The Final Stop on My Climate Journey—And What’s Next
Today on My Climate Journey, we’re bringing back a familiar voice: Jason Jacobs, Founder and Venture Partner at MCJ. In this special episode, Cody and Jason reflect on the evolution of MCJ and its mission to drive climate innovation. While this is the last episode under the My Climate Journey name, don’t worry—the show isn’t going away. The format will stay the same, but a new name is coming soon. Cody and Jason share lessons learned, the ongoing need for collaboration, and gratitude for the community built along the way.
Episode recorded on Oct 22, 2024 (Published on Oct 31, 2024)
In this episode, we cover:
[1:57] Jason's early climate journey and where MCJ fits in the transition
[4:15] How Jason's feelings about climate change have evolved
[6:43] The nature of discussion around topics like climate change
[9:19] Jason's updated role at MCJ
[10:31] His hopes for the future of the firm
[11:15] Advice for folks starting their own climate journeys
[12:11] Jason's thoughts on the role of oil and gas in the transition
[13:17] And the role of activism
[14:47] Jason's thoughts on the category of climate tech and market forces
[17:50] Our collective responsibility to address the systems problem
[19:57] The role of the MCJ show going forward
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Cody Simms (00:00):
Today on My Climate Journey, we're bringing back a familiar voice to regular listeners of the show. Jason, welcome to the show.
Jason Jacobs (00:08):
Hello, Cody.
Cody Simms (00:10):
Listen, you started this whole thing and did the first, I don't know, 300 plus episodes, probably more than that. I don't know, maybe 150 or so in myself. And I know Yin has done some. I still feel like I have some really big shoes to fill. But listen, I wanted to have you join today because we have a little bit of news to share. Why don't you share the news? Jason,
Jason Jacobs (00:33):
Which news are we sharing?
Cody Simms (00:37):
This is the last episode of My Climate Journey, but seriously, no, don't worry. The show isn't going away. The format isn't really going to change all that much at all. But the name of the show is about to change. We're not going to reveal just yet what it will be. We're saving that for soon to come, but the journey itself may be at its end.
Jason Jacobs (01:08):
How about that?
Cody Simms (01:09):
Before we say more, let's roll this whole thing one more time. Play the intro. I'm Cody Sims.
Yin Lu (01:15):
I'm Yin Liu.
Jason Jacobs (01:17):
And I'm Jason Jacobs. And welcome to My Climate Journey.
Yin Lu (01:23):
This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms (01:28):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help. Alright, Jason, reflecting back, what do you think this whole thing has contributed you set out to understand climate change? You're in a different place now. Personally, it's helped lots of people follow their path. Tell us a little bit more.
Jason Jacobs (01:57):
When I stood out, I think it was six years ago or maybe even a little over that, I started first having discussions trying to learn about space, and I just knew I really cared a lot about the problem and it was a source of personal anxiety. I really didn't have a great handle on the nature of it, nor the best ways to address it, and certainly not how my skills would be transferable. So yeah, MCJ was really just about learning and I think it just happened to be timed at a time that was just ahead of a wave of other people feeling similarly, and also trying to get their bearings in the space and figure out what to do that could be helpful with their capital and with their time. And I think as a firm, and feel free to chime in as well, but I think we've gotten to a place where we have a theory of change and also have a clear sense of the role that MCJ is taking on, which doesn't mean that our journey with accelerating the transition is over, but our journey with figuring out where we fit, I think is over and that's what reflects the rebrand and the more focused path forwards.
Cody Simms (03:08):
It wasn't even a firm when you started. This was just you just trying to figure this stuff out.
Jason Jacobs (03:14):
In fact, it legally wasn't a firm. There was no entity and also there was no semblance of any type of business model whatsoever. It was just a learning project with the belief that it would lead to big impactful things that I could do professionally to both make a living and hopefully play an impactful role in accelerating the transition. But I had no idea what form that would take, and I think now we do, which is exciting, but also brings about change, which is the cycle of life, I guess.
Cody Simms (03:48):
How have your feelings about climate change in particular changed? You started out saying it was this thing that you didn't know anything about and that you were thinking about a lot and you wanted to learn about are you feeling more anxious, less anxious? Does it consume more or less of your time to think about it? Do you feel like, oh, we got this. Do you think about, oh man, it's going to hit us in the face. Where are you with it?
Jason Jacobs (04:15):
It's a gnarly problem and I think that it's important that we address it and I think that the longer it takes for us to address it, the more unnecessary costs suffering, et cetera will occur. And so it's best that we address it as efficiently and effectively as possible. It is a true systems problem and it is one that there's no one lever you can pull that will magically address it. And also there's lots of different points of view on the best ways to address it and what's helpful and what's hurtful and lots of different valid points of view as well, because there's trade-offs and people value those trade-offs differently depending on where they sit and what their perspective is on the world. So I have one perspective and that jives with some people's perspective and goes against how other people feel, but I also respect that there's plenty of room for other perspectives as well and don't necessarily think that there's one that's right and others that are wrong.
Cody Simms (05:25):
That's not on climate change per se, but on how we navigate it, how the transition happens.
Jason Jacobs (05:30):
I think so. Yeah. And even on climate, there's debate about how dire it is and how existential it is, but I think largely I don't think there's a lot of disagreement about the fact that the problem is real and that humans and the way our global economy runs is a major contributor to climate change. I think. Yeah, where most of the debate lives is around theories of change and the best ways to address it and also how do you optimize, for example, for emissions reduction versus energy poverty or self-interest versus collective interest, or how much should the best products win for you versus mandating using something that isn't high quality or might cost more because it's going to have a better emissions footprint for the collective good stuff like that, or jobs, for example. If this industry dies, then these people are out of work and should the government come in and kill an industry or should it be the other team, should it be protected and not be allowed to be hurt? It's easy for people on one side to point their fingers and say, these other people aren't thinking about the collective good, but it's okay. That's easy for you to say because it's not your family that's not going to get fed. So I don't know, there's a lot of holier than thoud and finger pointing and it can be frustrating at times for sure.
Cody Simms (06:43):
You I think built your reputation in this space and built a lot of the early pod listenership by being a rabble rouser in social media, finding two people who disagreed on a topic and figuring out how to get them to hash it out amongst themselves on Twitter. And then the pod kind of became to some extent a furtherance of that, of how do we get different points of view to share what they think. Do you think there's, that dialogue is still happening? Is that still healthy? We're in a totally different world. You started this in late Trump era, America going into Pandemic era America, and now we are here on the precipice of yet another presidential election where we could be about to go through a ton more crazy change. What do you think the nature of discussion is like around these topics? Has it gotten more productive, has it gotten more siloed? I don't know. Share a little bit more about how you think we as a society are actually working on this stuff.
Jason Jacobs (07:42):
I think that the algorithms are polarizing and manipulating all of us, and I think that as a result, there's so much religion involved and so much use of your mouth and not your ears that I think hashing things out publicly has gotten less constructive and therefore I feel less inclined personally to be hashing stuff out publicly and more inclined to just put my head down and focus on results because at the end of the day, it's the results that matter. And in the early days of m cj, it felt like the public dialogue was really healthy and productive and I don't know, lately it's starting to feel like it's just a frustrating distraction and doesn't actually get stuff done.
Cody Simms (08:22):
What's the role then for something like this podcast that is trying to help people learn?
Jason Jacobs (08:28):
I think that MCJ as a firm has a clear position on its role and its role is to understand different perspectives and surface them so that a broader audience can understand those perspectives and understand how these different groups are thinking, what their priorities are, what their plans of attacks are, what they think about this, what they think about that.
Cody Simms (08:53):
Did you feel that way when you started MCJ?
Jason Jacobs (08:55):
When I started, it was just a journey, so part of it was a journey to better understand the problem and part of it was a journey to understand where I could fit. And I think what I've uncovered is where the firm can fit and where the firm can fit is as a early stage venture capital firm that is backing the most promising innovation is space and then building bridges and fostering connectivity and collaboration while educating the masses so that they can find their people and collaborators too.
Cody Simms (09:19):
You recently, we as a firm announced that your role is changed to that of founder and venture partner. What does that mean for you?
Jason Jacobs (09:26):
Essentially means I'll always be the founder of the firm and while I'm not involved in day-to-day am certainly keeping a pulse and you and I are texting almost every day, sometimes many times a day.
Cody Simms (09:37):
Get out of my phone, Jason.
Jason Jacobs (09:41):
So yeah, definitely proud of what we've built and really excited for the firm's future. And right now, honestly, it means rest. It means fitness, it means a whole bunch of youth sports and it means at some point, and I don't know when maybe starting to think about what I might want to be when I grow up and maybe that involves working in climate change and maybe it doesn't, but for the time being, it mostly just means being a dad and focused on myself and trying to refill my tank.
Cody Simms (10:09):
My money is on youth hockey NIL collective, but we'll see where you land.
Jason Jacobs (10:16):
Not ruling anything out, including coming back to climate. I really have no idea what the future holds, but super proud of the firm we've built and of our role in the ecosystem and excited to further entrench that and make sure that MCJ sticks around for a long, long time.
Cody Simms (10:31):
What are your hopes for MCJ-?
Jason Jacobs (10:32):
I hope that MCJ stays focused and gets really world-class where it's at today, which is as an early-stage venture firm and community builder, and once we've proven ourselves there and have our roots planted firmly, which feels many years away than potentially adding other legs of the stool, that we have an unfair advantage to tackle given where we sit in the assets we have, but that also make the existing assets more effective by leveraging the new initiative or line of business that we might pursue at a later date. I have no idea what that might look like because it's too early for us to be thinking about it because what the firm desperately needs is focus, but directionally, I think there's a lot of other layers we could add to the stack, if you will, if we're successful where we are.
Cody Simms (11:15):
What advice do you have for people starting down their own journey climate journey today?
Jason Jacobs (11:21):
I definitely think it warrants some time to just steep yourself in the problem and in some of the ways collectively that it could be addressed and some of the barriers that have been holding us back. I think that training is really foundational to understand if you're setting out to have an impact on it, but then once you actually start looking at what you're building, of course you want to look at is it having an impact too? But it's almost secondary because if you don't first and foremost build something that climate aside is just going to build a strong enduring enterprise, then you don't have a right to exist and it doesn't matter how pure your ambitions are on the impact side, they're not going to come to fruition and certainly not at a level of scale that will make even shred of a dent because you're not going to last.
Cody Simms (12:11):
Do you think there is a role for oil and gas companies in the transition?
Jason Jacobs (12:16):
There has to be. Yeah. I think there also has to be a role for holding their feet to the fire and regulation and pressure and shareholder activism and other types of activism for sure. But of course they need to be part of the transition. I mean, they're the companies with the expertise and the might and the people and the dollars. And if we actually want stuff to happen faster, especially at scale, they have to be involved. It doesn't mean we should trust them blindly. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold their feet to the fire. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't pressure them from the outside and use policy as a lever to force their hand and bring about can we should do all of those things. But to say that they're evil and they don't deserve to be part of the discussion, that's just to me, one, I don't think that's true. You spend time talking to people that are in these organizations that are people just like you and I. But the other thing is that it's actually counterproductive to progress. So I think people have to ask themselves, do you want to make progress or not? And if you want to make progress, they have to be at the table and if they're not at the table, then we're not going to get to where we need to go. Simple as that.
Cody Simms (13:17):
On the other side of the table. What about the role of activism?
Jason Jacobs (13:20):
Activism I wrestle with because I think it does play a role for sure. You start to get to an area that's outside of my zone of expertise because I'm not an activist, I'm a builder, I'm an entrepreneur and to me focused on innovations and lowering cost curves and scale and partnerships and collaboration and funding and plants and infrastructure and policy. I mean, to me that's the stuff that comes more natural to me and what I know how to do and therefore what gets me excited. I think there's a role for activism to play. What worries me is just some forms of activism. For example, if you lay blocking cars at rush hour, for example, for all the complaints about putting plants in inner city because then the pollution, it's like how is it any different to just lay in front of rush hour in front of any random cars that are waiting to get to wherever they're trying to go that's penalizing them unfairly or pouring paint on paintings at the museum or I don't know. I have a complicated relationship with it because on the one hand I can see how historically it can be one lever for change, but I also can't help but have an allergic reaction to it in some cases. And if I do, most certainly everyday people that aren't nearly as close to work on solutions do as well. And I just wonder if that is productive or might actually be counterproductive to winning hearts and minds.
Cody Simms (14:37):
What do you think about this category that has come about that MCJ was very much early on? The wave of that is now something. Everybody mentions this category called climate tech.
Jason Jacobs (14:47):
I'm not sure that having a category called climate tech is, I think it might be hurtful for actually addressing the problem because when the rest of the world hears climate tech, they think philanthropic capital. And the reality is that in order for this stuff to have an impact and actually materially help address the issue, philanthropic capital is not going to get it there. It's going to take market-based capital and order for it to take market based capital. It needs to generate market based returns. And so there's this kind of vicious cycle because it's generating market based returns. It's going to do that over actually maximizing emissions reduction. Is it more important to maximize emissions reduction by unit or actually maybe have less emissions by unit but a million times more scale? I don't have the answer, but that's something I personally wrestle with because I think that market forces are going to address this issue. And for people that say market forces won't address it because they would, it already would, and this is going to be greedy at the expense of the planet. If that's not true, then we're fucked because market forces are going to do what market forces do.
Cody Simms (15:49):
Jason, what you just mentioned really struck me. If you take it to the extreme and you just say, forget policy, nothing should have an edge. Let's just let everything compete on the open market, which by the way is not happening because oil and gaskets a crap ton of subsidies, way more than what the inflation reduction act just passed for clean energy, but regardless, way more like $7 trillion a year or something crazy in terms of subsidies to oil and gas, which is bananas and still boggles my mind that our government is doing that. But if you put all those out there and say, what if they were on an equal playing field? You've got one team in this fight that is trying to build an energy system on a finite resource that is only getting more expensive to produce and that is bad for us. And that culture and society are increasingly not wanting.
(16:38):
And you've got another team that is building a system on essentially limitless infinite resource, AKA renewables. And that is generally speaking, clean and positive. There are issues, as we all know with how solar panels are made and this that, and the challenges of mining with batteries, but for the most part, the fuel source is clean and is only getting cheaper actually exponentially so with time. It's so obvious which system is going to win. It's not a debate as inevitable as it gets which system is going to win. And so to me, it feels like we're having all of these conversations and it's just we're talking about matters of timescale more than what the ultimate outcomes are going to be. At least that's how I think about it. I don't know if you feel similarly.
Jason Jacobs (17:29):
Yeah, it's Darwinism. As a species, we'll find a way to survive in order to survive. Of course we're going to transition because you have to transition in order to survive. So one way or another, we're going to get there. And I think that all the squabbling in the meantime, it's like noise. The transition going to occur on the timeline that the transition our part to accelerate it.
Cody Simms (17:50):
I feel like the transition is happening inevitably, the idea that climate change is real is also here now we live it. It's only likely to get more severe, which is not great to think about, but we're already experiencing it more than we were when you and I were children for example, or that our parents did. Just in terms of the frequency of extreme events, heat waves, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, you name it. And so the question is how much do everyday folks need to adjust or think about it for someone who isn't trying to transition their career into this space, which hopefully more and more people do. That's been, I think one of the really magical things that you hit on from starting MCJ is you brought so many people in this space, including I got into this space in a large part because I found the pod and found MCJ myself. But for the average person, what is their responsibility?
Jason Jacobs (18:54):
The average person doesn't have the luxury to be thinking about the collective good because they're too busy trying to figure out how they and their family are going to survive day to day, week to week, month to month. And as a society, we have to find ways to make it so that as each person and each family is out living their lives, that collectively we have systems in place that positively reinforce a cycle that puts us collectively on a good course. Yes, we can educate and we can try to instill good habits and things like that, but ultimately this is a systems problem and needs the systems to change. And you can say, in order for the systems to change, we need voters. And in order for voters, we need them to care. In order for them to care, they need to be educated and you can chase your own tail around. So it all matters. I think that anytime we are relying on the individuals to be making decisions for the collective, with the collective in mind, and this is cynical view, but that's not how humans, humans are wired.
Cody Simms (19:57):
So you've said a few times now that you think for you it's become less productive to hash these discussions out in public or maybe it gives you less energy to do so. What is the role for this show as we're now saying, this is the last episode of the show under the name My Climate Journey. What do you think the role of the show is going forward? Where does it continue to be helpful?
Jason Jacobs (20:20):
I think the role of the show is to sniff out, I forget what they're called in Malcolm Gladwell's book. It's like the key nodes in the network, the tipping point nodes. What are the nodes that it's really important to shine a light on and spotlight as key collaboration partners? And then how do we snip those out across the areas that need to be talking to educate and matchmake and pour resources into the increased collaboration that we're fostering? And yes, we want to ask hard questions and we want to get to the truth, but we're not referee. That is not our role. Our role is to discover and double click on and surface transparently so that each listener can form their own opinion and then matchmake where it makes sense or avoid where it makes sense. And that's what we try to do with the hopes that in doing so systematically over time it will foster more connectivity, collaboration, and progress.
Cody Simms (21:20):
That is what I've been trying to do in the episodes that I've been hosting of this show as it's been named My Climate Journey and really going forward, which is to try to hear what people's perspectives are, help them share how they view the world, and then let all of us as listeners determine what we want to do about it, what we think about it, how we might want to engage or not with the pathways that folks are sharing, and to try to bring some editorial discretion to what perspectives we bring on. But I do think it's important to hear from a broad range of them. Before we wrap up, Jason, I just want to express my gratitude to you for getting this whole show started. I mentioned briefly that MCJ was fundamental to me transitioning into working in this space, and that was before I worked at MCJ, I was at Techstars, I was working in more general startup realm.
(22:19):
I had started to dip my toe into leaning into startups and companies at Techstars that were working in this area. And I discovered the pod you and I had met before, but I got reconnected to you started listening to the pod, started engaging with the community, and next thing you know, I'm fully on board shucked into the vortex, if you will, but my story's not unique. There are thousands of people out there that also found their path into working in this space from this thing that you started. I am beyond grateful and hopefully I'm speaking on behalf of many listeners out there who have listened to the show over the years. And this show has been a foundational part of how they found their path to work on this space, but more importantly, how they in many cases found purpose in what they do professionally.
(23:16):
That's such a huge deal finding purpose. Talk about Maslow's hierarchy, right? That's a huge deal to have helped people navigate, and I just want to express my gratitude on behalf, not just of myself, but everyone out there who's listened and benefited from your own journey. And while we may be changing the name of the show from My Climate Journey to be shared soon, new name, everyone's journey always continues on, and I just want to thank you for having the foresight to start your own journey when you did and sharing it with the world the way you did.
Jason Jacobs (23:54):
Well, thanks, Cody. Yeah, I couldn't have not done it at the time, and it was accidentally became a public journey, and I'm glad it was helpful to some and I'm fully confident in the direction of the firm and in the direction of the show with you as the host as well. Really proud to see you carry on and only gain in strengthen and impact over time.
Cody Simms (24:15):
With that, let's roll the final tape one more time.
Jason Jacobs (24:19):
Thanks again for joining us on My Climate Journey podcast
Cody Simms (24:23):
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity. If you'd like to learn more
Jason Jacobs (24:33):
About MCJ Collective, visit us at mcjcollective.com. And if you have a guest suggestion, let us know that via Twitter at mcjpod
Yin Lu (24:45):
For weekly climate op-eds jobs, community events, and investment announcements from our MCJ venture funds. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter on our website.
Cody Simms (24:55):
Thanks and see you next episode.
