​Ripple Hosts

​Mona Alsubaei

​Transition

​Will Dufton

​Giant Ventures

​https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-dufton-b1185479/

​TL;DR

​Topic overview

​Why is the topic relevant?

• ​Climate change has been accelerating for over 30 years. If not today, then tomorrow. Business as usual will bring us out of business.

• ​Our economy and the physical processes that run it haven’t changed much since the first and second industrial revolutions. But that outdated operating model is no longer competitive. It’s expensive, noisy, dirty, inefficient, and polluting.

• ​These long-term fundamentals are what truly matter. Headlines or market cycles don’t create lasting businesses.

• ​However, the market and political shifts, even if temporary, need to be managed. How can founders and investors build resilience to weather the storm?

​What’s up for discussion?

• ​Framework for balancing key risks: conserving runway versus maintaining momentum, technical development speed versus quality, customer development versus scaling resources.

• ​Easy money requires instant moats - your competitors are raising, too. A cold market lets you build before you defend. This is not just about funding and the market, but also about talent.

• ​For investors, less competition leads to better prices and aligned incentives.

• ​Focused strategy: reducing deployment thresholds, setting smaller but more frequent milestones, and clarifying the difference between genuine business assumptions and common thinking.

• ​For future founders, which emerging trends that previously lacked appeal are now more attractive?

​Dream outcome

​Reduce the sense of helplessness that some of us may have about addressing the climate crisis.

​Who should attend?

​Founders. Investors. Historians. Economists. Anyone who can share non-obvious lessons from past cycles.