Mike Schroepfer is Partner at Gigascale, a venture firm he founded and self-funded to back startups building venture-scale businesses with the potential for outsized climate impact. Previously, Mike served as CTO at Meta (Facebook’s parent company) from 2013 to 2022, having originally joined in 2008 as VP of Engineering.
In this episode, Mike and Cody discuss his career journey, key lessons learned, and their shared counterpoint to the often-repeated myth that "America doesn’t build hard things." They also dive into AI, energy’s role in its advancement, and the work Mike and his team are doing at Gigascale.
Mike has been a longtime supporter of MCJ, and we’re honored to count him among our investors. It’s inspiring to see a technologist of his caliber not only invest in climate solutions but also roll up his sleeves to help founders tackle hard problems and build the future.
In this episode, we cover:
- [2:08] Mike’s early career working on video software
- [5:28] Fundraising challenges and lessons from the dot-com crash
- [10:12] Working at Sun, Mozilla, and joining Facebook in 2008
- [13:16] Risks and opportunities of early Facebook
- [15:40] Managing large engineering teams and the value of humility
- [18:30] The era of building hard things in the U.S.
- [21:25] AI and energy innovation: compute, chips, and power
- [27:49] How scale brings down cost curve and modularized technology
- [32:01] How he thinks about software-based opportunities
- [37:40] Shrep’s pivot to climate tech after Meta
- [41:04] The talent interest evolution in climate
- [43:33] Gigascale’s investment thesis
- [49:49] Gigascale’s approach to identifying sectors
- [51:37] Storytelling and marketing in climate tech
- [54:10] Gigascales talent efforts for its portfolio
Episode recorded on Mar 4, 2025 (Published on Mar 20, 2025)
Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.
Connect with MCJ:
*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!