments. Like all, you could just binge it all. You rip it. One at a time, but today is going to be a great show.

And so, stick with us. This Week in Startups is brought to you by Bubble. Bubble empowers people to design and launch their own apps, marketplaces, or tools without needing coding skills or pricey engineers. The first 500 listeners will get one month free on any of Bubbles paid plans, from $29 a month to $529 a month at bubble.io slash twist. Coda is the all-in-one doc for teams. If you've got a stack of niche workflow tools or if you get buried in docs and spreadsheets,

Coda is the doc that brings it all together. Startups can get a $1,000 credit at coda.io slash twist and LinkedIn marketing. To redeem a free $100 LinkedIn ad credit and launch your first campaign, go to LinkedIn.com slash this week in startups. Hey, everybody, it's Sunday. And you know what happens on Sunday. Molly has an extraordinary guest in the climate, sustainability space. everybody looks forward to that. And then as an extra appetizer before you get that great entree, we do VC Sunday school. This is where Molly, on her journey, to become a legendary

investor over the next decade, ask me a legendary investor in the second decade, hey, I came across something. I got a question. None of the questions are bad questions, because what we do is kind of a dark art. It's alchemy. It's not something in capital allocation where there's a specific formula. If there was, there would be nobody doing it. There'd be an algorithm. And the market is dynamic. It changes constantly. So what did work as a technique in a down market might not work in an up market and everything in between. So let's get to it. Let's do it. And yes, by the way, I just want to remind you all this content is free. Can you believe it? Yes. That's the idea. All you have to do is listen to three ads per episode,

which are 75 seconds each. And all I ask is that you tweet. or click the link and consider the sponsors who make all this content possible. You know, the team at this week in startups is now up to nine people, nine full-time people produce six shows a week. This thing's a juggernaut.

It is a juggernaut. I got a nice DM from a fellow investor the other day saying that this, that we are content machines and he just was like, I don't even understand how you're putting out that much content and also like researching

and diligently, diligently and responsibly investing capital all at the same time. I was like producers and researchers, man. It's a magical system. It's great people. If you have Steph Curry and Clay Thompson and Draymond Green and you put up a lot of points and you win a lot of games and you have a 70 game winning season, there's a reason. You have talented people working on the team.

We have three extraordinary producers and extraordinary video editor, two extraordinary sales executives. And, you know, let's face it, two all-stars, you know, on the court, just hitting things from the logo. Okay, let's get started. All right. Let's do it. Okay, so VC Sunday School, I have a question for you about gigantic funds. I have been reading the textbook, the business of venture capital. And one of the things that talks about, because that's why I say this is pre, because it's like $57 that I spent on this book. But one of the things that pointed out. Wait a second. Did you say it was $57 for this book? Yeah. It's like a wily textbook textbook. Oh, God. You know, I take my learning very seriously. I don't like it.

But one thing that it noted that I thought was really interesting is that big funds are not necessarily better. Because big funds demand such big returns that they start to get unwieldy, that you run the risk of distorting the market in lots of different ways, not least of which is valuation and like how big you're pushing a company to get, even if it's not a good idea for a company to get that big. And I wondered how you thought about that. Like, are big funds not ideal? Okay. So ideal for who is the question. So let's start there. Right.

Most people think that a milestone-based funding environment is optimal, right? We've talked about this before. Somebody goes to friends and family. They raise 25 to 100K. They get an MVP going. Maybe they have somebody test the product. They get into an accelerator. They get 100, 150K.

They do a seed round for a million or $1,000, two, they get a Series A for three to ten. And each step along the way, they prove some stuff. And if they don't prove stuff, then they get eliminated. They get cut. Just like a professional sports team. And that's why the two most apt metaphors for what we do in startup land, as maybe aggressive as they are, is a sports team in a war. Because it is a competition. And there are winners and losers. So we'll put that aside if that's, you know, sometimes it rubs people the wrong way that we use these metaphors, but it's a competition. And so is capitalism. And so if you have, if you believe in the milestone-based funding system as a device, well, then that would argue for

appropriate-sized funds along the way. You don't want to have a fund that makes 30 or 40 bets at $30 million, which means you've got a billion dollar fund if you're doing Series A, because the series A should be five to ten million. And ten million is probably what most series A's are in today's environment, but they used to be three to five. So if you're a seed fund, do you want to have a three hundred million dollar fund if you're doing, you know, a hundred names of, and it's three million? No, you need a hundred million or a fifty million dollar fund, so you can put two fifty or five hundred into these. So there's this appropriateness for the bet sizing. Now why do people say 30 names, a hundred names? Well, it's based on the number

of winners at each stage. So in the earliest stage, you're going to say, hey, one out of 50 or one out of 100 might become a unicorn, and those would pay off 200, 500, 100, 1,000 to 1. That economics makes you one investment return the whole fund. So you can have a lot of losers and two winners and still have a great fund. Then you look at the dynamics of a seed fund or, let's say a Series A fund, they need to have, of the 30 bets they make, maybe three winners that pay off 50 to 1. Three winners pay off 50 to 1, you got 150 times your money, you get the idea. Everything starts to look pretty good. You made 30, 40 bets, but you got 150 times and now one bet back. Now you've got a 4x fund, 5x fund. This is kind of what you're shooting for as an outlier, is to get to that

four or five times. So what happened was more people wanted access to venture capital. The word got out after Facebook, after Google, that this is like you can't lose. More people, meaning more investors, more LPs. Yes. So more LPs were like, I want to give you more money. You made me money. I want to give you more. Will you take twice as much?

Well, then Zacoia says, well, the funds full up. We're not taking new LPs. I don't think Sequoia's taking a new LP in decades. And so the endowments are getting so big. If you look, Harvard, Yale, like these things are growing, like incredible. They are, they have more money because equities are doing better. Nobody ever thought that these companies would hit a trillion. or go global, or we've talked about many times in the show, Molly, like, wait, how did this

company grow 30, 40% on this giant number, right? So it's a growth company, but it's a value stock at the same time. Whoa. So you have these dynamics that mean there's more money sitting around, dry powder. There's dead money sitting on the sidelines in bank accounts, in treasuries, in cash, in devices that don't have the return profile of venture, which is, hey, 20% a year every year, as opposed to stock market, which has performed historically at 7% a year, you know, and bonds that perform under that massively and cash performs nothing now. So because of those, you know, meta kind of economic conditions, more money is chasing alpha.

What is alpha? Alpha is like your increase versus that 7%. So if you put money in a money market account of just the index funds, the alpha is the difference, like how much more can you do on top of that? So if I could buy, you know, the S&P and the NASDAQ and these index funds, can you beat that? Because why do I have you? Well, venture does beat that, right? And maybe hedge funds beat that.

So this is all the sort of macro picture, which then led to more venture funds being launched because, well, if Sequoey can't take new LPs and those LPs want to put more money to work, well, then they're going to go down to the next tier or new fund managers. Then you have this other dynamic. Well, I'm a venture fund. I should do a growth fund because those bets are easy to make. Like betting on Facebook in year six or five was an easy bet. Uber in year four or five was an easy bet. So they had the growth funds. And they're like, oh my God,

why Combinator is really running the table and TechStars is running the table and J-Cal's running the table. Angelus is running the table on early stage investing. Let's start a seed fund. Let's start a Scouts program. We'll copy Sequoia there. So now they have multiple funds. They're putting so much money to work.

But your question was about these larger funds and fund optimization size. Well, the fund has to match the stage. Yep. So creating a billion dollar accelerator or seed fund makes no sense. There's not enough companies. Right. So you start to figure out. And they don't need as much money.

You can't like shove their pockets full of cash. They can only manage 500,000 or a million or a million and a half. And you don't want people on a bicycle going 100 miles an hour, right? Like you don't want people on a surface street going 150 miles an hour. Like that's like track speed. And there's highway speed. And then there's like, you know, your local neighborhood speed of 25 miles. an hour. So going faster doesn't help because if you're trying to get product market fit and you got

a hundred million in the bank, you can't get product market fit with more than 10 people in a company because there's too many people around the table. You know, it's not going to help find that little magic of making a great product when you're in the laboratory. Let me tell you about one of the original innovators in the no code space. Bubble. As you know, Bubble empowers anyone to design and launch their own apps, marketplace, as tools, without doing any coding. You don't need any coding skills

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What it means is, would people, if they got lower returns, still be attractive? And the argument people are making now is, well, even if you return 15%, that's, seven, eight points more than the average of the markets, your alpha is 7,8%. And so I think that's how some of those, you know, fund to funds, capital allocators, endowments are looking at this. Even if venture retreated a little bit and was closer to, you know, the stock market returns, but a little bit better, at least we're getting into these great companies. And if some of the funds underperform and they do the same as the stock market or they do

half the stock market and some of them do triple, I have to park the money somewhere. And then there's another thing. Who's it good for? If you get management fees of two and a half percent per year, it's $25 million dollars on a billion dollar fund. And then you launch a billion dollar crypto fund. Now you got $50 million a year coming in. Now you do a billion dollar China fund. You do a billion dollar pick another vertical SaaS fund. Now you're doing a 500 million early stage fund. You start stacking these funds together. And all of a sudden, the management fee start overlapping. So you just have a lot of cash coming in, which then lets you build a huge organization. And then that lets your pressure advantage, perhaps. But there is going to become some

point where your fund size is too big. Now, I think with Indrice and Horowitz, they bought Skype at some point and then flipped it. And I think they made a billion dollars. So, you know, they doubled their investors money and would seem like that's a bad for a venture investment. So they doubled their venture, their investors money by basically buying their, by getting high on their own supply, kind of. They just did an opportunistic deal to buy Skype and I think it wound up getting sold to Microsoft or something. So they do this huge deal. They build it for two years. So they double the money, but they double the money in maybe three years.

So when you do these later stage deals, because there's also this variable of time. So if you can make a $100 million a bet and you only double your money, well, that would seem to be terrible, right? Because we're trying to do three, four, five times cash on cash in 10 years. But if you double your money in three, okay. that on a percentage basis is still pretty high. So the latest stage funds theoretically return the money faster. But then weird things can happen,

which is people start overpaying for startups. They start competing at such a crazy level, like we've seen with SaaS companies getting 75 times top line revenue or 100 times top line revenue, that when that retreats, you know, all of a sudden you could be underwater, which is what just happened, right? So we could say it's not, it's no longer, theoretical that these late stage funds could get ahead of their skis. They're now

ahead of their skis. We'll see if they catch up. What they said publicly was, we're just going to go earlier. So now that it's like, oh, no. Right. That's my follow-up question is that, yes, once you get to a stage where, look, there's only so much growth you can expect from companies, there's only so much you can return without having to do some kind of a move where you like bail yourself out. Let's be honest. You do have then these funds trying to get earlier in ways like Tiger Global, for example, I mean, it just has to be the example of all of this hugeness, right? Tiger Global saying that they've committed a billion dollars of their own money into a fund of funds to back seed funds to invest in earlier stage startup. So, so thinking,

you know, thinking of ways basically to spread their own capital around on behalf of their LPs. I mean, how crazy have things gotten when you now have this sort of like multi-level cake. Yeah. The way I would look at it is... Or is it just about, sorry, to complete the follow-up, is that just about chasing bigger returns? Because you actually may be have to go earlier in order to get the returns that will allow that. I think people, as I said at the beginning of my little monologue

there, when we talk about advice for investing, the market is dynamic and what worked last year may not work this year. So if last year making these bets on, or for the last 10 years, making late-stage bets worked, and then suddenly this year, with the public market compression of multiples, these late-stage deals don't work anymore, and there's indigestion at that stage

where these companies kind of have to work through all this excessive capital and then catch up to their valuations. Well, now where are you going to put the money? Okay, so you're sitting at the money. You say, you know what? Maybe we should then go and try to deploy some capital a little bit earlier.

Now, why would Tiger Global want to invest in seed funds like ours. They're not an investor in our last three funds, but who knows? Maybe they'll do our next one. Well, that would be for access. So it's a very savvy move, and we're seeing more and more of the late stage venture funds.

We have three venture funds that are later stage or full service funds. I wouldn't say which. Who are RLPs? So why would they want to build a relationship with us? They want to get downstream. We have four, actually. They want to get downstream deal flow.

If we happen to hit another Uber, we happen to hit another com, they would love to be able to say, hey, can I get an intro? Or hey, do you have prorata that we can help fill with you and split the carry or something? So there are these kind of dynamics

in the field. So for Tiger, to go put money to work in those, that was like something that Sequoia did a long time ago. They've been public about that. And also Mark Andresen, who was in my first fund, to launch fund one.

We had a falling out so he's not in the next ones because he wouldn't come on the podcast. Like crazy. Really? Yeah, that was the fallout. I think I've talked about it publicly, but I was like,

Mark, come on the pod. or speak at the event. This is when, like, I was starting my career and it would be really helpful if Mark and Driesen showed up. And he would show up for, like, a Sarah Lacey event for Pando. He'd show up for TechCrunch.

He'd show up for this one. And it's like, can you show up for one of mine? And he's like, do I have to if we're going to be in business together? And I said, well, yeah, kind of. Like, that's the idea. You help me build my career. I make early stage investments. You got a later stage fund.

Yeah. And he was like, yeah, no. And I was like, okay, then I just kicked him out of my fun. Because I was like, and that's, you know, like that's why he blocked me and then we went back and now he's unblocked me now he's a fan of the pod whatever anyway i don't want to accumulate enemies but i just thought i had to take a stand for like if rule off and chumath and sacks are coming to my pod i'll just and then i had like a couple of founders i sent him he was like really excited to meet them and then he didn't show up

for the meeting and he sent an associate and that happened like three times and two times the associates at indreason or like the younger partners were on their phones like the same complaint and people flew in for those meetings. So then I emailed Mark and I emailed, you know, Ben and I was like, guys, if I send you somebody, would you at least meet with them? Like, I'm a pretty good point guard here. Like, when I send somebody to rule off or Chamoth or Sacks, they actually meet with them. And you guys pawned off to some associate, they fly in, instead of it being an hour meeting, it's, you know, 32 minutes, and then the person is on their phone and they don't know why they're there. And I don't know the person. And so there's no

context. And like when I had three founders out of four have a bad experience, I was like, well, there's no reason for me to send people to Andreessen Horowitz anymore. Yeah. So that was that, that's the backstory. I don't know if I've ever told it, but that was the backstory. It was like those two things was just like, Mark is too difficult to work with. I know. And that's coming for me. I'm a difficult person too. So I'm not. It's like a pretty, you know, high bar for. Well, no, and then other people who I'm friends with like David Ullovich, I'm a friend with over there. Chris Dixon and I are friendly. They're like, hey, how do we heal this? Like, how do we make this go forward? I was like we don't. I'm never having anybody from Andresen Harowitz on the pod until Mark

and Drison and Ben Harowitz come on the pod. They don't like me. If Ben Horowitz doesn't like me and, you know, and it's weird because his wife and he were really nice to me when they saw me at a Warriors game. So I was like, do you not remember that you guys were jerks to me? Or are you just like glossing over that? Silicon Valley is a very weird place. And yeah, Ben and Mark are kind of unique, weird individuals too. I mean, very successful. And I kind of like them. in some ways, but if founders are going to have a bad experience with them, and I send them to rule off or Bill Gurley or Chamath or Sacks, and they have a great experience? Right.

It's a pretty easy decision for me, and I told them that. And then Mark was like, well, my fund runs differently, and I don't meet with founders. And I was like, okay, whatever, you know, it's fine with me. You're a loss. Yeah. But it's a very smart thing. Mark did a bunch of splashy cashy at some point and put like 50K into a bunch of different venture firms to build relationships like that in the early days of Indrisen-Horowitz. So I think that's what

Tiger is doing. They're taking the Sequoia and the Injcun-Horowitz or Mark Indrisen approach of, hey, let's just build some bridges here and steal their deal flow. And so that's the other thing. It's a competition here of relationships. Hey, let's talk about Coda. You know, last year I interviewed Cota, CEO Shashir, on episode 1160, and we spoke about the productivity of Renaissance that's going on in tech right now. And that's what Coda is all about. In Coda, your tech, and tables live together in the same document. And all your valuable data, plans, objectives, and strategies are all in one place,

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Koda works right out of the box, and it's all customizable, so, You can create a Wiki or a Knowledge Hub for your team. You can onboard new hires quickly and adapt fast to any major or minor changes in your business. What CODA can do is exciting, but what's even more exciting is what startups can do with CODA. So here's your call to action. Coda has an amazing program for startups to help optimize and support your docs. So if you go to coda.com slash twist, you're going to get $1,000 in credits. They really want to invest in the startup community because they know there's so many great ideas there

and they know they can be helpful with their software. So go to coda.io slash twist to get that $1,000 credit. I think that's a really good note and things that people don't always realize is that those that it is all about. In fact, I did not totally understand that until I started meeting with investors who were like, oh, I should introduce you to the growth fund people. Oh, this is a follow on opportunity. That in fact, you're not just building your own portfolio.

You're building a pipeline for those companies. Yes. And that the pipeline for those companies is not like entirely, it's miles. stone base, but it's also relationship base. It's who gets that call from you or who calls you. Yes. So, you know, somebody in our syndicate tells us, hey, J-Cal, I met with this company at like a pitch competition.

Like I got one of those today. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Great. I'll send it to our person who does SaaS. Let's see if it's a fit, you know, and, you know, we, that kind of deal flow helps us, right? And so conversely, I send somebody to Sequoia or to Chamath or to Sachs or Freiburg or Bill Gurley.

could be very a creative to them as well. And so, you know, this is why building relationships is so important in venture. So anytime you have a chance in your career to meet with a new fund manager, to have coffee, to do a quick Zoom, there's really no downside to that. And then if you want to build deal flow, and I talk about this in my book and I do it in the Angel University course, if you really, if you're not getting enough deal flow, just email 10 VCs who you're co-investors with. I call this my pop-up network strategy. Let's say, we have 10 investors who invested in Com with us. You could email them and say,

hey, I know we're both, both of our firms are investors in Com, and I'm looking at these three new companies. I just put a little blurb about each one below if we're investing in these three companies, where we've invested in these three companies. If you wanted to meet the founder, let me know. Two of them are raising.

One isn't, but I have high conviction for them. And if you ever meet a company, I'm really specializing in climate, sustainability and my partner Kelly is doing SaaS and my other partner is doing, you know, consumer tech. Do introduce us. We'd love to meet with them. And now you do that 10 times, you know, a month.

And then in a year, you've done it 120 times. And then if just 20% actually respond, you don't get 25 people maybe emailing you companies. And that's, you give a little, you get a little, it works. I've noticed I have met with some investors who have purposefully called. cultivated that as a strategy and I think it's genius. I've now have created a third tab in my two-do. So my to-do list is like twist. I mean, there's also like hopefully do some shit for your life, but you know, that doesn't always happen. But there's like twist, investing and networking. Like I've literally created a to-do tab for that because it, I mean, it's not like it's not a

significant part of every job on some level, but it is so, it's so specifically part of this job in a way that I don't think you can even, even though a million VCs have told me that over the years. I need a super tip. We should now that like we're both had COVID and we're on the other side. We should just do a climate dinner. We should do that.

Invite like eight other climate investors, six other climate investors. We rent a private room at a restaurant. You bring 10 people. It costs two or 300 bucks a person. We spend two or three grand. We host. You sit at one end of the table.

I sit at the other. We bring one more person from the firm. And we bring seven. seven other people. Now we have relationships. And that's really what it's based on. So anytime you want to do that, we just set it up for April or something and invite seven climate. Sustainability investors, maybe a founder. What's the power incubator in Oakland at the woman runs who's been on the pod twice? Yeah, yeah. Emily Kirsch at Power something. Powerhouse. Okay. They invite her. You know, she's got some deal flow. My home, Danny Kennedy, who was on early on.

Yeah, no, we got obvious. We got, you get a sack. That was my strategy early in my career. I was a journalist as an entrepreneur and then as an investor. I would always host a dinner at the E-Tech conference or all things D. I would just get a reservation. I would typically do it at a Mexican place or a pizza place because I was broke. I would order food for the entire table.

I tell the waiter, don't bring menus. Just start bringing these 17 appetizers, bring two things to Sangria or, you know, open these two bottles of wine. Because people are too, it was like a doubly cool idea. One, it made me look gracious. Yep. That the food just landed. Two, it saved me a ton of money. And then three, everybody got to talk more because we didn't have this whole rigamarole

with ordering and the specials and everything. So I could host, you know. But now I'm baller, so I would just do it out like a really cool place. But I'm not care about the money. But I'm just adding this to my networking to do list, by the way. I just put it in my tab. I'd be like a great thing to do. You know, I really want to get out.

I love that. All right. All right. All right. I know. I know. Me too. We're all anxious.

Yeah. We're good. I think we, I think we did a great job today. We gave a little bit of background on the battle between me and Mark and Dresen and the block and unblock thing. We got some good advice. We talked about the market. We talked about some strategies.

I think this is like a yum, yum, 23 minute. I know. I love this show. It's great. Hey, Tom Eschbacher is here with us again. He's a senior sales manager at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. And we're talking about their amazing report today in startup marketing, as well as how to use LinkedIn to grow your startup as an angel investor. I like to see revenue early and often from startups. How can LinkedIn

help with that? Yeah, the short answer is LinkedIn forums. 89% of our startup advertisers utilize them. And I'll tell you why. Think about all the effort that goes into creating interest within a prospect. You have to nail the value proposition, create compelling content, find them, and then message them with enough frequency so that they engage. You do all that. You get them to your signup page and you know how many of them are going to convert? Just 2%. that's so much value that marketers are failing to capture and it's a big reason why LinkedIn marketing and specifically LinkedIn LeadGen forms are so popular with startups. So people know a lead gen form lives on LinkedIn. They click one time and boom, the email is sent

to the company. By using LinkedIn forms, you're ensuring they're coming from an audience that you care about and then we're pulling the information right from the member's profile. So it's great. Your SDRs are going to be thrilled with that info. They're going to want to follow up. That's the improved lead quality. And as you say, Jason, it all takes place in just two taps in the LinkedIn news feed. And so if you would like to get this incredible report, you can go to LinkedIn.com slash this week in startups. And not only can you get the report for free, you're also going to get $100 off your first marketing campaign from Tom at LinkedIn. Way to go, Tom. It gets even better because it is time for this week in climate startups. And I talked with Tage Eldridge of Include Ventures,

such a fascinating person. So include Tage recently raised. He's both a first-time fund manager, actually, sort of. Like, he just raised a $250 million fund that is a parallel structure. It's a fund of funds and also an investment vehicle to back specifically black and brown fund managers and entrepreneurs around clean tech and climate justice and, you know, general issues of equity. Such a fascinating founder, by the way, he said that when he was doing events, in Riverside for Black and Brown founders, you, Jason, were among the only,

I believe the first and maybe only VC to come down and do those events and visit those in person. You know, I always like, when people are doing something new and supportive as a general concept that's worked in my career, when I see somebody doing something new, like a new podcast comes out,

and they're like, I'm starting a new podcast. Will you be my first guest? And I'm just like, once in a while, I'm just like, sure. You know, then I regret it because I have a crazy schedule. And my team is like, what are you doing? Why do you say yes? And I just feel like, if you get lucky like I did, once in a while, would it kill you

to just look at the ladder behind you and, you know, give somebody a hand to pull them up a couple of things? And like, you know, at this point in my career, if I show up, Mark Anderson. Well, yeah, exactly. Like, this is the opposite. It's like the, this is the anti-Markandreason. Like, pay it for it a little bit and be a little supportive of other people. And it was just like, you know, it doesn't really cost me, like, cost me an evening or,

something, which, you know, is not inconsequential, but, you know, like, if you or I show up at something, it's meaningful, right? Maybe not 20 years ago, they'd be like, who are those people? But today, maybe it is. And so I always like to be like, gentlemen, don't send me 100 requests to be on your pod. But I try to do it every, I try to do once a month, you know, like a student asked me for something. So maybe a dozen times a year, two dozen times a year.

Yeah. I just try to say yes to something that takes an hour and it's efficient and I can help somebody. So anyway, there you have it. I can't wait for the interview. Let's get to it. So good. Taj Ahmad Eldridge.

Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you, Molly. Thank you so much. It was great to be here. This is, you know, I've been, I don't know how I started following you on Twitter, but I've been like a Twitter fan of yours for a while. And then a mutual friend and colleague introduced us. And it's just like all magically coming together.

Absolutely. And I'm going to tell you, I've been a fan of yours for a while as well for your days on marketplace. And so I'm an economist by trade. And I love, love, love the way that you really kind of bring down a lot of the data and the things you're talking about. And I think that's, you know, I call it the Freakonomics, a phenomenon. And I love that the way you do it. Make it friendly. Make it friendly all the time because it's the most important thing for everybody, pretty much. Yeah. Your Twitter handle is

Econo Amad. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I studied economics in graduate school, but ironically, in my undergrad degree, it was in poetry and literature. As we were talking, getting everything set up, I was telling your colleague that I actually wanted to be a rapper when I was growing up. And my parents were saying, rap nothing, you're going to college. So I said, I'll show you. I'll study poetry and literature. But nonetheless, I ended up, you know, coming back to economics and realized that there's a, there's a piece of storytelling in economics as well. And again, you talk about the same thing when you do your reporting.

Do you ever do any rapping on the side, though? No, but I hang out with a lot of rappers who are now getting into ventures. So it's really interesting to see. Huh. I mean, that's true. Actually, everybody's getting into venture. I guess it's just the money. It's the impression of the money falling from the sky.

Yeah. And I think also, too, they're realizing that, you know, music, the art form of making music is not as lucrative as it used to be. And then they're realizing their merchandising and product. And they start out with clothing and merchandising, IEZ and Wu-Tang Clan. And then they're realizing that other product tech included is really interesting. and really getting to them. And now, which is even more interesting, is that a lot of them are good into climate because they're realizing that it is the hot thing right now.

And so, you know, I think that's really exciting as well. Exactly. Exactly. Well, and on that note, actually, so, I mean, you have a fund. You're the GP and co-founder of Include Ventures, which consists of two funds and includes an emphasis on climate, right? Just give us the breakdown of these funds and how you operate them in your thesis overall. Absolutely. So Include Ventures was started about in last year in June, and it's between myself and two other GPs. We have a team of nine in L.A. and Southern California. And it's two funds. It's a fund of funds, $125 million fund of funds to invest in fund ones, fund twos and fund threes of climate, of GPs that are diverse and women and people of color. And then it's a direct investment vehicle to co-invest alongside with our funds as well as make direct investments in the areas of climate.

climate, fintech, ed tech, media, and digital health. The thing that we talk about, though, is that even though we're focusing on climate and those other sectors, I truly believe that all those things are interrelated. As an example, I mentioned ed tech or workforce is one of the things that we invest in. There's a company here in L.A. called Charger Help. That's the intersection between climate and workforce. On the fintech side, we talk about fintech. And for those that are in cryptocurrency, we know that there's a huge climate component,

or energy wasting component towards that. And so for us, there's a company called Etho Capital that's at the intersection of climate and ETFs. And so I truly believe that it's there. Even as we're talking now, I'm wearing my hat. A lot of people see me wearing hats all the time. And I do it purposefully because the hats that were even made out sustainable products. They're made out of waste products.

And so I think that there's an intersection between climate and health, climate at Fintech, climate at ed tech and climate media. Without a doubt, you know, we were talking. before we started recording about how in the midst of, you know, the war in Ukraine that's obviously taking everyone's attention, the IPCC recently released its latest report that I think may include the bluntest terms I've ever seen. You know, I mean, they're just, they're saying that that warming is baked in to some extent that we can expect, I'm reading from the Associated Press, the world becoming sicker, hungrier, poorer, gloomier, and way more dangerous.

I mean, there's an argument at this point that every investment is a climate investment. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's similar to what I used to say about. I never understood how people separated impact investments from traditional investments because for me, every investment you make has an impact. It will impact communities, it will impact people, it will impact the way that we do things, even impact the language that we utilize. We're saying Googling and Fed I see now for a reason. And I think that even from that report, what it made me think about and the reason that we do what we do is that we can't solve the climate crisis in a silo, meaning that we can't have it to where the richer parts of our nation and our world are having the innovations and solutions

and others don't. Even the position that we're in now where all of us have to be virtual, it came from something to happen across the world, the impact of the world. And that was horrendous. And it didn't matter how much returns you were having. It didn't matter none of that because COVID decimated a lot of those things. The same thing is going to happen to climate. And I'll tell people all the Tom is that climate is nothing that it's like a, you know, we used to talk about things happening in 20, 30 years for now, but no, climate is a public health issue. I'm living proof of that. It's an economic issue and it's a social justice issue beyond just our nation. Do you want to tell us, do you feel comfortable telling us about how you're living proof of that?

Oh, absolutely. And I talk about this often. And, you know, there have been a few GPs that have passed away, you know, Tyson Clark from Google Ventures, who I know well and in Coyote, Owens, but they had different diseases than I. But I was growing up in Dallas, Texas, and there was an area where I grew up where I grew up, there was red line. And for those who don't know, redlining was a practice where you have people of color and African Americans, specifically in Texas that were designated to a different area. This area was an area that had led pausing in the ground. We didn't know that at the time. And two of my cousins, you know, we all grew up in the same area.

They've since passed away, one in their 20s and one in their 30s. And it was, they had kidney disease and kidney failure. And when they got diagnosed, they were just saying, oh, you know, African-American, your kidney disease, it comes apart for the course. When I got sick about four years ago, I was, I had the privilege of being in a position with the University of California, others to really kind of do biopsy and other types of gene testing to figure out what this disease was. and as the disease was caused by the lead in the environment. And so for me, since 2018, up in our dialysis, I go to three days a week, 3 a.m. in the morning to 9 a.m. so that way, I can get and do the work. But every day that I wake up, it's a reminder of environmental racism that's here that really impact our communities.

And for me, when I think about not just my disease, I think about people who might have asthma that live next to off-rems in communities that they look at the emissions from these trucks and the logistics as we're all sitting in our home ordering things for online and from from Amazon, I have to think about that as well. So, so for me, it's, it's a real life issue that I think that we could put capital towards, you know, and I talk often that I may not be around for the result of this. And that's okay. But none of us will. We all will, we'll have the blessings to succumb. But I think at the end of the day, what I think about is the investments that I'm making is providing more than just a return from a capital standpoint. But it's really a providing an extension of life.

If we don't save people, we won't have people to work. We won't have people to buy products. So therefore, we're going to still have issues with how they impacts our investment. So I think everything comes hand at hand. Yeah. And you have used that approach, your approach to the world into investing, to not only, as you described it to me, create a fund, but create an ecosystem with the fund of fund model. Absolutely.

Include is actually, in addition to the venture fund. We're a franchise, actually. So it's three different parts to the company and that we own. So I mentioned Include Ventures, which is the two dual funds, 125 million fund of funds and 125 million direct investment vehicle. We also have VC Include, which is a training program. Think of it like an accelerator for fund managers. What we notice is that even when myself, when I was going out and apply for things like

the Kauffman Fellowship, it was pretty costly. It was 80,000 plus two to be. And although there are some scholarships that allow for, We felt like there was an opportunity to really provide funding and training for fund managers, especially fund ones and emerging fund managers. So VC and Clue was started with the support of UBS, MacArthur Foundation, Ties, and others to provide a free training program for emerging fund one managers. And so we graduated 14 fund managers last year, last November, Adam Berkeley, in many different

areas. And there are really some great funds. And then in addition to that, the third part of our organization is include Ventures, which has a number of former politicians that work with us as well as our directors of government. And from there, we partnered with organizations such as the Shula Foundation to buy funding. And I'm so proud that we have announced by the time people hear this, 10 climate funds that are led by diverse individuals in the U.S. and Europe that we're supporting to really continue to work on climate. And so those are funds such as the 22 fund here in L.A., tell venture partners in L.A., supply change is focusing on food innovation. and then in Europe funds such as Mellon capital out of Germany and unconventional ventures out of Sweden and a Nordics,

which is doing really great at work there as well. That's so awesome. Like it's just, it's awesome to see the interest and also the democratization. And I think that there may be something to, they're not maybe, there is something to the idea that we're all so personally impacted by this, that it's not just about a,

it's not just about a career in finance. It's a, you know, I mean, I came to this from journalism because I wanted to have boots on the grounds. Like, I sort of thought storytelling is great. It's incredibly valuable. I hope to continue doing it for the rest of my life. But also, I don't have time to convince people. Yeah. We have to like, we also get to work here because we have a personal, profoundly personal stake.

Absolutely. You know, I started my career as a banker, both as a commercial corporate banker with Wells Fargo and then in UBS Investment Bank. but I think in venture, it allowed for two things to happen. Number one, I can dress very well, like I do now. But number two, it allows what I kind of call capital activism because we can, we can still provide returns because at the end of the day, we're investors, right? So we have to really kind of think about what are we doing and how the decisions that we're making that are providing our investors are return of their capital. But in addition to that, what I see is that the decisions that we make, the things that we invest in, they can really influence the future and the

world after this. You know, as a father, I think about that often, and I think about the future generation and the things that we're creating. And I think about how that we can, what we will leave behind for the next generation as well in the decisions that I make and how I invest. Tell me about some of your focuses and your thesis, climate and culture under that. Yeah. It sounds like there's energy, transportation, smart cities, black and brown founders.

Do you have specific filters? Yeah. You know, is it sort of like a feeling? Is it a little bit of both? Yeah, no. So I think a few things. I think, you know, I feel like fashion was my gateway drug to climate because prior, I wasn't. I'd be honest, I'd be very frank.

And one of the things that people always tell me that I'm a little bit too transparent, so I'll sell here. But, you know, when I used to think about environmentalism, I used to think about crunchy granola. That was the term that we would say, like these tree huggers, people that do it. And I felt like there were so many other issues that I was facing in my life that I didn't have time. to do that. There was so immediate, meaning immediate issues. But that was before I really kind of

delved in and saw that there was some immediate issues in climate that was happening to us as well. And so for me, I focus on the intimates. And I think that for us that are in climate, the problem that we've had is that to your point about being a generous and a storyteller, we have not told the right story to get more people interested in it. I think that it has to be public-private partnerships. Private capital, we can't do the solve the issue all alone. The public sector can't solve the issue all alone as well. We have to have collaborations and we have to do it smartly. So for me, I focus on an investment in two things. Number one, what I call the intimates. That is things we put on our body and things we put inside of our body. So I really love the

innovation that we see in materials, not only just in fashion, but like, for example, there's a former NFL player named Sean Springs who's making a company out in Boston, who, who, who, who, who was tired of all the concussions and decided to really kind of create a company that really did innovations on the helmet side. But then he started realizing that that can carry into vehicles and auto crashes and everything else. And so those are the things I was really interested in. On the food side, we've been seeing a lot of food innovation, people changing their diet, making them live longer, a lot of biohacks. A lot of entertainers are getting into it as an example. The rapper Drake is investing in a Santa Monica base food innovation company. And so I think those,

have been really interesting. And then lastly, on the climate side, you know, two things I'm also interested in as well. I think it's really interesting is transportation, how we're looking at vehicles. The idea of the modern gas station is changing right before our eyes and how people are looking at it is changing as well. And then lastly, energy management, especially for buildings. We're all are, I'm at home right now. Many other people who may be listening to this are at home. How is energy being utilized at our homes, you know, as we're making this transition and we're being here. I think also, too, guidewilling when we come out this pandemic, you're going to have a lot of people who are going to do two things. They're going to think about maybe I should continue

to work from home part-time. That's a really great experience. And number two, you're going to see people that says, I don't think I need to live in San Francisco. I can do what I'm doing in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I can do what I'm doing in Memphis, Tennessee and still around my company. And I think that really kind of influenced the way we created include. Because in addition to diversity, I often say that racial and gender diversity are important, but it's even more important. geographic diversity because I think that we're seeing founders and fund managers in many different areas. And that by itself is going to also talk to racial and gender diversity as well. I want to go back to you mentioned the moment when you went from this is tree hugger stuff to

this is really profound to me. And it is my understanding that came about via wine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Love this story already. Yeah. One of the companies, you know, I've been lucky to be an advisor and investor in a number of different companies and a lot of things were really exciting about about it. And I was first with a fashion company and I must say if any your listeners are basketball fans, there was a moment to wear the gentlemen who were playing basketball. They went from wearing backy clothes and wearing really fitted suits. Well, that was the company, our company. That was the company that did it. And from that, we got into wine. At the time, you know, I was talking to a

couple of winemakers and they were talking about, you know, the wine was declining because at the time craft beer was making the rise. He had a lot of people drinking craft beer and spirits are spirits. Spirits were never going out of style. And so the community of wine was changing. And so one of the things we talked about was getting more young people, more people of color into wine. And the way we done it was from a standpoint of talking about pairing wine to fashion, film, and music. So it was a really great way to kind of push to that. But in that experience in talking to wine people, I start seeing a lot of the issues that were happening. around droughts and growing the product and just a lot of the complaints that we're having

and a lot how the climate was definitely impacting them directly. And I'll be honest, I never really thought about it like that. When I thought about climate, I was talking about, you know, again, saving the animals, saving the trees and things of that nature. But I never really thought about how climate can have secondary and tertiary effects of many different industries. Because the impact of wine impacted us in fashion and so forth and so on. And so I think that was kind of the first step for me to realize that, wow, like why climate is really impacting a lot of different things and have me look at it differently. I think that really also impacted me to think about the way I talk about climate now and to make it to where it's very plain. And I use the

8 to 80 rule when I talk about it. So if at least an 8 year old or 80 year old can really understand the issues, the solutions of what we're talking about. Well, and I love the way that you're describing your filter for climate investments because, you know, last week we spoke with Andrew Bibi at obvious, which is, you know, I think in a lot of ways, I'm like so embarrassed about this pun, but in a lot of ways created some of the thinking around how non-obvious seeming investments are in fact climate investments. And that that is not only a storytelling opportunity, but just something that things don't, people don't think about. We didn't necessarily think that meat replacement was a climate story.

or that wine is ultimately a climate story and should be, that you can embed this in everything. Yeah, a number of the SDGs really kind of point to food production and things of that nature and how we look at it. Sustainable development goals. Oh, yes, absolutely. I have to always remind myself, no acronym talking. It's the old banker in me.

So you're trying to save time. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. I think that is that I love Andrew, and he's definitely right on track with that. And I think we have, we, when I say we, I'm talking about those of us in club, we have to do a better job of explaining that and really talking about the correlation and the relationship. And also, too, we have to not only talk about, I think we've talked so much about the doom and gloom about climate. We have to also talk about the opportunities, you know.

And so for me, I talk about the opportunities about job creation and how communities can really be developed with climate initiatives and things that nature. I met a young entrepreneur out of Boston who's creating brownfields and old textile mills in Boston in the cities of Boston and partnering with those communities to create new types of innovation that are there. And so I think there's opportunities that we need to also coincide with the doom and gloom. Even I'm an economist and like doom and gloom is our language, but I think we also need to talk about the benefits of it as well. And Andrew was absolutely right. there's absolutely a lot of correlations that we used to do. There are some investments in a company called Bevy that me and a number of other African American investors made, including people like Baron Davis, Arlington, and Kobe

Fuller from upfront. And Bevy as an company startup that mills the world of online and offline conferences. And so for me, the reason I said it was a climate focus for me is because when I think about the climate, the conferences that I've attended, I'm flying there, I'm driving, there. That's a lot of greenhouse gas emissions that we're taking. And a few times me, times how many people are coming, the opportunity to have online conferences does a few things. It democratizes information because now if you don't have the ability to get to that conference to fly there, you can still get that information. That's why I love things like Upfront

Summit and others that also do live streaming of their other information and have people be able to connect. But also, again, it just creates a different way to have the conversation around climate and take the conversation away from, you know, the talk on solar and a talk up with a lot of other folks to get into more of a general type of conversation. Yeah. This gets me to this debate that is happening, you know, that became obvious as soon as I started talking to climate investors and that kind of blew up about a week ago with Donnell Baird from Block Power, who I love so much. And I felt so upset what I saw him tweeting that basically all of these new climate tech VCs aren't helping, right? And we have, I will tell you, on every single episode

of this week in climate startups, I have asked every investor I've had on, what do you think about this question of software versus hardware, deep tech versus, you know, emissions tracking, like what should we not waste time on? And I want to know how you feel about this question, especially since it really did become, you know, a pretty spirited Twitter debate. Yeah, absolutely. I was, you know, I think I comment. it there. Again, I'm the Kanye West of Climate, so I try to, try to not get in, but I totally agree with Dorenell. And the reason for that is because prior to launching and include, I was at Lacey, which is the Los Angeles Clean Tank Incubator. And from there, we have a prototype, etc.

so hardware was in our, in our, in our, in our, in our pieces of it. And I think that, I think that to the point, you can solve both issues. You can have both tracking, but also solutions. But I do get angry when I see a lot of new climate funds coming to the space where they only want to focus on hardware, I mean software, and they only want to focus on tracking. And I'm like, tracking what? We have to have a solution. So I think the good thing about our industry and the good thing about venture is that there are enough climate focus funds out there that will support climate. I mean, we're happy that we're supporting Black Power and what he's doing as well. And there's others out there. They're really doing some really great things as well. But I do think it's a

conversation that needed to be had. And I'm glad it came from the founder so that they make us as investors kind of think about it. But I think there's room for all. I think there's room for, you know, I don't want to disparage investments in and then the software that might do some things on that end. And there's a fun strategy, you know, God bless them. But for us, it's include, and for some of the funds that we support, we definitely want to focus on the solutions. And we Deffy are not afraid of hardware. There's an event that's coming up in April at Lacey called Climate and Culture. We're getting more and more, you know, black and Latino VCs who are in this space,

who are launching the funds to think about climate and not be afraid of hardware themselves. And the whole idea that we're trying to say is that to the point when we began, we talked about the intersection of climate and all these other sectors is that what we hope to see is that, you know, there will be funds that are making investment in a company that's a climate company, but they'll make that investment because it's a great company if it's in their thesis. And I give you a perfect example. One of the companies that I was an investor in at Lacey was a company called Ampair that we invested in at Lacey, which is an electric airplane company

that has since been invested in or acquired by surf air. And there were some investors that we talked about that we talked about is just it's an aviation company as opposed to a company that's building an EV that's reducing emissions for aviation. And so I think you start seeing a lot more of that of funds that are getting into the space that are not necessary climate. Tail Venture Partners is a perfect example that did a lot of software beginning, a black-owned climate fund. And then they fell in love with a founder by the name of Josh Vee, who has a hardware company called Spark Charge and end up being an investor there.

So I think you're going to see a lot more of that, especially from a lot of these emerging new funds, that won't be afraid to make that leap, to make those investments in hardware companies. Right. And they maybe don't have that sort of legacy concern. exactly. They're just like, you know what, we're risky capital and so we're here to take a risk. Absolutely. We are venture capitalists, not, you know, not, I don't want to disparage other capital, but we do, we have to take measured risk, but at the end of the day, they are at risk in what we're doing.

What about though, Donnell's argument that a lot of climate investments are not amenable to venture scale returns? I, and we definitely had that conversation. And I think that, you know, I used to be in the private equity industry prior to coming into venture. And I do think that there are different type of capital stacks that need to come as a former banker. And I'm proud of Darnia is one of those founders that have done it. And I tell founders all the time that sometimes debt is cheaper than equity. And so I think the debt market is going to be amenable to it and coming to it as well. I think we've seen a lot more private equity do project finance to go alongside of capital that's coming from their venture space. And of course, you know, what just

or saw and stuff that those folks are doing that the federal government is going to help. But I think for the question with Dernel was talking about, what infrastructure investing, and I think of VC was saying that too, that we don't necessarily focus on infrastructure on the infrastructure investment. I think that everything is related. But I think that there is an opportunity for different types of capital stack to come in. Even for us, as we were making investments in funds on our end, we made AMM investments or LP investments, but we also provided grants to those funds for management companies.

grants. And the reason we did that is because we realized that as people are raising funds, even on the climate side, there are costs to running a fund, we all know. And either you independently wealthy are coming into it or you've sold a company to try to do it. And so for us, we're providing grant funding to these climate investors so that way they can operationalize their fund and they can really kind of go to it and really build up. And so I think the same thing should happen on the, is happening on the founder side as well. You're seeing a lot more grant funding, you're seeing a lot more different types of capital to come into support and to prop up, especially early on for those founders that are focusing on climate. So great things like Sierra Club

is doing, series that are kind of leading the way as well. So I think you're going to start seeing more of that. I'm actually speaking at Confluence philanthropy next week about the very subject, about ways to really have partnerships with private capital, public capital, and foundations. I'm glad that you said that because it does seem like that is that there is opportunity for innovation there and sort of the different financial structures. I have also talked to a lot of companies who are taking some non-dilutive grant funding. I think maybe Breakthrough Energy has a fellowship program. I wonder if what we will also need, because I agree with you, I think everybody needs to be in the pool, right?

And there are going to be some things that venture is perfect for and other things that venture is terrible for. But I also wonder how we can maybe change our thinking about follow-on investment, government. are buyers, right? What if they become the follow on? Is there a way to make that model work that can incentivize everybody to sort of just keep moving? Because at the end of the day, keep moving capital. Absolutely. I mean, that is the exact reason why, and I mentioned, if you recall, that we have the three parts of our company include global what's a company that was focusing on partnering with Hulet to provide grants. One of the, one of the members of that company that we

brought in was a former congressman, Kwanza Hall, to have those conversations and to begin those conversation with his former colleagues in Congress to think about ways that we can really kind of be more attended to this idea. And I think you're seeing a lot more, I think with the administration, you're seeing a lot more, especially the Department of Energy and others, you're seeing a lot more willingness to think about these things and to act upon it. I'm also proud on you're seeing things like the Department of Commerce that are getting into this space and saying, okay, how can we be helpful for the capital community within the country and really kind of really focus and either providing capital or connecting with capital or exporting the ideas on what you're doing.

So I definitely think that there is forward movement, but we have to be, I think these are the times now to really think boldly and to really kind of embrace new ideas and to not think about the status quo. And for me, I'll be very honest, I got into venture 20 years ago and I'm so upset that we're still having the same conversations 20 years ago around race and gender and venture from when I got in. And so for me, what that tells me is that we need a changing of the guard. We need new types of thinkers that are in to really kind of move things forward, especially as we're talking about climate and these other focuses, because we may need a new type of paradigm to really kind attack these issues. And we don't have time. We literally don't have time. Yeah. I was thinking about that

actually in terms of the also in terms of the 10-year horizon. There are all these complaints and VCs say this all the time, right? That these solutions may not come to fruition in 10 years or the 10-year timeline is too short for climate investments. And I thought, I'm sorry, 10 years is too long for a climate investment. Why would we be investing in anything that cannot come to fruition within 10 years? Because we are out of time. Absolutely. And I think the founders, I think what I love when I talk to founders in climate is that they also see that and they want some solutions now. And I think for me, the reason why I'm very open and I talk about my own personal health and my stories, because I realize I don't have time. And so it makes, it makes me think about the investments that we make. It makes

me think about the way I talk about what we're doing as a sense of immediacy. And you can make some great investments. And what I, what I don't want, and I had a conversation with an investor that says, well, you'll make mistakes that are there. And I'm saying, that's the point of what we're going to do. I think, I think what's interesting when I hear is that I've heard many stories about founders who have failed, and myself included, was when companies that failed, to end up using that failure to accelerate other other spaces and have a different type of outcome. And I think with this space is that we have to really kind of move forward on the end and ensure that we're funding these founders that can make these solutions and try these solutions that

are coming out. Do you think the guard is changing? I do. I think it is changing. I'm happy to see that. I think when I talk about diversity and I want people to think about it, it's not just bringing, you know, different type of races and genders in it. I think for me, it's about intellectual and experiential diversity.

It's about people who are thinking about things differently. Like I mentioned, I didn't grow up in California. I didn't grow up in San Francisco. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, where venture was not, you know, number one. But a lot of the issues that I brought with me that I'm bringing to me as well have been benefiting. I mentioned when we started on, even though I have graduate degrees in economics, my undergraduers in poetry and literature. So I understand this idea of storytelling and how to weave in a story.

as we're talking about the ways that we want to invest. And I think that those, those bits of diversity, both geographic diversity, intellectual diversity, experience diversity, are what's changing, and I think it's changing our industry for good. I mean, certainly there is a time not very long ago when neither you or I would be having this conversation together as investors. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so from that very point, I think it is changing. And I think the next step of it is for us to have investors that are making some really great wins for some, you know, one of one of my, one of my portfolio companies in climate, what we talked about is not just the exit, which would be great, but also a solution. And one of the things we've been doing, well, me personally, a lot of the

investments we've been talking about is that I've been less wanted to talk about, you know, announcing from a, from a press standpoint, you know, raises and all sort of stuff. I want to talk about them the solutions that they're providing. So as an example, and I'll use this as an example, one of the companies that were in, Spark Charge that I just mentioned, African-American-owned startup company that's in the space of transportation, you know, instead of really announcing their raise, what they've been announcing lately is just the partnerships between Hertz. As Hertz builds up their EV fleet, this is a tool that they're using as well, their partnership with Kia and others. And the reason why I love Kia is that I think that historically, when you start thinking about EVs, a lot of times

people from different communities, economic communities, look at EVs as Tesla's and Lusus that are so out of reach from a ownership standpoint. But when a vehicle OEM like Kia comes in that can make a call that's more affordable, it allows those individuals to participate. And I think a lot of people, just because they may be in an economic position, does not mean they don't care about sustainability. I think sustainability has been in immigrant communities and poor communities for years. You know, we call a circular economy. Another community, they may call it wearing your cousin's clothes and rehashing the clothes over and over. So I think it's innate, but I think now we're providing those tools for them to do it.

And those tools, again, come from, if you come from those communities, you're going to have a little bit of leg up on what those communities needs, you know. And so I think that's a huge part of the thing we have to do as well is that one of the things in addition to really kind of talk about from a capital standpoint and a public standpoint, the community has to be involved in this space as well. Yeah, 100%. Tadge, where can people find you? Yeah.

So number one, definitely, as you've mentioned, I'm on Twitter at Akano-A-Mad. And then LinkedIn, definitely connect with me on LinkedIn. Love to do that. And I love to talk to people. I think for me as an investor, even though we're talking a lot now, I love listening and hearing people's arguments, just like you mentioned with Darnow. And I think it really kind of helps me kind of look from that. I'm not on TikTok or Instagram, sadly, but definitely I'm a love of

words as opposed to love of a picture. So definitely connect with me on Twitter. I love it. Tage, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. And I hope we can work together for lots of years to come. Absolutely. My, thank you so much. Thank you this week. And it was a perfect opportunity to speak. Thank you. Hey, everyone. Producer Nick here. I want to tell you about the SaaS syndicate. If you're a founder of a SaaS company with a product and market, our investment team wants to talk to you. Head over to the syndicate.com slash SaaS. S-A-A-A-S. To apply. to raise from the SaaS Syndicate, and you can join Jason's syndicate of over 9,000 accredited

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