<aside> ⛈️ This is a first draft. I’d prefer to put my first draft in the wild then let it sit in my ‘to finalize’ folder for a while. Read away.

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<aside> 🤫 Edit: this article and this article were shared with me and is 100x what I’ve written below. It’s a lot. Give yourself time to read them. I highly recommend it. (🙏 to Steven Zhang for sharing). And some bonus reading. And a great webinar for those looking to transition into climate.

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Roughly five years ago, I was contemplating what I wanted to do for my next role.

I set out a few, fairly simple criteria:

1. I wanted to work at an early-stage company,
2. That was generating revenue and had a good semblance of product market fit,
3. And that was doing something meaningful.

That last one was pretty open ended. I often described it as “I don’t want to convince people to build the next FarmVille.” Rather, building a company that has some net positive impact.

I found that with a company called Aurora Solar. I joined when it was a 45 person startup. Good fundamentals. It was in solar, which seemed like this niche sort of thing to me. But cool. I’d just read a book about the power grid in the United States. And it got me interested.

Yes, we’re “just building software,” some may say. But I look back and see the tangible impact that Aurora has had. Operating at platform scale, Aurora continues to enable an entire industry and bends the curve on adoption of solar. You could write code, sell SaaS subscriptions anywhere. But it’s much better if it’s something meaningful.

Fast forward to now and I’m looking to return to work after a sabbatical.

That third criteria has changed a bit. Instead, it’s a bit narrower: A company that is doing (aims to do) something focused on climate change / clean tech at massive scale.