> Four years ago, Crystal and I retired from venture capital to carve out more time for things that matter, with Earth’s climate disaster at the top of the list.
"Retired" is a nice way to put: pushed out for being a sexual harasser. This looks like a classic case of whitewashing your image via philanthropy.
I think this is too harsh. It's fair to acknowledge the reality that doing good things doesn't erase bad things. Even if he has changed, damage that he inflicted onto others lives on.
But, yes, I'd rather he fund these great companies than disappear.
I'd personally like to know everyone's full history-story - and trust that my own judgement and reasoning and compassion will make an adequate decision taking all factors into account; I'd like to know the other side of the stories as well of people who may be harmed, how they were treated, how they're doing now, etc.
I'll take this question in good faith. Here's the guideline I suggest:
If I were a woman who was considering working with him, would I appreciate a heads-up to maybe be a bit careful around him? It's clarifying to understand these as workplace issues.
I believe the question here is very similar to that posed by the sex offender registry. To those who are interested in said question, I'd recommend listening to this debate on the topic of such registries: https://reason.com/2018/02/06/all-sex-offender-registries-sh...
I generally supported them in the past, but the evidence presented here was the tipping point and I now believe they do more harm than good. I would extend that principle to say that past a certain point, we shouldn't constantly remind people of past transgressions. Though I do understand the other side, and there is definitely a part of me that would always want to know if a sex offender lived near a child of mine.
In VC, given the state of the industry? Probably forever. But if he wants to take up gardening or programming with the "bros", I'm sure 4 years will suffice.
That's a neat quote, however poor Elly overlooked the possibility that small minds sometimes take bad ideas seriously, whereas great minds can sometimes discuss great people.
So someone accuses someone of something nearly ten years later after the alleged incident and we are supposed to take it as hard evidence? Sorry but that’s not enough and I am not willing to simply believe extraordinary claims without it being judged in court.
You're referring to a disputed allegation of inappropriately touching a woman. Other acts were not disputed:
> I said and did things that made some women feel awkward, unwelcome, insecure, and/or discouraged. In social settings, under the guise of joking, being collegial, flirting, or having a good time, I undoubtedly caused some women to question themselves, retreat, feel alone, and worry they can’t be their authentic selves. By stupidly perpetuating a culture rife with busting chops, teasing, and peer pressure to go out drinking, I made some women feel self-conscious, anxious, and fear they might not be taken seriously.
Consider the iterated consequences if you don't allow people to admit a transgression, reform, and move on.
Such a society ultimately turns into a gaslighting double-down deny-everything debacle, where everything must be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in a court of law. In this situation court cases will be dragged out forever, and asymmetric resources and power really will come into play.
> It's fair to say he sexually harassed women, even if you think he should be forgiven after apologizing for it.
Sexual harassment is a broad label that doesn't discriminate between coercing sex and an inappropriate joke. However given that he also brought Twitter into the world, the lack of nuance here seems ironic.
That’s not how it works, at all. This is dismissive of a number of facts:
- power dynamics in the workplace and culture (often those who raise these issues are punished not taken seriously and protected adequately)[0]
- when someone is reporting this kind of behavior their professional aspirations can and often are[1] hampered or damaged regardless of the outcome of any investigation. Backlash is common and frankly unacceptable
- Chris Sacca himself admitted to sexist behavior[2]
Given all this, I don’t think this is outlandish at all. In fact the odds of getting the correct eyes on a report of harassment is often so hard the only thing left often is whistleblower or public opinion to motivate something being done about and that is a sad untenable state of affairs
Putting Sacca's previous bad behavior aside (and I have no idea whether or not we should), the no-jargon descriptions of each of the companies that they've backed is fantastic and I'm excited for each of them.
I wonder if they are aware that there is an 'AI' that captures carbon and has been rolling itself out throughout the entire world for billions of years. Oh, right, that wouldn't rake in the same attention.
I am pessimistic when it comes to this stuff. Most initiatives like this are half virtue-signalling, half VC flytraps. I believe the only realistic way we can halt climate change is with geoengineering. One proposed method is an aerosol dispersed between the Earth and the sun to reduce the amount of energy received.
Oh, and fusion. But no amount of Elon Musk's reality distortion field is going to make that happen in 5 years. That needs time, a lot more funding, and educated scientists.
Are you talking about seaweed or some other germs for this "I wonder if they are aware that there is an 'AI' that captures carbon and has been rolling itself out throughout the entire world for billions of years. " ?
i would like to see the feasibility of these projects. anything to do with energy and climate related startups have to deal with physics first. Its not at all like technology or even engineering.
Yeah, I think Sacca is just trying to sell himself as a good guy. I'm skeptical any of these companies will succeed (I only looked at a few but underwhelmed is an understatement), and unless Sacca is putting a significant amount of his own capital behind this initiative it's hard to believe he cares about it more than he cares about being rich. And I think that's what this is about - a rich guy trying to improve his image.
What bad behavior and who is the "we" you're referring to? The guy can invest his money however he pleases and regardless of his background, there is no "we" that has to have some shared opinion of him. IMO that kind of thinking is a major source of toxicity today, because there's a pervasive idea that we all need to judge (and agree upon the judgements of) people's backgrounds.
“We” is everyone who doesn’t want to work in the same industry as a sexual harasser. No one is under any obligation to help Sacca rehabilitate his image. We should all be working to keep people like him far from leadership in our industry. The tech industry is toxic because of people like Sacca and his defenders, not those who rightfully take offense to their actions.
I don't know what the first part of your comment is talking
about, but I do know from my tiny tiny interactions with him he
scores in top 1% of people for honesty, intelligence, work
ethic, integrity. He does still seem to have a chip on his shoulder, which I find amusing. Anyway no one is perfect, but some people are true gems.
I for one feel very happy to learn that his mind is focused
on the climate problem.
I don't understand it too well, but my only question is: say
we do figure out how to control earth's temperature, what do
we agree to settle on? I'm hoping for a nice 78 degrees. My
wife wants 80. Not sure how we're gonna resolve that.
Something about you being able to place someone into a top percentile of ‘honesty, intelligence, work ethic, integrity’ based on a tiny tiny amount of interactions is suspect...you must be a hell a good judge of character.
The reference is to a piece in NYT that led Sacca to admit to sexist behavior[1].
The allegations are mild compared to some others, but I still think you should re-examine your belief that you can assess someone's integrity when you don't know them personally at all.
The layout is intriguing (and the kelp operation sounds interesting), but the problem I see is this is solely focused around carbon. Solutionism like this needs to be paired with cultural change.
Nothing about the other planetary boundaries covered such as geochemical flows, land-use change (which alters the distribution of water vapor, which is very important), methane use change, ocean acidification, etc.
This is exciting to see. Like it or not, we live in a market-driven society, and the biggest climate solutions will ultimately be market based. If business isn't on board, it won't happen.
Make no mistake, the government is going to have to do a lot, too. The single biggest intervention the government can make, according to the IPCC[1] is to set a high price on carbon emissions. And one of the closest times that the economics profession has come to a consensus is when thousands of economists signed a statement[2] that the most effective way to price carbon is to put a high, steadily increasing price on it, give it back to people as dividends, and use a carbon border adjustment to maintain trade competitiveness. This approach is called carbon fee and dividend [3], or sometimes just "carbon dividends".
MIT built a climate policy simulator[4] called EN-ROADS that lets you move sliders to see what moves the needle most in terms of energy mix, and by extension global average temperature above pre-industrial average by the end of the century. It's hard to get anything real to happen without moving the Carbon price slider.
We need to pass carbon fee and dividend legislation at the national level. The legislation that has so far gained the most traction is the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act [5], but ultimately we just need something that actually solves this problem while being fair to people and good (or at least not bad) for business. It also needs to be as bipartisan as possible so that it doesn't get tossed around every time there's a shift in administrations.
The bottom line is that there's a cost to society from continuing to use fossil fuels, and that cost should be reflected in energy prices from carbon-intensive sources. That cost is currently reflected as $0, despite the billions of dollars in damage that climate impacts will have on our economy, according to the 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment[5], a massive and rigorous report from more than 300 experts and 13 federal agencies.
We have to supercharge capital investments into the future of clean tech. VC funding like Lowercarbon Capital is part of that, but we also need carbon dividends to greatly multiply that effect.
I'm underwhelmed. The world is swimming in money, there are founder/company-sponsored funds everywhere. Is greentech really gated on seed investment? Is anything? This seems like a lazy way for the rich to participate without doing much. These boutique funds seem much more focused on the vanity of the LPs, not so much on outcomes. Elon Musk is still your best bet.
I expect to see Lowercarbon Capital appear as one name in a dozen making low-risk small-round investments in meh fad-chasing startups. The world needs builders more than funders.
> It also needs to be as bipartisan as possible so that it doesn't get tossed around every time there's a shift in administrations.
I just don’t see how you can do that (in the US) when one of the major parties seems completely convinced—for reasons I simply can’t fathom—that Climate Change is a giant hoax.
At the time I'm posting this, there are two comments related to the low carbon tech the article is about, the rest are about Chris Sacca and what he did. I for one, don't find much value in the latter, past the initial awareness of his past. Would it be possible to separate the two threads of conversation so one can participate in the thread that is most valuable for them and not waste time with the other?
I tend to disagree with this sentiment only because our actions in life have consequences. The SV bro club have/had their issues for obvious reasons & I think its more than fair that entrepreneurs that might be interested in funding from so etc should be aware of such a past.
Harvey Weinsteins's new fund is here to help save the world... Should we not mention his past?
I did not ask for his past not to be mentioned, I asked if it could be discussed in a different thread, as an optimization. It is much easier to join a discussion in anither thread than to filter out comments in an intermingled thread.
According to these comments here on HN, Sacca is a sexual-harrassing pariah. But I remember the original accusation against him years ago, and thinking at the time that it was a mild charge, and one where his immediate apology and promise to improve was the appropriate correction, not a banishment from the tech world.
To revisit, here is the claim of sexual harassment against him:
> Another woman, Susan Wu, claimed that Chris Sacca - who founded Lowercase Capital in 2007 - had made her feel uncomfortable when he allegedly touched her face without permission at a tech event in Las Vegas in 2009.
Unfortunately this sort of level headed, second chance, everybody makes mistakes apathy is not “allowed” in today’s environment when it comes to cancel culture. Especially if there is even a whiff of sexual undertones or male misbehaving.
> In 2017 the New York Times reported that a woman had accused Sacca of touching her face at...
This is just patently false. People get away with whiffs of sexual harassment all the time. John Lasseter, Andy Rubin, among many others, got away with more than a whiff of sexual harassment for decades.
That article says Lowercase was founded in 2007, however Wikipedia[1] and Sacca's response [2] claim Lowercase wasn't founded till 2010. But we can't let that get in the way of the VC super predator narrative.
> At the time, we had known each other for years, were in a private party setting in Vegas, not a work event, with no investor-investee relationship, we were not in business together, we didn’t work together in any capacity, and I also wasn’t even a venture capitalist yet as I didn’t close my first fund until May of 2010. There was no imbalance of power between us.
why are all the scammiest people from chamath to sacca getting in on the EV grift? seems like the tesla soaring has basically drawn the gnats around easy money
A lot of people listened to the experts in the room and were late to the Tesla party when people like myself had been telling them to look at the space. Now those same people want a second chance and they're looking for penny stocks in the field.
Little known fact: Chris sings an unbelievably awesome rendition of stairway to heaven. Saw it at a certain Utah dive bar. Fun guy.
I find it fascinating that few backing climate change mitigation are addressing the 10,000 pound bright pink elephant in the room: Let’s promote making less humans so that human population, the root cause of every single way we’re screwing up this planet, simply shrinks.
Advocating for having less kids is taboo, especially in the USA. And as with Chris the approach is to make more stuff to fix the fact that our growing population’s appetite for stuff is killing the planet.
Arguing for population control is arguing for limiting growth - it's what no capitalist wants to hear. The only reason the stock market is climbing is because the Fed is artificially inflating it. Investors want growth no matter what. As far as I'm concerned, most investors are cancer.
They don't want to solve problems. They want to get rich, and if "solving" problems helps them achieve that goal then that is how they will sell themselves.
Exactly. On the one side you’re competing with the human drive and visceral need to procreate, and on the other side you have greed and laziness that want wealth without work via stock market growth, demand for housing increasing, and inflation reducing debt.
I’m pretty sure extinction isn’t a risk for us. We lost over 500 species in the last century which would have been 9 at natural rates. During the same time our own population grew from 1.6 billion to 7.8 billion.
This subject is so distasteful to most that even the educated are prepared to temporarily put aside rational thinking and engage the monkey mind: Lets have less kids doesn’t mean “You want us extinct bro!”
Population control is problematic because often it’s not voluntary. Also how do we decide which areas are overpopulated and need to slow down and which ones are underpopulated and need to grow?
In any case the eugenics movements cast a long shadow on this topic.
> Population control is problematic because often it’s not voluntary.
But we’re comfortable outlawing other practices that harm the planet. And in that conflict lies the nucleus of my point: humans are very uncomfortable talking about the root cause of harm to this planet: humans, our existence, our expansion and our insatiable focus on more consumption as a solution to a problem with too many humans at its root.
> In any case the eugenics movements cast a long shadow on this topic.
Bullshit. Modifying the species is not a requirement for simply doing nothing vs having children. But it is seductive to conflate the two because it provides a moral platform for those who insist on having large families and exponentially growing the harm they’ve already done.
The downvotes my post has received clearly illustrates how utterly taboo this topic is, even among rational technologists.
64 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 93.3 ms ] thread"Retired" is a nice way to put: pushed out for being a sexual harasser. This looks like a classic case of whitewashing your image via philanthropy.
But, yes, I'd rather he fund these great companies than disappear.
If I were a woman who was considering working with him, would I appreciate a heads-up to maybe be a bit careful around him? It's clarifying to understand these as workplace issues.
I generally supported them in the past, but the evidence presented here was the tipping point and I now believe they do more harm than good. I would extend that principle to say that past a certain point, we shouldn't constantly remind people of past transgressions. Though I do understand the other side, and there is definitely a part of me that would always want to know if a sex offender lived near a child of mine.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
> I said and did things that made some women feel awkward, unwelcome, insecure, and/or discouraged. In social settings, under the guise of joking, being collegial, flirting, or having a good time, I undoubtedly caused some women to question themselves, retreat, feel alone, and worry they can’t be their authentic selves. By stupidly perpetuating a culture rife with busting chops, teasing, and peer pressure to go out drinking, I made some women feel self-conscious, anxious, and fear they might not be taken seriously.
https://medium.com/@sacca/i-have-more-work-to-do-c775c5d56ca...
It's fair to say he sexually harassed women, even if you think he should be forgiven after apologizing for it.
Also, an "extraordinary" claim would be "the Earth is flat." The harassment of women in the workplace is known and even quite common!
Such a society ultimately turns into a gaslighting double-down deny-everything debacle, where everything must be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in a court of law. In this situation court cases will be dragged out forever, and asymmetric resources and power really will come into play.
Failing and fixing fast is much more preferable.
Sexual harassment is a broad label that doesn't discriminate between coercing sex and an inappropriate joke. However given that he also brought Twitter into the world, the lack of nuance here seems ironic.
Victory has a hundred fathers
- power dynamics in the workplace and culture (often those who raise these issues are punished not taken seriously and protected adequately)[0]
- when someone is reporting this kind of behavior their professional aspirations can and often are[1] hampered or damaged regardless of the outcome of any investigation. Backlash is common and frankly unacceptable
- Chris Sacca himself admitted to sexist behavior[2]
Given all this, I don’t think this is outlandish at all. In fact the odds of getting the correct eyes on a report of harassment is often so hard the only thing left often is whistleblower or public opinion to motivate something being done about and that is a sad untenable state of affairs
[0]: https://diginomica.com/how-can-companies-tackle-tech-sectors...
[1]: https://hbr.org/2020/05/why-sexual-harassment-programs-backf...
[2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/chris-sacca-and-dave-mcclure...
https://lowercarboncapital.com/companies/
- MAKING CHEMICALS WITH ENZYMES, NOT OIL.
- FUSION WITH PLASMA-TAMING MAGNETS.
- 100% BEEF THAT NEVER HAD EYES NOR HOOVES.
- KELP-FARMING CARBON-SINKING ROBOTS.
- GIANT CARBON SUCKING VACUUMS.
- PROTEIN FROM TRASH-EATING FLIES.
- FULLY ELECTRIC AIRPLANES.
- CLEAN, FAST, CHEAP LITHIUM MINING.
- REAL DAIRY SANS COWS.
- BATTERIES THAT MAKE SOLAR WORK 24/7.
- CARBON-NEGATIVE MICROBIAL FERTILIZER.
- INSANELY HIGH-TORQUE ELECTRIC MOTORS.
- CHEAP FUSION POWER. SERIOUSLY.
- AI TO CAPTURE CARBON AND RESTORE FORESTS.
- PUMPING OIL BACK UNDER-GROUND.
- FUNGUS EATS CARBON AND PAYS FARMERS.
- SUPERFAST HYDROFOIL CARGO SHIPS.
- PIGLESS BACON.
- CARBON-TRAPPING SEMI TRUCKS.
- FERTILIZER BORN FROM LIGHTNING.
- AUTOMATED CARBON FOOTPRINT REPORTING.
- CARBON-GUZZLING SUPERTREES.
- CATTLE THAT BURP LESS METHANE.
- TREE-PLANTING DRONES.
- CRYSTAL BALL FOR CLIMATE RISK.
- METHANE BOUNTY HUNTERS.
- CARBON X-RAY FOR DIRTY SUPPLY CHAINS.
- UPCYCLING CARBON INTO FUELS AND CHEMICALS.
- FIND THE WORLD’S BEST WIND + HYDRO SITES.
- LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS.
I am pessimistic when it comes to this stuff. Most initiatives like this are half virtue-signalling, half VC flytraps. I believe the only realistic way we can halt climate change is with geoengineering. One proposed method is an aerosol dispersed between the Earth and the sun to reduce the amount of energy received.
Oh, and fusion. But no amount of Elon Musk's reality distortion field is going to make that happen in 5 years. That needs time, a lot more funding, and educated scientists.
Sounds like fluff to me.
I think it’s enough that we just don’t rehabilitate his image and refuse to work with him or anyone else who embodies the worst of our industry.
I for one feel very happy to learn that his mind is focused on the climate problem.
I don't understand it too well, but my only question is: say we do figure out how to control earth's temperature, what do we agree to settle on? I'm hoping for a nice 78 degrees. My wife wants 80. Not sure how we're gonna resolve that.
The allegations are mild compared to some others, but I still think you should re-examine your belief that you can assess someone's integrity when you don't know them personally at all.
1. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/chris-sacca-and-dave-mcclure...
Nothing about the other planetary boundaries covered such as geochemical flows, land-use change (which alters the distribution of water vapor, which is very important), methane use change, ocean acidification, etc.
Make no mistake, the government is going to have to do a lot, too. The single biggest intervention the government can make, according to the IPCC[1] is to set a high price on carbon emissions. And one of the closest times that the economics profession has come to a consensus is when thousands of economists signed a statement[2] that the most effective way to price carbon is to put a high, steadily increasing price on it, give it back to people as dividends, and use a carbon border adjustment to maintain trade competitiveness. This approach is called carbon fee and dividend [3], or sometimes just "carbon dividends".
MIT built a climate policy simulator[4] called EN-ROADS that lets you move sliders to see what moves the needle most in terms of energy mix, and by extension global average temperature above pre-industrial average by the end of the century. It's hard to get anything real to happen without moving the Carbon price slider.
We need to pass carbon fee and dividend legislation at the national level. The legislation that has so far gained the most traction is the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act [5], but ultimately we just need something that actually solves this problem while being fair to people and good (or at least not bad) for business. It also needs to be as bipartisan as possible so that it doesn't get tossed around every time there's a shift in administrations.
The bottom line is that there's a cost to society from continuing to use fossil fuels, and that cost should be reflected in energy prices from carbon-intensive sources. That cost is currently reflected as $0, despite the billions of dollars in damage that climate impacts will have on our economy, according to the 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment[5], a massive and rigorous report from more than 300 experts and 13 federal agencies.
We have to supercharge capital investments into the future of clean tech. VC funding like Lowercarbon Capital is part of that, but we also need carbon dividends to greatly multiply that effect.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/climate/carbon-tax-united... [2] https://econstatement.org/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/climate/carbon-tax-united... [4] https://energyinnovationact.org/ [5] https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/
I expect to see Lowercarbon Capital appear as one name in a dozen making low-risk small-round investments in meh fad-chasing startups. The world needs builders more than funders.
I just don’t see how you can do that (in the US) when one of the major parties seems completely convinced—for reasons I simply can’t fathom—that Climate Change is a giant hoax.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4656190/Five-Silico...
Harvey Weinsteins's new fund is here to help save the world... Should we not mention his past?
Allegedly "touching someones face" at a private party social event in Las Vegas 12 years ago?
I think that doesn't needs a warning. I also think it shouldn't be equated with a convicted serial rapist (Weinstein).
To revisit, here is the claim of sexual harassment against him:
> Another woman, Susan Wu, claimed that Chris Sacca - who founded Lowercase Capital in 2007 - had made her feel uncomfortable when he allegedly touched her face without permission at a tech event in Las Vegas in 2009.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4656190/Five-Silico...
> In 2017 the New York Times reported that a woman had accused Sacca of touching her face at...
> At the time, we had known each other for years, were in a private party setting in Vegas, not a work event, with no investor-investee relationship, we were not in business together, we didn’t work together in any capacity, and I also wasn’t even a venture capitalist yet as I didn’t close my first fund until May of 2010. There was no imbalance of power between us.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowercase_Capital 2. https://medium.com/@sacca/i-have-more-work-to-do-c775c5d56ca...
I find it fascinating that few backing climate change mitigation are addressing the 10,000 pound bright pink elephant in the room: Let’s promote making less humans so that human population, the root cause of every single way we’re screwing up this planet, simply shrinks.
Advocating for having less kids is taboo, especially in the USA. And as with Chris the approach is to make more stuff to fix the fact that our growing population’s appetite for stuff is killing the planet.
They don't want to solve problems. They want to get rich, and if "solving" problems helps them achieve that goal then that is how they will sell themselves.
Covid19 might cause male sterility.[0]
[0] https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=9711
This subject is so distasteful to most that even the educated are prepared to temporarily put aside rational thinking and engage the monkey mind: Lets have less kids doesn’t mean “You want us extinct bro!”
In any case the eugenics movements cast a long shadow on this topic.
But we’re comfortable outlawing other practices that harm the planet. And in that conflict lies the nucleus of my point: humans are very uncomfortable talking about the root cause of harm to this planet: humans, our existence, our expansion and our insatiable focus on more consumption as a solution to a problem with too many humans at its root.
> In any case the eugenics movements cast a long shadow on this topic.
Bullshit. Modifying the species is not a requirement for simply doing nothing vs having children. But it is seductive to conflate the two because it provides a moral platform for those who insist on having large families and exponentially growing the harm they’ve already done.
The downvotes my post has received clearly illustrates how utterly taboo this topic is, even among rational technologists.