Producers are paying people to take oil as there is not enough storage capacity in the US given the plummeting demand through the economic slowdown. Marc Andreessen, founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, in his weekend blogpost would perhaps take oil storage as part of the things we need to build. “I think building is how we reboot the American dream.”
But Andreessen’s vision is more practical than knee-jerk.
“The things we build in huge quantities, like computers and TVs, drop rapidly in price. The things we don’t, like housing, schools, and hospitals, skyrocket in price. What’s the American dream? The opportunity to have a home of your own, and a family you can provide for. We need to break the rapidly escalating price curves for housing, education, and healthcare, to make sure that every American can realize the dream, and the only way to do that is to build.”
He is right. Governments and societies are heading back towards what people value but particularly the big drivers for change: energy, healthcare, communication, food and clean water, security. Bits whizzing around the digital sphere are important to create the metaverse and all the other things we value through the internet and information technology revolution but while we remain primarily physical then the task of shifting or building atoms is at least equally important.
In this sense, the 17 sustainable development goals from the United Nations are helpful signals for what matters to most people and what we can build.
And even through the oil and energy shock it is interesting to see the leaders setting up activities to enable the entrepreneurs to keep building.
As Jonathan Tudor, technology and strategy director at utility Centrica Innovations, with Sarah Wright, program manager for Energy for Tomorrow Social Impact Fund, said:“I’m proud to announce we’re launching a new program today that will help founders tackle some of the most pressing challenges in climate change. We understand that founding a business is tough. That’s why this program provides grants of up to £500,000, and does not seek equity in return. We want to help you to succeed – especially if you come from groups that have traditionally been under represented in VC funded rounds. As the pressure of Covid[-19] take its toll on startups hopefully this can help bridge that gap.”
The fund is also interesting in how it is seeing the joining up of corporate venture capital with a broader open innovation tool kit to help entrepreneurs meet business challenges. As deal flow slows there will be greater interest in non-equity-related actions and a chance for the corporate venturing leaders to have more impact and responsibility in their parent companies as well as society. It is a model others are watching closely.
Also, more broadly, it is easy to knock oil and energy groups for their contribution in supplying fossil fuels helping lead to global warming but the solution and achieving net zero can also come with their help. Blame leads to division rather than inclusion and we all have the same underlying needs.
Let us make the world a better place.
