Should you switch from tech to climate tech? A decision matrix.
Like many of you, my LinkedIn feed has been filled the last several days with people posting about their layoffs from Meta, Salesforce, Twitter, Zendesk and other tech companies. Layoffs just plain suck.
There are also many posts from climate tech/cleantech companies and investors encouraging those who were just RIF’ed to switch into this industry and pursue a career with much greater purpose than optimizing ad spend or making software developers slightly more productive. While I cheer that sentiment, having made the pivot myself (a couple times), let’s not be naive about what it means to switch industries. I firmly believe that the vast majority of functional skills (engineering, business development, finance, sales, etc.) are transferable across industries– as long as you are prepared to go up a steep learning curve, fast. However, pivoting your career into a new industry should not be a knee jerk reaction to being laid off.
So should you switch into cleantech? At the simplest level, it depends on your personal risk tolerance and how committed you are to dedicating your career to climate and sustainability. These factors may be exceedingly obvious, but it’s worth laying out in a 2x2 matrix* because when people are in shock from having been laid off, they may not always have the mental space to think as rationally as they normally would. Also, there is often a presumption in the tech world that everyone should join a startup with the hopes for a unicorn result. But that ignores the reality that many people simply can’t afford to take that kind of personal risk financially, or who shouldn’t because they work better in a steady, structured role.
Climate tech/cleantech/sustainability is an exciting space and investment dollars are flowing in, even as the traditional tech sector is laying off staff and the overall economy is cooling. But it has several key distinguishing characteristics that one should consider before taking the plunge.
Transforming how we power, shelter, move and feed humans on this planet is going to take decades, and any given technology may take years and even decades to prove out and scale up, and failures are inevitable. The investment horizon can be an order of magnitude longer than in purely software-based tech. It will be exciting and there will be a compelling economic return for the winners. However, it’s not for those who want to get rich quick (i.e. in 3-5 years), which has sadly become the overriding ethos among many in Silicon Valley.
In particular, joining a cleantech startup is not for the faint of heart, as it may both be high risk (like all startups) and slow-going. Selling to utilities or building owners or farmers or car companies is a slog. Policy and political barriers impede progress even as the regulatory environment is becoming more favorable. A lot of hardtech & deeptech will just take time to research and develop. Scaling production will face significant skills shortages and supply chain issues.
At the same time, many climate technology solutions are already well proven, and are in the scale up and scale out phase which are much lower risk. And many large corporations are big participants now– so there are parts of the sector which are relatively low risk.
There have been and will be great success stories in climate tech, and a career in the space can be both rewarding financially and fulfilling spiritually. Here’s some quick guidance on this 2x2 matrix and if pursuing a job in climate tech is right for you.
Top left quadrant: Look at the big companies. Don’t head for a climate tech startup (or any startup, really) if your personal risk tolerance is low, even if you are passionate about dedicating your career to climate. If you are the sole/primary breadwinner for your family and don’t have a ton of savings socked away, or if you can’t afford a lapse in employer-based health insurance due to chronic medical concerns, then startups are way too high risk. Or if you are someone who thrives in a more predictable, structured environment, then climate tech startups will not be a good fit. But that doesn’t mean you have to walk away from the entire sector.
Instead, you can target the many large companies who are building large teams and even entire business divisions in this space. The large majority of energy and utility companies such as NextEra, PG&E or Orsted are investing in renewable energy as part of their power generation mix, and many oil & gas companies like Shell are also building out renewable energy divisions. Traditional solutions and services providers to the energy sector such as Schneider Electric are building out their next generation cleantech solutions. Automotive companies like Ford and BMW are transitioning to EVs (electric vehicles), ranging from cars to school buses to delivery trucks to bikes. Food companies are supporting regenerative agriculture initiatives. HVAC/refrigeration companies like Carrier are looking to build equipment with lower emissions. And major horizontal tech companies like Salesforce and Google’s X moonshot factory are researching and building out climate tech solutions, ranging from carbon credit marketplaces to ocean monitoring systems.
In addition to screening for these types of large corporation, you can also screen for technologies that are already well proven technologically and economically at scale (e.g. utility-scale wind and solar), and focus your efforts on businesses that are in the process of continuing to scale these out, rather than companies that are tackling as-yet unproven technology.
Top right quadrant: Go for it! If you are committed to having a real impact on climate and sustainability with your work, and you have the personal freedom to take a risk, then by all means jump in and consider a startup. Lots of startups have been funded recently and are looking for talent, particularly engineering and business development/sales. And many others have been around for several years and have really taken off in the last couple of years as the investment and policy environment has become more favorable to the sector.
If you’re not sure where to start, here is a list of some of the climate tech/cleantech accelerators that incubate hundreds of startups annually– you can check out the startups in their programs. A longer list of accelerators is here, courtesy of Climate Tech VC. (I recommend you subscribe to their weekly email as it is quite informative.)
Cleantech Open (Full disclosure, I’m a mentor here.)
Plug and Play (in particular their Energy, Sustainability, Mobility, AgTech and Smart Cities verticals. Full disclosure, I’m a mentor in their Energy vertical.)
Also, this useful Canary Media post just came out listing resources for finding a job in climate tech.
The reason I’m talking about startups in this upper right quadrant is there is another funny thing about the climate tech industry. There are very few mid-size companies like Sunrun, the leader in residential solar. Instead, the sector is full of startups and really large, traditional corporations (see above) who often acquire those startups. This bimodal distribution of company sizes may change as the sector matures, but right now it means you usually have to choose between startups and huge megacorps. There just isn’t much in between.
Bottom left quadrant: Skip it. If working in climate is a passing curiosity but not something you’ve thought seriously about, and you don’t have much financial wiggle room to take risks, or you just don’t like the flux inherent in startups, I’d say take a pass. You may be best off hunkering down and searching for a job in the same industry you’ve been in (unless you’ve been in crypto in which case, well, good luck and a little bit “I told you so”.) Also, you can do lots of things outside of work to make a climate impact.
Bottom right quadrant: Take some time (and be grateful). If you are fortunate enough to have the personal and financial space to go for a while without a paycheck, and you aren’t sure about what you want to do next, first count your blessings. Second, take some time to relax and recharge. Career switches are best done after some real personal reflection. Third, conduct some research into climate and sustainability. Read. Listen. There are lots of ways to make an impact– without necessarily working in this space. And if you see something compelling you want to pursue in this space as a career, that’s great. This is not a flash-in-the-pan sector, although it does have its ups and downs like any industry. We will still be here if and when you decide to join in.
* Those who know me know that I love me a 2x2 matrix. Of course it’s inherently an oversimplification, but it’s still highly useful to frame overarching principles, from which you can then delve more deeply.