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Climate tech isnt a thing. It has shifted in recent years from a category to define clean energy companies to an umbrella phrase that loses meaning the more we use it. Granted, the term is everywhere: inserted into VC pitch decks, plastered on billboards along highways from San Francisco to Austin to Boston, wedged into government policy papers, and featured prominently on conference agendas. Media properties from CNBC to GreenBiz rely on it as a traffic-driving category. And theres a reason why. A changing climate is the most complex and vast challenge and opportunity confronting our society today. That also means we cant afford ambiguity. We need accountability. We need progress. We need to reengineer infrastructure with advanced tech that future-proofs as it solves urgent and complex problems. Now. Which means we need precision. And we need to acknowledge that infrastructure and markets that have served us for so long are failingand in need of rebuilding to anticipate and meet future challenges. Our world is in desperate need of solutions tied to specific applications and impact across energy tech, waste tech, food tech, and carbon tech. We need solutions that advance specific areas of deeply specialized work with distinct metrics and challenges like energy storage, batteries, food security, and sustainable fuel development. And, we need talent trained and sharpened to tackle these specific problems. Ambiguity is the enemy of progress Progress requires clarity. Energy technology is a distinct thing. Waste technology is a distinct thing. Transportation technology, energy storage, agriculture and food sustainability, carbon removalthese are specific categories with definable challenges and measurable outcomes. Each is firmly tied to infrastructure and requires dedicated engineering, specialized expertise, and different pools of capital. For example, grid storage is not a climate tech problemits a specific energy challenge with concrete metrics: cost per kilowatt-hour, storage capacity, duration, and efficiency. Grid storage is about optimizing supply and demand, the outcome of which is a financial, political, and engineering goal, not a moral imperative. We must connect the promise and hype of AI-powered software solutions to their physical applications in the real world. Why? Because solving these big, specific problems requires more than computation behind a screen. Realizing the promise of AI to transform and improve is only possible if it enters the physical realm and changes the mechanics of existing ways of doing things. Calling the solutions to these problems climate tech is a disservice to the work because it no longer adequately captures the scale and range of what’s required. Breaking climate tech down to drive breakthroughs We need to build and invest in technologies that are better, faster, cheaper than what came before and solve real problemsrather than loaded words that offer environmental promise and not much else. The trajectory of biotech offers a solid framework. Rather than lumping everything under a term like health tech, industry pioneers stood up clearly defined categories, including: immunotherapy, CRISPR, mRNA vaccine development, oncology, longevity, and so on. Each domain pursued a specific set of problems and attracted talent and capital to solve them. The result? Breakthroughs. Whether we realize it or not, software also focused in recent years, which has helped to accelerate progress. Information technology gave way to specific technical disciplines like cybersecurity, cloud computing, and enterprise tools. Category focus allowed companies to gain market share and differentiate with customer experience and accountability front-and-center. Its time that climate tech undergoes the same level of rigorous redefinition. And its not just because were approaching critical climate tipping points (which we are). Its because the economic opportunity cost of not acting is too great. The future of American communities and industries from agriculture to manufacturing rests on our ability to effectively seize the opportunities in front of us and reengineer them. Everything needs to be built for the future with engineering precision and a specific problem in mind to solve. We need infrastructure and hardware solutions to solve focused problems like recycling plastic for manufacturing, rendering cement carbon-neutral, electrifying freight transport, rethinking protein production, and removing carbon at scale. We cannot grow the economy in the future without approaching all tech as climate tech. For example, the investment firm I cofounded, Incite, invested in Monarch, a startup with a fleet of AI-powered electric vehicles and tech solutions that work for agricultural clients ranging from dairy farmers to municipalities to winemakers. Monarch recently shipped MonarchOne, an end-to-end physical AI platform for OEMs to more efficiently manage work and use data to influence operations across environments. Monarch isnt a climate tech company. Its an AI and robotics company with clear environmental benefits. Working toward a post-climate tech world Climate tech served its purpose as an initial rallying cry. It placed an urgent crisis squarely on the map of capital markets, boardrooms, and policy agendas. It made innovation to help us take care of our planet inevitable. Totally unsurprisingly, however, grouping a product or tech into the vague category enables more greenwashing and ambiguity when what we need is progress, focus, and accountability. In order to scale up the grid, add resilience to infrastructure, and prevent the housing market from insurance collapse, we need to retire not just the language but the entire categorization of climate tech completely. We must dismantle the umbrella term into specific, infrastructure-centered areas in need of urgent work. Lets refine our language. Words matter. Tech is crucial to curbing negative environmental impacts. But the utility of climate tech is running on fumes. Lets stop pretending its still a thingand seize the opportunity to build and invest in the physical infrastructure, software, apps, and technologies that will power economic opportunities and enrich life around the world.
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E-Commerce
A new type of window on the verge of mass production in the United States will provide a new vision for architects and builders seeking to marry design with energy efficiency. This window, made from millimeter-thin glass panels, can achieve exceptional energy efficiency scores and make a significant difference in global emissions. Buildings account for about 30% of global energy consumption, and about half of the energy use in residential and commercial buildings is used for heating and cooling. Corning, the firm that developed Gorilla glass in 2007 for Apple iPhones, helped refine the mass-manufacturing process based on material discoveries made at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. In the late 1980s, researchers at the lab began looking into window efficiency in the aftermath of the energy crisis of the 70s. It led them to develop a new kind of glass that was thinner, yet stronger and more efficient. In short, by creating these ultra-thin layers of glass, more layers and air gaps can be arranged inside a standard window frame, which multiplies a windows ability to insulate. Typical double-pane windows utilize two sheets of glass three or four millimeters thick; this new thin glass can be a half-a-millimeter thick. Corning developed a modified manufacturing process based on the lab’s research that can create glass sheets at scale, as thin as a credit card. It can be cut and modified to suit standard window frames, as well as for more unique designs for custom buildings designed by architects. Corning calls this new, larger commercial glass Enlighten. The Kenzi Apartments at Bartlett Station, Boston-area [Photo: courtesy Alpen] A more efficient window Stephen Selkowitz, a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who theorized this process in the 80s, before it was commercially possible to produce, says that windows lose 10 to 20 times more energy per square foot than a well-insulated wall. Within a standard home or business, windows and glass represent the most porous area for heat exchange, letting in cold weather in the winter and heat in the summer. By cutting down this energy transfer, this new glasswhich contains layers of inert gas between thin panes, increasing its insulating propertiescan slash the costs of heating and cooling a single-family home or office building. Andrew Zech, the CEO of Alpen, a company that has collaborated with Corning on commercializing this technology for the last six years, says this new glass can achieve five times the energy efficiency of standard windows. The material also boasts a special coating that inhibits solar gain, or the heating effect of bright sunlight on a room. As Ronald Verkleeren, Cornings senior vice president for the Emerging Innovations Group, sees it, energy efficiency codes have in effect provided a limiting factor for glass. Increasingly strict building standards require a more balanced approach to material choices and window sizes to limit energy use. This development, in effect, frees up the industry to use and buy more windows, and will help manufacturers utilizing this process gain market share in the large, lucrative, architectural glass market. Corning has reached out to architects to encourage them to create case studies and new designs utilizing this glass. All of a sudden you can show up with a window that comes as close to matching what’s possible from a wall, in terms of energy efficiency, and that gives a lot of degrees of design freedom to be able to meet the code, Verkleeren says. That’s the game changer. Ramping up production Alpen was the first domestic firm to manufacture this glass, and will ramp up facilities in Pennsylvania and Colorado later this fall. According to news from Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, which helped develop the breakthroughs that made this process possible, a number of larger producers will begin making these kinds of windows. Manufacturers include Andersen, the world’s biggest window manufacturer, which plans to open a plant in Georgia in October specifically geared towards this product, as well as PGT, which makes hurricane-resistent windows. The rate of window replacement is rather slow, says Zech, just about 1.4% of the national stock gets updated every year, and the number of windows sold each year is generally split in half between new projects and replacement. As Zech sees it, these new thin glasses can be used for any shape or profilethey can be as boring as you need them to be. This new wave of thin glass production in the United Statescoming during a time of heightened tariffs and a loosening of environmental regulationscan help U.S. developers and builders utilize more glass on projects in a way that can not just cut emissions but help architects rethink how theyre designing buildings. The end of architectural trade-offs Alpens factory utilizes a number of robotics and advanced manufacturing technologies in the production process, says Zech. A vacuum system holds onto the panes as they roll down a conveyor belta stiff wind could blow them offand a series of superfine bristles wash the glass, akin to a microscopic glass carwash. Alpens Zech says the companys working theory was that they would sell tons of these new windows in cold climates like Alaska or Minnesota. But theyre also selling a lot in hotter climates and temperate areas like San Francisco, as a way to open up walls and facades with glass without creating additional heating burdens through substantial solar gain. Selkowitz believes this tech offers so many commercial opportunities where this technology helps meet real world needs, such as building offices with more daylighting. In fact, Zech says the trend in recent years has been adding fewer windows to new construction, as energy efficiency standards have demanded builders figure out how to meet more strict insulation goals. He believes this new thin glass will eliminate the need for these kinds of design trade-offs, and allow for larger windows and showier facades. There is an energy savings story here, and it’s really potent, Zech says. But probably the bigger story is actually, people just want to have massive windows in their homes and businesses, they want walls of glass.
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E-Commerce
In part three of How YouTube Ate TV, Fast Companys oral history of YouTube, new parent Google confronts the messy issues standing in the way of the video streamer’s long-term viability. As Viacom sues over YouTube users unauthorized uploading of intellectual property, Google and YouTube engineers simultaneously build technology that will save the business. Called ContentID, it lets copyright holders remove their workor, better yet, leave it up and benefit from its monetization. YouTube also sets viewership goals that are even more wildly audacious than the ones its already achieved. First, though, Google has to convince even its own employees that buying the video-sharing service hadnt been a horrible mistake. Comments have been edited for length and clarity. Read more ‘How YouTube Ate TV’ Part one: YouTube failed as a dating site. This one change altered its fortunes forever Part two: Pit bulls, rats, and 2 circling sharks: The inside story of Google buying YouTube Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube chief product officer/CTO (20082014): The general perception inside Google was that [buying YouTube] was Googles first mistake. Every previous acquisition had worked out so well: Android and Google Maps, and even Google Docs was off to a reasonable start. But this one didnt seem like it was going anywhere.Matthew Darby, YouTube director of product management (2008present): I remember giving a talk to my team about, like, How the hell is YouTube going to make any money for Google? There was this odd thing going on in San Bruno and it was costing a great deal of money, because video is an expensive thing to serve. Mehrotra: About a month after I joined, we went to see Patrick Pichette, who was the CFO at the time. He had these three charts. The first said, here’s how much money YouTube is losing. It was hundreds of millions of dollars. The second said, here’s how much money YouTube loses per view. It was just under a penny. And the third chart showed viewership. It wasn’t just up and to the right, it was a straight line. He said, This is the worst business on the planet. Thankfully, [then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt] was in the room. He kind of laughed and said, No, no, nodon’t listen to Patrick. You guys have time. Go figure it out. But it was very clear that we were on a clock. Outside Google, media companies and marketers alike remained skeptical about partnering with YouTube. Viewers also werent wild about the prospect of marketing intruding on the experience. Michael Fricklas, general counsel, Viacom (20002017): Googles a big, responsible company, and the thought that it would be acquiring a site that we viewed as a pirate site was considered, at best, bad form. We thought big, responsible companies would behave in responsible ways.Chris Maxcy, YouTube VP of business development (20052013): [Media] companies that had been collaborative with us shifted and said, Now we cant [acquire] you, so were going to try to shut you down. Or Now you have a really, really large parent with lots of money. Its time for us to extract some.Amy Singer, YouTube development, partnerships, strategy executive (2010present): [Media companies] wanted to manage their distribution ecosystem, and so there wasnt a lot of reception to working with YouTube. Ian Hecox, cocreator (with Anthony Padilla) of the comedy duo Smosh: The Logitech deal [in 2009] was probably our first big brand deal. The audience hated that we did sponsored videos back then. Suzie Reider, YouTube CMO (20062013): There were marketers who saw it as such a creative marketing platform. I remember the first million-dollar program that we sold was a battle of the bands. We had a wireless company sponsor it. Some marketers were willing not only to use YouTube, but to embrace its spirit, such as the ones responsible for promoting the 2007 film Hairspray. Russell Schwartz, New Line Cinema president of theatrical marketing (2001-2007): When Nikki Blonsky was awarded the role of [Tracy Turnblad], she was working at a Baskin-Robbins on Long Island. We brought in a camera crew and told her, in front of all her peers, You’ve got the role. It was the most emotional thing I’d experienced. What better content do you need for YouTube than that? Once we realized the response to the piece we put up, we said, Well, this is a place we have to be. Reider: And then there were a lot of folks who were resistant to it.Tara Walpert Levy, Google ads director (20112021); VP, Americas at YouTube (2021present): It was my job to bridge Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley, to explain this new platform that looked and sounded like TV but had a lot of differences from TV. That was a hard pitch.Reider: Procter & Gamble and Unilever were saying, Were not touching it until you have the right brand safety mechanisms and control in place. How YouTube Shaped CultureGangnam Style, July 2012 In an early example of K-pops international appeal, rapper Psys music video both silly and hypnoticsurges right off YouTube to become an unavoidable cultural phenomenon. In March 2007, YouTube faced its greatest legal threat when media giant Viacom (now Paramount) sued it for $1 billion for copyright infringement by its users. But YouTube prevailed in 2013, establishing protections for itself and other online services yet to come. Zahavah Levine, YouTube general counsel, chief counsel (20062011): Viacom argued that YouTube was responsible for all of the copyright infringement of its users, who, it alleged, uploaded over 150,000 clips of Viacom-owned programming without authorization, which had collectively been viewed 1.5 billion times. This was itthe existential lawsuit we all knew was coming.Fricklas: We sent this notice saying, Take down our stuff. And [Google general counsel Kent Walker] sent a letter that said they had no responsibility. We decided we really had no choice but to bring litigation. Levine: It got worse. Shortly after Viacom sued, at least two class actions were filed against Google. One class represented sports leagues and music publishers, and the other represented all copyright holders in the world. Even as YouTub battled Viacom, it was developing Content ID, a fingerprinting technology designed to identify copyrighted material and allow owners to decide what to do with it. Robert Kyncl, YouTube chief business officer (20102022): During one of our first meetings, Eric Schmidt said, Can you figure out how to stop them from sending us paper? Meaning lawsuits. And instead, we send them paper. Meaning money.Levine: With Googles substantial resources and top talent, we developed the copyright management system that YouTube has in place today.Kyncl: The first step was getting [media companies] to embrace Content ID and use it to block content [from appearing on YouTube]. And then, Now that youve got the hang of this, how about tracking it, so you see whats happening with your IP? And then, This IP is doing well. How about turning on monetization? Many did and started to make money.Lyor Cohen, Warner Music Group CEO of recorded music (20042012); YouTube and Google global head of music (2016present): Content ID is the unsung hero of YouTube. It was absolutely the most brilliant and critical decision that our leadership has made. How YouTube Shaped CultureHot Ones, March 2015Rapper Tony Yayo chats with host Sean Evans while eating increasingly spicy wings, launching a show that will eventually host more than 300 guests, including Questlove, Conan OBrien, Billie Eilish, and Donald Duck. Fricklas: It’s a tough case to win in court that once they had Content ID in place, that [YouTube] was generating a lot of copyright damages. They could say, At least they’re not willful. So we narrowed our lawsuit to focus only on what happened up until Content ID. Mehrotra: The reason we won the case was that it turned out there were a bunch of Viacom marketing people uploading clips. They had figured out that it was a good way to drive attention to [Daily Show host] Jon Stewart.Levine: This just underscored that there is no way for YouTube to know who uploaded each video and whether they are authorized to do so. Viacom appealed, and the appeals court overturned a small part of the district courts decision, but affirmed most of it. The case was sent back to the district court, which again ruled in YouTubes favor, and the parties eventually settled.Fricklas: We needed to operate in the world of YouTube. Google was selling our adsthey had bought DoubleClick. They were buying movies from us for distribution on their devices. They were just so big we needed to normalize our relationship with them. How YouTube Shaped CultureBaby Shark Dance, June 2016Cartoon sharks, two live-action kids, and an earworm of a song add up to the mostwatched YouTube video of all time, at 16,524,112,698 views and counting. As YouTubes legal woes receded into the past, it could concentrate on building out its advertising-based business model. Reider: When were in the original offices with Chad and Steve, there was a lot of discussion about how we were never going to run pre-roll ads. Kyncl: Shishir did many things, but I would credit him with the most important thing, which was skippable ads. Mehrotra: I had written a paper. During the Super Bowl, the commercials are actually quite good. And you pause and you rewind and you watch them again. And I said, what if every commercial was good enough to pause and rewind and watch again? Why don’t you put a skip button on ads, and then when people don’t watch, don’t charge the advertiser and create an incentive to create better and better ads? Kyncl: Everybody was like, That’s stupid. Everybody will skip the ads. And he was like, No, not if you think of them as information, not an intrusion. And if you think of them as information. It means they have to be well targeted and you have to have a lot of them, different versions. It was a big moment. The focus on advertising led to goals that were on a whole new level of ambition. Kyncl: If you want to serve more ads, you need more impressions and more content. It was tied together. Mehrotra: By 2011, 2012, we didn’t have any competition anymore. Nobody quite knew why we were doing what we were doing. And somebody told this story, which I think is folklore, about a famous Coca-Cola board meeting where somebody said, Hey, are we just going to go back and forth with Pepsi at 60% share and 55% share, or is there something bigger were aiming for? Someone else said, How about we measure progress by percentage of the stomachthe liquid you drink that comes from our company? Darby: We had this goal that Shishir came up with. Mehrotra: At the end of the day it was my decision, but a group of us came up with it. We were doing a hundred million hours a day of watch time. It turned out television was about five and a half billion hours a day. We said, If we get to a billion hours a day, not only is it five times what Facebook is today, but its 10 times bigger than we are today. But its only 20% of television.John Harding, Google software engineer (20052007); YouTube engineering manager, director, VP (2007present): We did the math of, okay, if we were to serve a billion hours of YouTube every day, here is what that would look like in terms of network consumption. And then we had another graph: Heres what the internets total network capacity looks like over time. And at a certain point, those lines crossed, and we would be serving more traffic than the entire internet capacity was projected to be. And so, we had to go and say, Well, what do we need to build? Jake McGuire, YouTube software engineer (2006present): We knew that a lot of other teams at YouTubethe people making the features, the people getting the partnerswere going to have to do their part. I don’t think that we doubted it would happen. We just weren’t sure when.Mehrotra: When I left, in 2014, we had crossed the 400-million-hour line, but we were nowhere near a billion. I got a really nice call from the team when they hit it [in 2017]. Additional reporting by María José Gutiérrez Chávez, Yasmin Gagne, and Steven Melendez.
Category:
E-Commerce
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