Molly Wood’s Post

Oh heeey, you know that #WorkLab podcast I host for Microsoft? The WorkLab site and product has been nominated for a #Webby for best business blog/website! That of course means it's up for a People's Voice, and I, along with the team at Microsoft and Godfrey Dadich Partners would very much appreciate your vote! WorkLab is an amazing resource about work, culture, #AI, leadership, and innovation, and I have learned a ton hosting the podcast and interviewing brilliant leaders from some of the world's biggest and most interesting companies. Thanks for voting, and if you haven't heard the podcast, why, you really should. :) https://lnkd.in/gctYbX76

Huge congratulations to Brimstone for landing $189 million from the Department of Energy Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. In case you don't remember them from Episode 19 of Everybody in the Pool, Brimstone is making a carbon-neutral (and potentially even carbon-negative) cement replacement that's identical to the industry standard cement that's used all throughout the industrial world. The funding will let them build a commercial-scale plant to actually deploy this solution. Remarkable case study of the power of bold venture risks (shoutout Activate, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, The Climate Pledge, Fifth Wall, DCVC, and others) combined with government investment in decarbonization solutions (shoutout President Biden). Listen to CEO Cody Finke, Ph.D. on the podcast here: https://lnkd.in/gG_Stjkh And read more about the DOE investment here: https://lnkd.in/g-k8rjBF We. Can. Solve. Hard. Problems.

At its heart, the future of work is really a question of the future of *leadership* -- particularly with AI in the mix. Who's going to take the risk of integrating new technology into their workflows and bringing their employees along with them for the ride? Who's going to think creatively about how to make this tech work for them instead of defaulting to easy answers (like headcount reduction instead of headcount retraining)? Imagining work in an age of AI is about more than just a growth mindset. In the newest episode of WorkLab by Microsoft, I talked with Dr. Britt Aylor, Microsoft’s Director of Leadership Development, about the philosophy known as adaptive leadership, and why now is a GREAT time to start getting good at it. Enjoy! https://lnkd.in/gXrZpKD2

Today is the one-year anniversary of the launch of Molly Wood Media. It was wild and accelerated and chaotic and I'm still cleaning up after myself, but as I used to say about having an actual newborn, the first birthday is for celebrating that you kept the baby alive. And I did! And the baby is, in fact, happy, healthy, kicking, and super excited to see what life has for it in the next year and beyond! (Ok, I've tortured that metaphor long enough.) What have we accomplished in that year? - Launched Everybody in the Pool, the podcast and the newsletter, where I've been lucky enough to interview some unbelievable climate tech innovators and entrepreneurs, investors, and practitioners, who have given me genuine hope for the future for 40 episodes as of this week - Became a venture partner at Amasia, helping find and advise startups in the climate tech space - Became host of the WorkLab podcast by Microsoft, keeping a foot in the AI conversation by exploring how this wave of technology will shape the future of work - Launched the Futureverse podcast with Ramanan Raghavendran and have gotten to interview some PHENOMENAL authors writing about climate fiction - Co-chaired the Impact Initiative and Global Sustainability Forum with Fortune - Spoken at events including GreenBiz Group's GreenFin and GreenBiz, Fortune Brainstorm Tech, CES, SXSW, Berkeley Haas School of Business, Climate Week NYC, Playground Global ... I've almost lost track, but my goodness has it been fun I have a lot to learn and I have what sometimes feels like a million exciting projects in the works for year two, and I'm having the best time of my life, and I mean that sincerely, despite having some INCREDIBLE jobs behind me. I've been terrified and insecure and clumsy and bad at email and afraid of taxes and all the things that go along with going it on your own, but this experience of owning my own time, believing in myself and what I've built, collaborating carefully with people I know and trust, and leaning on a network of brilliant, generous people ... it has been utterly transformative already. Thank you Ramanan Raghavendran, Robyn Edgar, Rachel Braun, Coco Jones, John Penney, Tom Merritt, and the many many others who have advised and helped and hired and encouraged and referred and guided me in year one, you are legion. Here's to more.

I've recently been joking that I didn't actually change jobs, I just went from tech journalist to *climate* tech journalist. It is in that spirit that I guess you can't stop being a tech reviewer, you can only transition to being a *climate* tech reviewer. I get a lot of questions about EVs and which one to buy and what to consider before, during, and after, so I'm compiling some answers and recommendations into what has accidentally turned into a multi-part series. This one answers some pretty basic consideration questions, like range, battery longevity, leasing versus buying, price, and, of course, what I'm driving at the moment. Please enjoy and drop questions here or in email as this evolves!

Bonus newsletter alert! I wrote about the SEC's new climate disclosure rules (aka, the big punt). It's disappointing that the SEC wouldn’t take a stronger hand on reporting requirements, especially since the agency would have been sued over them no matter what, but the compliance horse has almost certainly left the barn, and disclosures and compliance will be par for the course of any company. And on that note, I’ve been hearing a lot more pushback, even from some high-profile chief sustainability officers, about spending time and money on regulatory compliance. Every dollar spent on compliance, I have heard, is a dollar not spent on decarbonizing our operations. At face value, this makes some sense. I was briefly swayed by this argument myself, as someone who doesn’t really like paperwork. But the fact is, compliance cleans things up, and that is to the benefit of companies’ bottom lines, investors, the public, and in this case, the planet. Sure, it’s probably burdensome now, in the short term, to have to comply with reporting requirements that aren’t standardized, and when there isn’t a universal methodology for cataloging Scope 3 emissions. But I’m wary of a company that doesn’t want to do the accounting (lesson learned in investing, also). First of all, self-reporting and voluntary compliance don’t usually end up working out well for end users (see: data use and privacy, as but one example). When companies must account for their emissions or data collection or any other business practice, the resulting transparency almost always forces change for the better, if only as a result of pressure from shareholders, customers, and investors. Whatever you’re hiding, you can get away with forever. This is pretty basic logic. Second, not doing the accounting is bad for business. Companies that pay attention to their carbon emissions are likely to find more efficient ways of doing business that can save them money, get them access to green financing or other tax incentives, or open them up to investment from institutions that prioritize net zero goals. Plus, they can avoid penalties by doing business badly in states or countries that require accurate accounting. Third, if you’re telling me that every dollar spent on compliance is a dollar not spent on decarbonizing your operations, I feel like you’re not that committed to decarbonizing your operations. That’s a choice, and I believe it to be a false one. Someone I spoke with recently likened it to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Yes, it's still annoying the hell out of organizations to this day, but the fact is, it cleaned up the financial industry, restored a lot of trust, and uncovered a lot of inefficiencies that were actually costing companies money. It made business better. In the case of GHG reporting, it could make business AND our futures better. So no, it should not be voluntary. Read the full post below!

Vote, invest, adopt. You know I'm a fan of technology, innovation, industry, and ingenuity when it comes to tackling the climate crisis. But very little matters more than policy. Voting is everything!

The new season of #WorkLab from Microsoft is alive! I had a wonderful conversation with Charles Duhigg, author of the new book "Supercommunicators," about how interacting with the AI machinery of the future is going to be a lot more like having a normal conversation than interacting with, say, a calculator. And that, in turn, will continue to make good communication skills a valuable trait in the workplace. So, honestly, being better at communicating with machines could make us better at communicating with people, which could make pretty much EVERYTHING run more smoothly at work. What a concept, right!? Oh, also, Charles says responding to a whole bunch of emails isn't the same thing as being productive, so I feel both seen and let off the hook. Thanks, Charles. Find the new episode below! #productivity #futureofwork #AI #supercommunicators https://lnkd.in/gDBjruKm

This was a wonderful conversation with actual specific ideas about how to incorporate AI in the service of nature! Thanks to Dylan Siegler and team for letting us re-post and share with the EITP audience (and for an outstanding event)!

The next season of WorkLab, the podcast by Microsoft, is coming Feb. 28 and the trailer is live now! I'll be talking with all kinds of experts about what work and productivity will look like in the age of AI -- which I think we can all agree is kind of a big topic, at this exact moment. Find the trailer and all the previous episodes here! https://lnkd.in/gi9MN7HJ