Bits vs Atoms: a framework for thinking about climate tech companies

Plus, announcements: AI & Climate hackathon in SF, Tech alumni communities

If you’re a job seeker looking for a climate tech job, consider joining the talent collective here: https://climatetechlist.com/talent-collective.

1. You submit an application

2. We'll share your profile with companies potentially interested in chatting with you (you can specify anonymity in the form below)

3. We'll reach out if there's a company/recruiter interested in talking to you.

News & happenings

In this section, I’ll include a link or two each pertaining to software engineering tech, climate/climate tech, and notable upcoming events at the software + climate intersection

• What was the composition (team, levels, seniority, etc.) of the recent Meta layoffs with respect to software engineers?

• Consider joining your previous’s company alumni community, esp. if you’ve been affected by tech layoffs

• Climate AI Hackathon - SF May 27-28, organized by Lowercarbon, Streamline, OpenAI. From the organizers:

  • “We're inviting organizations and companies to present on the bottlenecks they've encountered while tackling climate change. Builders in generative AI will get the chance to solve real-world issues using LLMs in 24 hours! “

• How Climate Change Will Reshape Where Americans Live (FiveThirtyEight podcast)

Bits vs Atoms: a framework for thinking about climate tech companies

When navigating a space as large as climate tech, frameworks are helpful. One framework that I like is the 2-axis climate tech talent & capital mind map that I helped write with Nicholas Adeyi Lily Bernicker Shilpika (Shilps) Gautam Yin Lu Mark Wong,

Charles Yang

and Zach Stein via

MCJ Collective

last year.

• The X-axis is whether the company's work is moving bits (leveraging software) vs atoms (leveraging hardware) or allowing bits to coordinate atoms (software enabling hardware).

• The Y-axis maps out different ways to think about the end goal (decarbonization) achieved with a solution.

  

  See https://www.climatetechlist.com/blog/bits-vs-atoms-framework for full interactive map

If you're a software engineer looking for a climate tech job, here are some ways you can use this framework:

1. When encountering new companies, think about whether they are moving bits, moving atoms, or bits coordinating atoms. If the company is primarily moving atoms, figure out how important the role of software is at the company

2. When encountering new companies, think about whether they are engaged in carbon/GHG stock reduction, adaptation, GHG flow reduction, or enablement.

3. Each group of companies can be used as a jumping-off point to research similar companies.

👉 I have an in-depth exploration of this framework applied to job search on the ClimateTechList blog here: https://www.climatetechlist.com/blog/bits-vs-atoms-framework