@mtarpenning

Investing in the things that make life worth living @SperoVentures

marctarpenning.com
Joined April 2009
  • Tweets39
  • Following79
  • Followers1.7K
Marc Tarpenning retweeted
Stewart Brand
@stewartbrand29 Nov 2022
This boon for the eyesight of children in Asia was delayed for 17 years by anti-GMO activists. But Golden Rice is finally arriving.
Wrath Of Gnon
@wrathofgnon29 Nov 2022
First harvest of golden rice—genetically modified to provide vitamin-A—harvest in The Philippines. ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/e…

The seeds have germinated

For the first time, farmers in the Philippines have cultivated Golden Rice on a larger scale and harvested almost 70 tonnes of grains this October.This nearly never-ending story began at ETH Zurich.

ethz.ch
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This made my morning
Emily Lakdawalla@elakdawalla10 Sep 2022
Ladyfriends and gentledorks, please allow me to present: this shirt.
Me, on the couch, wearing a T shirt emblazoned with the text “distance raptor” over a horizontal line, below which “time raptor,” then an equals sign, and “veloci raptor” written on top of the silhouette of a rather demonic looking velociraptor. I bout this shirt to make my teen daughters roll their eyes at me and I am gratified to report success.

ALT Me, on the couch, wearing a T shirt emblazoned with the text “distance raptor” over a horizontal line, below which “time raptor,” then an equals sign, and “veloci raptor” written on top of the silhouette of a rather demonic looking velociraptor. I bout this shirt to make my teen daughters roll their eyes at me and I am gratified to report success.

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Marc Tarpenning retweeted
Avidan@avidan23 Aug 2022
Excited to announce our third fund at $150M (and an upgrade to root.vc) But more excited to reflect how much has evolved since Day 1. I started Root Ventures as a "solo-capitalist", but I knew I could never grow it alone

Root Ventures — Deep tech seed fund in San Francisco

Join us! Investing in deep tech, automation, manufacturing, hardware, robotics, and more.

root.vc
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Marc Tarpenning retweeted
Tortuga AgTech@TortugaAgTech26 Jul 2022
Thanks to @SamAugustDean for his profile on Tortuga and our partners New Wave Berry in Santa Maria. We're excited at the potential of tabletop CEA in CA, and have seen it work so well in many other markets at large (market-majority) scale. Robots help. latimes.com/business/story/2…

California's strawberry fields may not be forever. Could robots help?

Climate change, new regulations, drought: It's getting harder to grow strawberries in California. One robotics startup is betting on a revolutionary change.

latimes.com
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My friend Tierney Thys, marine biologist and science educator, along with Christian Sardet just released a great TEDEd video on exciting new research on the microbial breakdown of plastics. ted.com/talks/tierney_thys_a…

The smallest solution to one of our biggest problems

Each year humanity produces roughly 400 million tons of plastic, 80% of which is discarded as trash. Of that plastic waste, only one-tenth is recycled. 60% gets incinerated or goes into the landfil...

ted.com
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Rapid reforestation! Start-up DroneSeed provides seedlings & #drones to swiftly replenish scorched land - just 30 days after wildfires end. CEO @GrantCanary talks growth, financing & scaling up 👇
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Why Singularity? marctarpenning.com/why-singu…

Why Singularity?

Like many people, I start each morning by boiling water in my electric tea kettle. Probably unlike most people, I once calculated how much energy I was consuming along with my tea, just for fun. I …

marctarpenning.com
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medium.com/speroventures/cat… A framework we use @SperoVentures to make sense of the climate space. "We invest in Catalytic Climate Companies that use technology to unlock critical resources, accelerating society towards an abundant and sustainable future."
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“The nation’s ambitious tree-planting goals aren’t achievable unless we start thinking in a really big way about seed,” says @MatthewAghai, DroneSeed’s Head of Bio. Learn about the critical role of seed in reforestation with @natgeo: nationalgeographic.com/envir…

To regrow forests, the U.S. needs billions of seeds—and many more 'seed hunters'

Skilled collectors are becoming rarer, undermining the nation’s ambitious tree planting goals.

nationalgeographic.com
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Totally agree with this opinion piece. Getting the urban population out of the rainwater game would be good for the environment, citizens, and the economy. California should create more water – much more - CalMatters calmatters.org/commentary/20…

California should create more water – much more

Without a strategy to create water through desalination and recycling, California is doomed to fight over dwindling supplies.

calmatters.org
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Marc Tarpenning retweeted
Akshat Rathi@AkshatRathi25 Oct 2021
When the economics make sense, the adoption of new technologies shifts a gear bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Hertz Order for 100,000 EVs Sends Tesla Value to $1 Trillion

Hertz Global Holdings Inc., barely four months out of bankruptcy, placed an order for 100,000 Teslas in the first step of an ambitious plan to electrify its rental-car fleet. Tesla Inc.’s shares...

bloomberg.com
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The future of breathing + Node-S marctarpenning.com/the-futur…

The future of breathing + Node-S

In March of 2020, I joined the board at a small startup called Clarity. They’re concerned with the future of breathing, which affects every one of us (last I checked). Clarity’s plan is subtle. But…

marctarpenning.com
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A company I’d start in 2021 marctarpenning.com/?p=393
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Little-known Tesla Lore: Battery Sourcing Edition marctarpenning.com/tesla-lor…
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Anti-Luddism marctarpenning.com/anti-ludd…

Anti-Luddism

You can’t put a genie back in its bottle, and you can’t put new technology back where it came from. The original Luddites learned this the hard way when they gathered in mobs to smash m…

marctarpenning.com
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Let’s get negative marctarpenning.com/lets-get-…

Let’s get negative

How much did lockdowns reduce greenhouse gas emissions? As it turns out… not much. Near the end of 2020, the World Meteorological Organization released their assessment of the impact of Covid-relat…

marctarpenning.com
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The interesting work of investing
Ha Nguyen@pokergirlha10 Nov 2020
When hearing the early story of a venture-backed unicorn, you’ll inevitably hear about the slew of VCs who had the chance to invest and didn’t, missing a huge opportunity. Here’s my framework to evaluate weird & wacky startups & how I develop the conviction to write the check. 1/
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Talent-driven globalization marctarpenning.com/talent-dr…

Talent-driven globalization

If you Google “Covid and globalization,” you’ll see many articles on how the pandemic will kill globalization, rolling back decades of economic changes. The argument is that the pandemic coupled wi…

marctarpenning.com
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