20VC: Former Meta CTO, Schrep on Why Climate is a $10TRN Problem, Operating Lessons Scaling Products to Billions at Meta and Why the Best Leaders are Like Music Conductors
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2024
⏱️ 71 minutes
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Summary
Mike Schroepfer (Schrep) is the Founder & Partner @ Gigascale Capital, a new kind of climate-focused investment firm. Prior to Gigascale, Mike was the CTO @ Meta where he scaled products to billions of users, shipped millions of units of consumer hardware, constructed tens of millions of sq ft of data centres, built teams of up to 35,000, and made breakthroughs in AI. Before Meta, Mike led engineering at Mozilla and founded a company acquired by Sun Microsystems.
In Today's Show with Mike Schroepfer We Discuss:
1. Lessons from Mark Zuckerberg and Meta:
- What are Schrep's biggest lessons from Zuck on truly effective leaders?
- Why does Schrep believe the best leaders are like music conductors?
- What does Schrep mean when he says, "building a company is a game of inches"?
- Why does Schrep believe "inertia is one of the most underappreciated forces in company building?"
2. The Future of Energy:
- Why does Schrep believe that the "availability of cheap, clean energy is the biggest rate limiter to human progress?"
- Does Schrep agree with Sam Altman that energy will be the currency of the next decade? Or does he believe Mustafa Suleyman is right and it will soon be free and abundant?
- How does Schrep predict the next five years for both fusion and nuclear?
- Why does Schrep believe the next few years will be "messy but with huge opportunity"?
3. Investing in Climate: It has to be Profitable:
- Why does Schrep believe that markets and not governments or philanthropy will solve the climate challenges we face?
- What leads Schrep to suggest that the climate change transition is a $10TRN opportunity for investors?
- What is the single hardest element of investing in climate change solutions today?
- Why do climate change solutions need to reshape how they market to consumers?
- How much capital does it take to build a defensible moat in climate?
4. Schrep: The Man Behind Whatsapp and Instagram: AMA:
- How does Schrep reflect on his own relationship to money? How has it changed?
- How does Schrep think about what it takes to be a great father?
- How did Schrep manage the physical stress and pressure of managing engineering for products that serve billions of people in WhatsApp and Instagram?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Building a company, it feels like it's big moments, but it's more a game of inches. |
| 0:04.2 | I describe a good leader as sort of like a conductor of an orchestra. It's like I can have the best players in the world, but if they're all playing from a different song sheet, it's going to sound terrible. My joke is like inertia is the most underappreciated sort of force in the universe. As I learned more about climate, I'm like, this is a $10 trillion problem. Availability of cheap clean |
| 0:21.5 | energy is probably the biggest rate limiter to human progress right now. |
| 0:25.8 | This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and today we have one of the greatest technologists |
| 0:30.1 | of the last two decades on the show. His name, Shrap. He was the CTO meta, where he scaled |
| 0:36.5 | products to billions of users, shipped millions of |
| 0:40.0 | units of consumer hardware, constructed tens of millions of square feet of data centers. He built |
| 0:46.8 | teams of up to 35,000 people and made breakthroughs in AI. Today, Shrep is the founder and partner at Gigascale, a new kind of climate-focused investment firm. |
| 0:58.4 | But before we dive in, let's face it, your employees probably hate your procurement process. |
| 1:03.2 | It's hard to follow. |
| 1:04.2 | It's cobbled together across systems, and it's a waste of valuable time and resources. |
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| 1:31.2 | procurement process across systems and teams, meaning you can procure faster with the least |
| 1:36.1 | amount of risk and get the best spend ROI for your business. |
| 1:39.9 | With over $4.4 billion in savings for our customers, Zip is the go-to solution procurement |
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| 1:59.5 | And speaking of GameChanger with Zip, we have to talk about Cooley, the global law firm |
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