Climate is pitchfork time! Neurodiversity, anger, & candor—w/ Dimitry Gershenson of Enduring Planet

What happens when you ask Dimitry Gershenson how he's doing? He tells you. This confuses people at parties, and by his account it works surprisingly well on investors.

Today's guest is Dimitry Gershenson, the co-founder and CEO of Enduring Planet, which provides "founder-friendly working capital and financial advisory services to climate startups and SMBs," often lending against a government grant or contract. They recently closed a second fund more than twice the size of their first.

We get into why so much climate content reads like it went through legal, the op-ed on impact investing in an age of autocracy he held back until his fund closed (a major investor bailed anyway), how much (or how little) of his work runs on anger, and what being on the autism spectrum is like while running a company of almost 120 people.

And Dimitry tells the story of a field trip with his old Berkeley professor John Harte, who gave the bleakest two-word summary of climate change I've heard in a while, followed by a surprisingly useful second answer.

Full disclosure: I have a referral agreement with Enduring Planet, so if you go talk to them, tell them I sent you.

• Enduring Planet
• Courageous Capital: Impact investing in an age of autocracy, Dimitry Gershenson and Jed Emerson, ImpactAlpha
• Take risk, act swiftly and seven other tips for deploying catalytic capital the right way, Dimitry Gershenson, ImpactAlpha
• With $12M second fund, fintech startup aims to pump more cash into climate entrepreneurs, GeekWire
• Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley
• Radical Candor, Kim Scott

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