Shower Thoughts with the Co-Founder of Nest, Matt Rogers
I got the opportunity to go to MIT’s Tough Tech Summit a few weeks ago and one of my favourite sessions was a fireside chat with Matt Rogers– Co-Founder of Nest & Founder of Incite.org– and Ilan Gur–CEO of Activate 🔥 I want to share with you some of my most insightful takeaways!
Quick note before we get going: some of my insights came from a podcast episode with Matt on The Climate Journey. It’s a great listen so check it out here!
1. Helping Young Entrepreneurs → A Compulsion
One of the first things discussed during the chat that I found super interesting was how Matt saw everything he was doing– like helping smaller startups and non-profits– a part of his obligations rather than a favour he was doing. He then reiterated this later on…
I’ve been the product of a lot of privilege, and it’s not my honour but actually it’s my requirement to do some of the work that I do [helping entrepreneurs that are solving huge, world problems with no current solutions]. I have to, it’s compulsion.
Sadly, the culture in many innovation hubs, like Silicon Valley, definitely doesn’t follow Matt’s values. Helping individuals build out their moonshot projects 🚀 (a super challenging and innovative project or undertaking) is often seen as an act of charity or it’s simply ignored. More people need to start supporting the changes they want to see. Sounds super cliche but it’s entirely true. When you can help build the future, you should 📈
2. Government and Innovation
Going along with the last point, more funding is needed in so many critical areas, including climate change, one of Matt’s focuses. A decade ago, the government used to be much more involved in supporting new, innovative projects, but their role has become more passive recently.
Although philanthropists like Matt can provide some support, the majority needs to come from a source like the government. Many world-changing solutions need huge amounts of money to start and to scale, so the government needs to step up and fill this position 💵
3. Go Big or Go Home
One of the biggest problems with how the general public treats world crises like climate change is the lack of urgency ⏰ We hear this all the time but Matt puts it really well when he says…
Now is the time for us to act on climate change. By the time [my daughter’s] my age, either we’re all moving to Canada or Patagonia– because this part of the US is now inhabitable– or we’re carbon removing at scale; we’re doing regenerative agriculture. We’ve electrified everything. Either we do it or we don’t.
(P.S. thanks Matt for the Canada shoutout 🇨🇦)
Most people don’t understand that changing some small habits isn’t gonna do much. This isn’t to discourage people from trying their best to reduce emissions ♨️ But it’s crucial we understand that taking public transit twice a month isn’t gonna cut it at this point. We need large scale action, like yesterday. And it’s not up to the next generation to commit to change, it’s up to everyone, right now.
4. Problem Discovery: People vs. Planet
Deviating a little bit from large-scale action and funding, let’s talk about start-ups and discovering mission statements. In the podcast, Matt talks about starting Nest– which is a huge company now owned by Google in case you didn’t know.
Quick summary of what Nest’s core mission is before we get into it (this is from a blog post by Matt himself):
The early team at Nest unified behind the mission to directly provide consumers with a product that made controlling a home’s temperature cheaper, quicker, more effective and, ultimately, more efficient.
Nest’s thermostat was designed to take cues from the user, programming itself in approximately one week.
Matt discusses how he and his business partner, Tony Fadell, first detected the problem of ineffective and inefficient home heating and cooling through consumer experience 🏡 The podcast host, Jason Jacobs, then prompts Matt by asking whether this method of problem discovery is different than if they found their mission through their concern for the planet or our precious resources.
This is where a key insight emerges: these two things are the same. Matt and Tony first found the problem of the horrible user interface of traditional thermostats through consumers but then realized that the issue was also about energy efficiency and the planet. Nest was a “mission first company and a product first company at the same time”. That’s definitely where a part of their huge success comes from!
5. Money: The Best Way to Guide Businesses
Another topic discussed on the podcast (and the last one I’ll talk about for today) is how businesses will do anything to keep running, and that includes pivoting to meet emission reduction goals, if they’re forced to 📉
Putting in “guide rails”, as Matt putts it, such as carbon pricing will get businesses to shift the way they work. Seems pretty obvious, but it’s important to remind ourselves the power that money has over companies 💰 If they see their operating prices are rising and getting out of control because they now have to pay for the long-term damage they’re causing, they’ll find a way to stop it. Heck, maybe they’ll even start removing carbon.
Overall, Matt’s a pretty awesome guy. And the Tough Tech Summit was crazy to attend as a teenager! It was such a privilege to be there (even if it was virtual 💻).
Make sure to check out the summit’s website and Matt himself!
TL;DR
- If you’re a successful entrepreneur then you need to support smaller entrepreneurs with huge, world-changing ideas that can save humanity!
- But the government needs to play a part in this too, both with their policies and their funding! They can be the largest source for feeding and growing innovation 💡
- We can’t act small at this point; whatever changes we make (especially in terms of climate change) need to be drastic and immediate. It’s go big or go home… but wait what happens if our home planet’s destroyed 🤔
- A company can be both mission first and product first and that can hugely drive success since it accounts for both consumers and the environment
- Money’s an awesome incentive and we need to use it more to drive businesses to do the right thing!
Hey there 👋 Parmin here; I’m a 14 y/o student studying stem cells at The Knowledge Society 🧪 Everyday, I aspire to uncover the secrets of biology and learn something new. Make sure to follow me on Medium to hear about every new article I post, connect with me on LinkedIn, or contact me at parminsedigh@gmail.com!
