Climate Capital with Tom Chi

Climate Capital with Tom Chi

From Climate Changers by Ryan Flahive

May 27, 2026 · 24 min · Episode 138

About this episode

Tom Chi discusses insights from his book on redefining economics to align with ecological realities.

In this episode, Tom Chi—founding partner of At One Ventures and former Head of Product Experience at Google X, where he led the development of Google Glass and self-driving cars—discusses the core insights of his book, *Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future*. Leveraging his extensive background as a physicist and designer, Chi challenges traditional economic models by framing economics as a practical design discipline that must align with the Earth's physical realities rather than theoretical pseudoscience. He moves past the polarizing extremes of blind tech-optimism and immobilizing climate doomism, offering a grounded, evidence-based toolkit that uses nature's highly efficient ecological systems as the ultimate blueprint. Ultimately, Chi outlines tangible, empoweringly realistic strategies that venture capitalists, sophisticated individual investors, pragmatic policy wonks, and environmental activists can deploy together to radically reinvent our industrial economy and ensure humanity becomes a net positive to nature.

People in this episode

Host: Ryan Flahive

Guest: Tom Chi

Topics covered

  • climate change
  • sustainable investing
  • economic models
  • ecological systems
  • venture capital
  • environmental activism

Keywords

  • climate capital
  • investing
  • regenerative future
  • economic design
  • nature
  • venture capital
  • sustainability

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: At One Ventures, Google X

Products: Google Glass, self-driving cars

Books & works: Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future

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