[MUSIC]
The year is 2050.
You New Yorkers, you're shoveling snow from Halloween to Easter.
And Californians.
Do you love skiing?
Your season is cut in half.
And don't think about running up to Canada or Montana just yet
because those wildfires are right on your feet.
Some of you are just over the age of 60 and
you can't help a wonder.
What on earth happened in the last 28 years?
Well, here's what happened.
You finish school, transformed into the entrepreneur of your wildest dreams,
half of you married just above your league.
The other half just under.
Some of you may have reproduced.
Specht a few companies and
you manage a $20 billion business, okay.
But what else have you bore witness to.
Wheat, gas and lots prices that have tripled
since the Russia Ukraine attack of 2022.
Your neighbors, half of whom are migrants,
who have come because their counties are too hot, flooded or fragile.
Let that sink in.
Your oldest is finally going to college.
What a relief?
And your youngest, well,
both of them never gotta enjoy sports in the same way that you did.
Because they're also wearing masks half year.
Not because of COVID but bad air quality.
You're forced to reckon with yourself.
Are my unbridled successes worth
what I have left to my children?
This look into the future,
our future is not meant to paralyze or instill fear no.
Because it's not written in stone for the next 30 years,
if there's one thing you ask of me.
That can shift the narrative on climate change, it is not these three things.
Put all your money in one stock, put all your money in one job or
a magic bullet through a nonprofit or an investment.
Instead, what I tell you today,
is that where your behavior will matter most for the next 30 years.
Is in your hands in the form of the vote and civic engagement.
Underrated, free, necessary and
under tapped by the business community and all of us.
Before I go on, I want to confess that I came to business school.
Yes, Business School for
the same reason as most of you to take outsize bets on my career.
I want to co found and invest in amazing unicorns,
build the best content industry in the whole world.
Thanks Stanford.
Maybe publish a book and really go big.
But as I began achieving these goals.
And I talked to over 100 companies in the climate tech space in the past year.
I couldn't help but notice an absence.
You see, we are obsessed with becoming
identifying the best players on the field and
I think that's great.
But what will make the night and day difference for
our future is in fact, influencing and
electing the referees who are going to change the much needed rules of the game.
And I'm telling you, those rules have to be changed in the fight against climate.
In order to make the difference between the future I described and
the one that you want your children to see.
I want to say that I too, am a player on the field.
I've been a player three times starting at the GSB.
And we haven't won a match yet.
The first was when I met my classmates,
Stella on Zoom before starting business school.
We were stoked by the idea of creating the platform that will
transform carbon emission tracking for the food supply space.
Now we somehow fooled some PhDs to join us drank way too much coffee.
And we were pitching to some of the best VCs on
Silicon Valley Sandhill Road within three months.
Wow, I was shocked but so excited.
And said one VC Love your passion love your idea.
But this is rooted far too heavily in the policy space,
political incentives, standards setting.
That's not where I put my money.
I pass sorry.
Me in my head you pass.
Are you serious?
Will climate change not affect you too?
If you don't find the solution, who will?
This wake up call was extremely humbling.
But it taught me two important things.
One of course, the investor had a right to 10x returns.
That's their job.
But more importantly, entrepreneurship and
the private sector alone is not enough to get us out of the climate crisis.
Changing the rules is paramount.
And I want to talk about how.
In particular, what does it look like?
And how does it involve you?
I've lived in California for 10 years.
One of the most consequential bills that was passed is Senate Bill 100, in 2018.
Who's going to charge their phone tonight?
Okay, looks like everybody.
When you plug your phone into that wall tonight,
two thirds of the power which flows into your device is from fossil fuels.
The other third from renewables in the state of California.
If SB 100 is met by the 2050s,
that two thirds is phased down to zero.
By the time my kid goes to college.
Why is this important?
40% of our emissions come from the power sector.
So it's not about how many electric cars we can produce or make or afford.
If that grid is not clean if those standards are not set.
If SB 100 is not passed, it doesn't make a difference.
And it's not just about one smart bill being passed.
It was about the assembly member who bravely put the bill on the floor,
on your behalf.
Lobbied and defended this bill in all his drafts through
two years of lobbying from over 300 external forces.
That pressure test allowed your voice to be heard on the floor and
the bill was passed.
The impact is huge, because that decision inked
in the law spurred 21 other states to follow suit.
And eventually the national administration.
2021 was a watershed year in policy making.
And I'm here to tell you it's no coincidence that it was also
the historically peak year for
venture funding in the same climate technology space.
So that's how the rules are changed.
And that's your role.
Here is one more dimension.
Raise your hand in the room if you are approaching 30.
Or remember what being 30 feels like.
Thank you.
Congratulations, because all of you are the average lifespan
of a coal fired plant or an electric grid you choose.
Now, think about the policymaker who is sitting in their office,
figuring out how to spend their taxpayer money.
On this one asset that has to have a shelf life of 30 years into the future,
critical infrastructure that will keep the lights on for all of our future children.
What a high stakes decision when you only have one time to make
it in this once in every 30 year purchasing cycle.
Think about the ways that we can de risk that decision by having
the right incentives in place for this particular policymaker.
This is where you and I all have a role in civic engagement.
The best news is I know that you care.
You want to act and therefore you have the agency and the ability to create change.
On that note, I tell you to vote in all your elected officials
who do have a plan for changing the rules around climate change.
Rules that do not show up in quarterly earnings cycles or term sheets.
These represent protection for rural families who
simply need their first megawatt hour of electricity.
These rules that don't show up in term sheets include protection for
entire communities.
From Cape Town, in South Africa, all the way to West Virginia.
Here in the United States, whose livelihoods are upended.
When other interests force,
the transition away from fossil fuels in the next 30 years.
When we think about your political impact we must go beyond
the presidential races to the state and local in this conversation.
I call you to become leaders who make those hard choices.
And I want to give you three very concrete ways to do that as
a player on the field, or as a future referee of the game.
Think about the five people that you spend the most time with.
Number one, research shows that voting is a habitual act.
It takes that parent or that family member and
friend to take a first timer to the booth.
Can you take your family to the next local election?
Number two.
Research also shows that loss of social capital is the biggest
inhibitor to voices that want to speak out in a homogenous group.
In this case, think about the climate skeptic and your investment team.
Or think about that voice who want to drive change but
finds no ally in a silent room.
Can you be that ally?
Or that disruptor of a social norm?
Okay and then number three for those of you sitting here who want to run for
office one day and I would love to see it.
You can engage with a Stanford funded nonprofit called climate cabinet.
Whose whole job is to empower you and
your staffers with a knowledgeable, actionable,
relevant and constituent friendly platform about climate.
From how we produce power to how we grow our food to how we manufacture.
And run our buildings.
The possibilities are there.
And I can feel it in all of your hands.
So let's come back to the 2050 that I had talked about.
Actually not the one I had talked about, but
the one that we all want our children to see.
What do you want them to see?
Will it be blue skies or orange?
What is the air that they smell when they play soccer or
the water that they taste at the end of a long day.
I know that each of us all have an important role to play.
And from this day forward, we will be judged on
the decisions we make when it mattered or the decisions we did not.
Together, we can all employ civic engagement and
our votes to move the needle forward for the future that we want to see.
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]