"Longtermism" to protect your one million descendants
Small Steps 66: The moral case for future peeps 🔭; limitless, clean electricity ⚛️ ; and saying "so long" to opioids 💊.
“When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, ‘Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me and I’m going in again’—my gut reaction is, ‘What a badass.’”
Brene Brown, American professor
What we’re thinking about
🔭 Longtermism. Every one life on the planet today will probably be responsible for millions of future lives (…talk about big family vibes). William MacAskill, advocate of the Effective Altruism movement, argues that this means we have a strong moral imperative to take a long term view when allocating resources. This “longtermism” approach could mean allocating 1-5% of global GDP exclusively to protecting future generations from catastrophe scenarios such as the well recognised climate crisis, but also lesser recognised threats of automation and bio hacking (which receive virtually no funding). Better get cracking for our 1 million strong fam.
⚛️ The fusion conclusion. We’re addicted to foot-shooting fuels and part of the answer could be atomic. Nuclear fusion generates energy by fusing elements, and promises limitless, carbon-free heat and electricity with very minimal waste. Unlike its moody cousin nuclear fission, which generates energy from breaking down elements, fusion has zero risk of a Chernobyl style meltdown.
The threshold for fusion tech adoption is dubbed “Q>1”, the point where the quantity of energy produced is greater than the amount required to trigger the reaction. There’s over 50 fusion startups racing to crack the threshold, including Australia’s HB11 (recently awarded $20m). US VC Lower Carbon Capital shared their bullish view on the space based on rocketing computing power, climate cash rain from the US, and space age advances in lasers and other requisite techs. It's early days (even after cracking Q>1 we’ll likely be a decade from commercialisation) but we’re excited for fusion powered concerts which would be pretty damn metal.
💊 Out with opioids. Chronic pain impacts 1.5b people (with a B) globally, making it one of the world’s most common afflictions. Since their invention in 1803, opioids steadily became the dominant treatment option for pain before the recognition of their addictive and devastating effects on communities, with studies reporting up to 80% of heroine addicts started out with prescription opioids. The US responded by declared an Opioid Crisis in 2017 and Australia followed with strict regulations in 2021, but people living with pain have been left with few accessible options to replace it.
Thankfully, tech is rapidly catching up to provide drug-free alternatives. Digital therapeutics (i.e VR & Mobile Apps) that coach people on techniques like cognitive behavioural therapy, breathing exercises, and community learning have proven to be effective and scalable options for reducing opioid reliance. Meanwhile, new computational studies have shown promise identifying non-opioid compounds to relieve pain without addictive sedation by getting into beautiful brain chemistry (commence nerd out).
New paths
🧑🏾🎓 HEX is hunting for a Head of Product.
👩⚕️ Coviu on on the lookout for a Data Software Engineer
🧻 Who Gives A Crap is seeking a Senior Performance Marketing Coordinator
🐛 Goterra has put the call out for interns.
🔥 Also, check out our Giant Leap Fund jobs board for over 80+ available positions or fill out our expression of interest form. There’s even more jobs at ethical companies on the global B-Work job board.
Giant leaps
💥 We’ve wrapped on what was another excellent Impact Pitch Night. Huge congratulations to Hoopsy for winning the judges prize and to Good-Edi for taking home the People's Choice Award. Missed the event? Check out the wrap video here.
🔌 Amber Electric secured coverage in the AFR for its $13.5 million raise, aimed at helping automate the energy grid.
🧀 Change Food is launching a facility in the UAE, signing a deal with Kezad Group, the country’s largest operator of purpose-built economic zones.
🪷 Conserving Beauty featured in Forbes Australia last month, with founder Natassia Nicolao weighing in on the greenwashing debate.
🐛 Goterra’s founder Olympia Yarger recounted her tough but rewarding entrepreneur’s journey in the Canberra Times.
And a speed round from the Giant Leap team:
Our Managing Partner Will Richardson appeared on the High Flyers podcast and Balance The Grind.
Our Investment Manager Charlie Macdonald appeared on a Purpose Confernece panel last month and had his comments showcased on OnImpact. Charlie also featured on The Centre for Responsible Innovation’s video series on impact innovators.
Greenfleunce gave its tick of approval to our impact calculator -- which we released a few months ago.
Our Partner Adam pitched Giant Leap at this Flipped Demo Day.
And if you’re at Sunrise Conference in Sydney next week, look out for us there!
Phew, that's a lot of leaping…
For the road
🌳 Bill Gates’ refocus on climate. Building on its work funding new companies to tackle climate change, Gates’ fund, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, will now also focus on later-stage investments. It will also broaden its scope to look at businesses that not only prevent further climate change, but also mitigate existing impact from worsening weather conditions.
🩺 A healthy dose of advice for medical founders. HealthTechNerds has collated a bunch of excellent tips for both clinical experts looking to move into the startup sector or founders looking to innovate in healthtech. Some initial advice: The founder job usually isn’t as “life and death” as most clinical jobs, so failure is okay!!
♻️ Learn how to become carbon-neutral business. Trace is running a free workshop on November 16. Sign up here.
🤸♀️ A new women-led VC fund has launched. Women Changing The World Investments aims to shift the conversation on women-led businesses in Australia. It comes as funding in solely women-led businesses slid over the past year, according to recent data from SBE Australia.
🧪 Wanted: More lab space. Co-Labs is opening two new sites for biotech startups in Melbourne with plans to expand even further. It comes as demand for research labs hits an all-time high, fuelling some of the impact breakthroughs that we see today.
🚀 Accelerating people and planet. LaunchVic has tipped in $3.1 million into three startup accelerators, and two of them - ANDHealth and Climate Salad - are set to accelerate our impact ecosystem.
🌊 A toast to the sea. Glen Aylward’s letter (as captured by writer Zoe Osborne) perhaps best sums up how all surfers feel about the big blue.
😺 And yes we’re spending this week narrating our emotions after this guy showed us the light. I expect it to make me very happy (and those around me confused and slightly annoyed).