Insights
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Climate Opportunity | Masters of Scale
Mar 20
At the 2024 Masters of Scale Summit, Mike Schroepfer, Founder of Gigascale Capital and former CTO of Meta, sat down with DJ Patil, General Partner at GreatPoint Ventures and former US Chief Data Scientist. They discussed why this is the perfect moment to invest in clean energy, the solutions already transforming industries, and how everyone can contribute to building a more sustainable future.
Key Takeaways:
- Climate Tech Is a $12 Trillion Opportunity. Mike describes his move to climate tech as driven by a sense of duty and questioning how he might one day explain his actions to his children. “It started out of obligation, and it has quickly converted into opportunity,” he says. He saw the potential to rebuild and disrupt multi-trillion dollar sectors of the economy by replacing emissions-heavy and energy-intensive systems with clean, modern solutions. Today’s best entrepreneurs, who could build anything, are choosing climate tech. They’re motivated by the scale of the challenge and inspired by a simple truth: the more we build, the faster costs fall, and the bigger the impact becomes.
- Now Is The Moment for Clean Energy Innovation. Solar energy is now the cheapest form of electricity in the United States, and battery prices are dropping by 20% annually. These trends make clean energy solutions sustainable and economically competitive. “I like businesses where the things are getting cheaper while I’m sleeping every day,” Mike says.
Right now, solar is the cheapest form of energy we have. 90% of the new energy delivered in the US for electricity is solar. There are grid-scale, giant solar farms. Not because people care, it’s because it’s cheap. They want to make money.
- Solutions Are Moving from Labs to Scale. Mike emphasizes that climate technologies are no longer theoretical. Across sectors, ambitious ideas, like fusion energy and grid-scale battery storage, have moved from labs into commercial demonstrations. One example he highlights is Mill, a company creating household systems that transform food waste into chicken feed by repurposing scraps that would otherwise release methane in landfills. He also highlights the transformative potential of next-generation energy solutions. With the right investment, fusion could provide cheap, clean power for industries like transportation and manufacturing.
- You Can Play a Role in Building the Future. Mike explains that every expertise, whether in law, finance, engineering, or management, has a role in scaling solutions. If you want to have an impact, “switch jobs, go ahead and work at one of these climate tech companies,” says Mike. For investors, he advises moving money into funds or businesses that are “not just not doing bad, but doing good.” His advice is simple: “Just pick one and go, then tell your friends.”
This is real, this is not imaginary…We just need to push the accelerator pedal down.
