Speed & Scale: Moving Leaders to Act on the Climate Crisis

To avert a catastrophic climate crisis, the world will need to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 and get halfway there by 2030. Tackling this existential threat requires deploying climate solutions with urgency and magnitude. 

In this conversation with John Doerr and Ryan Panchadsaram, co-authors of Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now, we will discuss the actions we can take and the technology we must deploy to help the world decarbonize—in time. 

Moderated by Stanford faculty member Dr. Arun Majumdar, John and Ryan will share salient lessons and messages from their book, covering their bold action plan to cut greenhouse gases and establish a sustainable future.

This event is open to the Stanford community with limited tickets available to the public.

About the Speakers

John Doerr
John is an engineer, venture capitalist, the chair of Kleiner Perkins, and the author of bestsellers Measure What Matters and Speed and Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now. For over 40 years, John has served entrepreneurs with ingenuity and optimism, helping them build bold teams and disruptive companies. He was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon and has helped to create more than a million jobs. A pioneer of Silicon Valley’s cleantech movement, he has invested in zero-emissions technologies since 2006. Outside Kleiner Perkins, John works with social entrepreneurs who are tackling systemic issues across climate, public health, and education.
 
Ryan Panchadsaram
Ryan Panchadsaram is an engineer and investor focused on solving systemic societal challenges. At Kleiner Perkins, as technical advisor to the chairman, Ryan invests in founders and technologies that aim to change the world. Ryan is the co-author of national bestseller Speed & Scale and previously collaborated on the number-one bestseller Measure What Matters. In March 2020, Ryan co-founded US Digital Response, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that helps governments and organizations respond quickly and efficiently to support the critical needs of the public. Under President Obama, as Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States, Ryan championed entrepreneurship, innovation, and open data.
 
Dr. Arun Majumdar, Moderator
Dr. Arun Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Provostial Chair Professor at Stanford University and Senior Fellow and former Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. He served in the Obama administration as the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and as the Acting Under Secretary of Energy. He served as a Science Envoy for the U.S. Department of State and currently serves as the Chair of the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. Dr. Majumdar was also the Vice President for Energy at Google and advises numerous businesses in the energy innovation ecosystem. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in 1985 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989.

Event Sponsors

This event is co-sponsored by the Knight-Hennessy Scholars and GSB Impact Fund.