Matthew McGraw: Addressing inequity as an existential crisis for humanity
This week, the TTI Interview Series covers our member Matthew McGraw. Matthew is a dad, husband, entrepreneur, and investor, in that order. He runs Anthropocene Ventures, a global early-stage VC firm investing in founders that leverage exponential technologies & hard science to make humanity more resilient. Matthew has been helping quickly scaling starts up to scale since 1995.
In this interview, Matthew talks about addressing inequity as an existential crisis for humanity.
Matthew, tell us about how your work intersects with the impact space.
I've been angel investing in companies that democratize access to information, data, and finance for a decade because I think addressing inequity is an existential crisis for humanity, and I and started a climate fund in this year to address the other existential crisis of our time.
What is your own definition of impact?
Improving the quality of people’s lives in an environmentally sustainable, socially equitable way.
Key to a lot of environmental benefits
Matthew, what do you see as the most important issue to address in the next 10 years?
Water is under-discussed and under-invested in. Biodiversity, same. Data rights, provenance, and veracity. Concrete is finally getting some focus and is key to a lot of environmental benefits.
What is the greatest challenge you face to scale your impact?
Great is the enemy of the good. Puritanism.
The future is hard to quantify
Matthew, what is your long-term vision and how do you measure & quantify your impact?
LOL, I'll have to tell you hone I get there...… the future is hard to quantify.
Impact can be seen as goody goody bullshit
What are some misconceptions you’ve noticed regarding what “impact” is all about?
Impact can be seen as goody goody bullshit. It's feel-good liberalism but without lasting substantive effect. I see true impact as profitable.... just maybe profitable for more people and less vertically profitable for a few owners.
