Rishi Rathi
Bio
Musing over sustainability and technology and ways to make the world better than we inherited. I'm learning while I write and I'd love to hear your thoughts on my stories!
Instagram - rishirathi_
Stories (19/0)
What the FoaK is Deep Tech VC
During my first week at work, I was asked to review the deck for a certain energy storage startup, the founder of which was expected to visit us later during the day. Very diligently, I started taking notes and preparing questions for this Ivy League PhD founder with over a decade of experience in the industry. It might be useful to add here that I was 23 and had a cumulative 15 months of odd internships for work experience at that point. Anyway, four slides into the deck I realize that this company is essentially trying to defy all practical thermodynamic principles to achieve ideal states that were only talked about in my engineering textbooks - a technology so cutting edge that even Google Scholar would only have a handful of papers on it. Naturally, I sat like a starstruck fanboy throughout the meeting letting my colleagues do the talking while I learned how Deep Tech Venture Capital actually works (just kidding, I still haven’t figured it out lol).
By Rishi Rathi8 days ago in Futurism
The Woke of Wall Street: Politicizing ESG
Investments that take into account the environmental, social, and corporate governance aspects of an organization, or ESG-focused investments, have been under scrutiny for a while now. These investment themes, which some regard as the shape-shifters of old-school capitalism, have been accused of being ‘too woke’ and a part of the larger liberal scheme to revolutionize business as we know it. But the debate is much deeper and runs into questions about what are the duties of a fiduciary and to what extent is ESG material - the answers to both of which are, well, political.
By Rishi Rathiabout a year ago in Trader
To Bid, or Not To Bid
The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 kicked off last week but the mega sporting event has been tainted with controversies right from 2010 when Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 edition of the football tournament. So far, 17 of the 22 FIFA ExCo members who handed the 2022 World Cup to Qatar have been banned or indicted over allegations of corruption and wrongdoing. Apart from being organized at one of the most politically charged times in modern history, the event is also the first sports mega-event to be held in the Arab world. The hot and dry weather in the country forced the organizers to shift the tournament from the usual summer time to winter, disrupting other tournament cycles elsewhere. What forms the bulk of controversies against Qatar, however, is the kingdom’s record on human rights abuse.
By Rishi Rathiabout a year ago in FYI
Taylor Swift, Big Oil and Soggy Paper Straws
Taylor Swift has topped yet another chart this week but it's not a billboard top 100 this time. A report from a sustainable marketing firm, Yard, recently calculated the emissions from the private jets of famous celebrities and if the findings are to be believed, Taylor Swift’s private jet was in use for 170 out of the first 200 days of the year and it emitted close to 8000 metric tonnes of CO2e, which is 1200 times what a normal person emits each year. While Swift’s representatives have tried to do some damage control by claiming that the jet was also loaned out to others and wasn't always used by her, this has done little to quell the internet.
By Rishi Rathi2 years ago in Earth
Light Bulbs, iPhones and your Right to Repair
A booming international light bulb market forced the market leaders to negotiate and restrict their activities to not interfere with each other’s businesses. Apart from splitting the market among themselves, the cartel also reduced the permissible life expectancy (yes, that’s a thing) to 1000 hours from 2500 hours. Manufacturers who produced light bulbs with a greater than permissible life were actually fined for having violated the cartel’s norms. Quite obviously, this was done to sell more light bulbs and increase revenues. Among other things, the cartel, one of the first truly international ones, was successful in raising prices, stifling innovation, and reducing quality.
By Rishi Rathi2 years ago in Earth
FB was bad but is Meta-Worse?
Humans are complex and human interactions are even more complex. Our ability to communicate effectively has been a game-changer in our evolution and is what sets us apart from other species. This trait, however, has changed rapidly in the past few decades. The internet and its offspring in the form of social media platforms have facilitated a different kind of connection, at least in the initial days of adoption. I remember the early 2010s when I would come back from school and hop on to Facebook only to chat with my school friends again - even those who stayed next door. To be fair, it also helped me connect with distant relatives and random friends whom I met at the summer camp and wouldn’t have been able to connect with otherwise. Cut to 2022, where I need to take regular ‘detox’ breaks from these platforms to stay sane - times have clearly changed, communication has clearly evolved.
By Rishi Rathi2 years ago in Humans
News Flash - We Are Not Doomed!
We’ve all seen enough images of forest fires, floods, droughts, and turtles dying of plastic pollution and at this point, these images have started to lose their shock value. As an ex-climate activist myself, I can tell that climate activism (not slacktivism) is not ill-intentioned, in fact, those peers are some of the most passionate folks I’ve ever worked with. But that short stint as an activist made me realize that there is something wrong with the way we sell climate change.
By Rishi Rathi2 years ago in Earth
Arctic - the Winners and Losers of Climate Change
No other region of the world has transformed as rapidly as the Arctic in the recent past. Global warming has led to a loss of ice cover in the north, which exposes the dark-colored ground. This ground absorbs more heat from sunlight and further leads to heating up of the region, leading to further depletion of ice cover. Arctic amplification, as this process is commonly known, has been the leading cause of what has been the steepest temperature rise in the world. Images of malnourished polar bears, to which most of us are desensitized by now, are literally just the tip of the iceberg. The temperature rise, loss of ice sheets, growth of vegetation, and opening of trade activities along the North Sea route, Northwest and Northeast passages are all creating a positive feedback loop of unprecedented changes in one of the last and the most pristine safeguarded ecosystems of our planet.
By Rishi Rathi2 years ago in Earth
Don’t Breathe - Delhi Edition
Year after year, Delhi’s air quality touches new lows (or highs) and this year has been no different. With the revival of economy and industrial activities in and around the city post lockdown, stubble burning season at its peak, and the awful Delhi traffic, the extremely subpar air quality indices were not so hard to predict. What was a shocker though, was the city administration’s decision to shut down schools, colleges and encourage work from home. Basically, an effort to minimize exposure to pollution, not by cutting down on pollution itself but by locking humans up in their houses. Apart from this, construction work has been halted, coal plants shut and non-essential trucks have been banned from entering the city.
By Rishi Rathi2 years ago in Earth
Sustainability and the Bottom Line
Climate change is, hands down, one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century but it is also an opportunity for businesses to participate in a wave of positive change. Climate action is certainly capital intensive but with changing consumer and investor behaviors, stricter government regulations, and soaring resource prices, being good has never been more profitable!
By Rishi Rathi3 years ago in Earth
A Looming Energy Crisis and bla bla bla
Oil prices broke $80 a barrel this month for the first time in three years, gas prices are set to soar across the EU and the UK and higher coal prices have already led to the factory shutdowns in China. While there’s so much talk about decarbonization and investments in renewables, it might seem odd that conventional fuel prices are rising. Isn't that industry supposed to be on the decline? Well, sadly, not yet. Our dependence on these dirty fuels is far from over and the looming energy crisis is a living testament to the failure of investors and governments in ‘building back better’.
By Rishi Rathi3 years ago in The Swamp
Neocolonialism and the Demonization of China
Reading the newspaper is as integral a part of my morning routine as brushing my teeth or sipping bournvita. And it has been so for a very long time. My yearning for geopolitics makes me skim through the regional and national news pieces and skip to the International News leaf, cuz that's where all the tea is :) This routine started at a time when I wouldn't question a news article as much as I would try to assimilate it and take it for what it is. I trusted my news source to provide me with a fair, unbiased reporting/perspective on all the affairs. Much later, when I started questioning things that were almost like a given, among other things, I realized how the News continues to remain a colonial instrument even in modern days.
By Rishi Rathi3 years ago in Humans
