Ryan Grant Little: 0:42

Welcome to another Climate Tech podcast interviews with the people trying to save us from ourselves. I had lots of fun with this conversation with Nathan Paumier, a self-professed fungi nerd. Fungi is awesome and terrifying at the same time. It has the potential to solve our climate, biodiversity and food crises. As anyone who's seen the series the Last of Us knows, its potency can also be deadly. Everything you wanted to know about fungi, and more, I reached Nathan in New York City. Nathan, welcome to the podcast. Hey, ryan, thanks a lot for having me. So your day job is leading commercialization at BioBrew, which is a precision fermentation startup launched by one of the largest beer companies in the world, ab InBev. And I guess they know a thing or two about fermentation. But I don't want to talk about that, because I actually want to talk to you about your passion for fungi. When did you first realize that you're a fungi guy?

Nathan Paumier: 1:41

Thanks for that, ryan. So yeah, my passion for fungi, I think it comes back from high school, college. I got interested very early on in how biology can solve environmental problems and I think from there it took a lot of classes. I'm a big reader and got very interested in different kingdoms and ecology and remember learning that fungi are much closer related to animals than they are to plants.

Ryan Grant Little: 2:11

That's so wild, that's such a weird thing to find out.

Nathan Paumier: 2:14

I know we can talk more about why that's interesting later. And I think from there I got very interested in a bunch of different fields at the same time. So we're a gendered agriculture and biomaterials and biomimicry, and I realized that through all of these there was a weaving thread, a fungi, and I think you can say that through food and through books and through reading. I got the mushroom bug from there and have been digging deeper.

Ryan Grant Little: 2:39

There's so much to cover here on this topic. I mean we could have multiple podcasts about this and I will have some more podcasts about this, but you do cover the whole gamut of why this stuff is so fascinating, and I feel like I need to create a little table of contents for this conversation. Otherwise we're just going to be all over the place, because mushrooms can solve multiple types of problems climate change, food insecurity, biodiversity loss. Those are a few of them, and then we'll get to things like physical and mental health as well later. But why don't we start with climate change, where you further could break it down into waste mitigation, carbon sequestration and materials design? Can you talk about this subset of three things and some of the things you found in your research and reading?

Nathan Paumier: 3:33

Yeah, absolutely All right. Yeah, let's break this down, so yeah. So I really think that fungi are going to be an unavoidable part of climate policy, and I think for three of the reasons that you just mentioned for waste mitigation, for carbon sequestration and for materials design. So, starting with waste mitigation, I mean we have a lot of different pollution problems. We have chemical pollution, we have air pollution, we have water pollution, we have oil spills the list goes on.

Nathan Paumier: 4:01

But if you look back at how fungi have operated on earth for over a billion years now, they really are the recyclers of the planet, and their one expertise is how do I break down different compounds to use as food or to provide food to other organisms? And so I think tons of potential here with how they can use the hydrocarbons in diesel or in oil spills, clean those up and then create whole OECs of life. There's also this whole fields which people are getting very interested about now called micro remediation, and when you look at some of the problems from agricultural runoff, there's a lot of excess nutrients, so nitrogen, phosphorus. They're getting washed to the seas and are causing these algal blooms that basically suffocate everything else in those ecosystems, and fungi can actually help sequester, capture some of those nutrients before they reach the oceans and stop those dead zones. So I think, so many different possibilities on waste mitigation and we talk plastic about all these things, maybe later on as well.

Ryan Grant Little: 5:07

And maybe just like center us a little bit on this as well, because there's fungi, there's mycelium, there's like fungi is basically the mushroom that we see, but mycelium is like this network, like the earth's fiber optic lines kind of running under me. Can you just kind of talk a bit about the range of what's out there and like what are we talking about? What's the full gamut of fungi?

Nathan Paumier: 5:29

Yeah, totally. So that's a great question. So fungi is going to be the broadest term. So fungi is basically this whole kingdom, and the same way they talk about animals that we talk as plants, you also have fungi, and within that you have tons of different of organisms. You have things like unicellular fungi, so yeasts that you have in beer or bread, those are fungi. Then you have different mycelium and what we call filamentous fungi. So these are things like molds, other organisms that are found in fermented foods. These usually are like kind of one cell, one cell thick and can multiply, and then you have mycelium, which we call kind of the root of mushrooms, and about maybe 10 to 20,000 of mushroom species actually produce what we call fruiting bodies, and so fruiting bodies are what we call as mushrooms. So if you kind of have the analogy of an apple tree, like the roots are the mycelium and then the apples is what we call mushrooms. No way.

Ryan Grant Little: 6:30

Okay, and so the whole time we're talking about flora and fauna, and it should be flora, fauna and fungi, basically.

Nathan Paumier: 6:36

Yes, fungi I think people have been calling it which I'm going to start using too.

Ryan Grant Little: 6:41

Okay, so thanks for clarifying that, and I've just learned something there as well. So, okay, you talked about waste remediation already. I wondered also you know, we know, that it's super good at carbon sequestration why don't we, or does this happen? I mean, there are huge efforts to plant trees right, and that, like huge part of the kind of carbon offset movement is about planting trees. Can you plant fungi? Is this a thing or people doing this? Is this part of like a CO2 sequestration plan?

Nathan Paumier: 7:13

Yeah for sure. So you know our fungi part of a CO2 sequestration plan? I think, absolutely. I think, just taking a step back, we look at how carbon on earth is kind of divided. You have 80% of carbon in, like, terrestrial soils, is below ground, maybe 20% is above ground in things like trees, but most of it is for below ground and you know how is that stored below ground? And there's a really cool study that came out earlier this year basically showing that you know of all the CO2 that trees capture, about 30% of it they send directly to fungi underground, so that's where a lot of it is stored.

Nathan Paumier: 7:50

And then about 90% of plants, trees have these relationships with fungi where they basically trade, you know, carbon from the atmosphere for micronutrients that fungi can source from underneath. And I think we ignore a lot of those relationships, whether it's in agriculture or whether it's in planting trees. And yeah, I think we're missing out on something big here, because when we look at trees which you know I think are a super cool way of you know reforesting very important environmental initiatives, we're really forgetting like that symbiotic relationship there and, as a consequence, like when we look at how well the trees that we plant survive. It's not that great, ryan, it's like they like you have around 56% of trees that survive longer than five years. So if you want trees to be like a big part of our you know climate and biodiversity strategy, like that's not going to work and I think, like planting trees, you know, with the fungi that they can grow with and a lot of startups doing this, I think is a more promising route.

Ryan Grant Little: 8:52

I seem to recall that trees basically use fungi as a communication route, right? Can you talk a little bit about what that's all about?

Nathan Paumier: 9:01

Yeah, totally so. I thought this was such an interesting concept. So when you go to forests, there's a lot of elder trees, some people call them mother trees, and basically it was found that a lot of these trees can actually connect underground through mycelial networks. So they are, as you mentioned, the kind of fiber optics of nature, and I think it's the coolest thing that mother trees can actually, you know, recognize their own seedlings and not just communicate with them but also share nutrients to them through mycelium. Wow, and so they really are kind of like the wood wide web is what some people call them. Yeah, I just think that's like there's a whole universe of things underground. There's like 300 square miles of you know mycelium just under your under each of our feet, and they can sense that we're there, like they arise up in our footsteps after we walk. I don't know what else to say than like a forest kind of grows aware.

Ryan Grant Little: 10:01

I think I've learned about this watching a Netflix documentary or something, and I just remember stopping and being like what I mean, it was mind boggling and you know I never thought of trees as like actually communicating with each other and but yeah, it sounds like it was this a fantastic fun guy that could be. That sounds about right.

Nathan Paumier: 10:21

Yeah, it's a great one for those listening that haven't watched it yet.

Ryan Grant Little: 10:24

I'll link to it in the show notes then as well. So, okay, the other kind of area on the climate change mitigation side is materials. Right, and I've seen this quite a bit as an investor some things like mushroom based leathers. Ikea is now replacing styrofoam with fungi foam, so there's like different types of packaging, takeout packaging and that type of thing. What's the state of play with materials? Yeah, absolutely so.

Nathan Paumier: 10:50

I think first, when we just look at the state of materials today, I think we desperately need innovation. When you look at kind of production globally, there's a ton of single use materials, single use plastics that will outlive all of us in these ecosystems, and so we really need better solutions that are more benign and are more circular. To begin with, and I think that starts with fungi, and I think what's cool about fungi is that they initially can inoculate different forms and we can use them to make different materials. So, as you mentioned, we can make mycelium leather, we can make insulation panels, any kind of foam that you think of, whether it's like packaging foam, insulation foam other forms can be made with fungi and furniture kind of like skies the limit, and I think there's really going to be a new generation of kind of fungi based materials very soon.

Ryan Grant Little: 11:45

This is such a bad table of contents because I mean, I say climate change, food insecurity and biodiversity loss, but as if they're not, like you know, all interconnected. So because now I want to talk about food insecurity and the first thing I think about right is you know, it's of course it's food insecurity, but it's also the fungi based food is a massive contributor to kind of a carbon neutral or net zero future. But talk about this. So I saw on your LinkedIn a while ago that you wrote that the juiciest steak you might ever eat might not come from cows or plants, but from mushrooms. And then you have this like super delicious looking steak and you were saying how it's also protecting you from dementia at the same time, maybe talk first about that steak and, like you know, talk about how you prepare your mushrooms for and you can give some recipes here, but then also kind of how this ties into food insecurity.

Nathan Paumier: 12:34

Yes, absolutely All right. So, yes, I also think that fungi are going to be a big part of, I think, more human friendly and or I would say, human, healthy and earth friendly foods, and I think it can make a big dent in food insecurity. I'll just take a step back and kind of like ask you know, when we think of like spinach and peas, like have you ever heard someone call those, you know, meaty? Not so much, and I think that is something that a lot of vegans will say about mushrooms is that, like you know, wow, like you put this on the barbecue and it's so meaty. And I think that's why it's like going to be a very exciting, just replacement for meat analogs is because, like you know, it can grill more similar to different meats.

Nathan Paumier: 13:18

And I love lion's mane mushrooms. They're great in coffee, but they're also great to make as whole steaks. And so I write like a week newsletter and that was one of the recipes that I shared on like a lion's mane steak and I mean don't get me wrong like I also like eating like higher quality and less meat. That's something that I'm definitely focusing on at the moment. But I kind of had this thought of, like you know why don't I try to cook this mushroom the same way I would cook a steak, and so you know, high heat, a little bit of oil, some seasoning and just like pressing it down and kind of turning it over a few times until it gets like you know, that recognizable sizzle and char, and it's really delicious.

Ryan Grant Little: 13:58

Are lion's mane steaks or lion's mane mushrooms easy to find? I don't. I don't think I've ever seen one in a supermarket before.

Nathan Paumier: 14:05

Yes, so there are. You can find them in some Whole Foods and some, I think, other supermarkets on the West Coast that I've seen. They're actually not that difficult to find, along with, I guess, my talkie Shatake. I usually see those around the same rates. You can also grow them at home in different kits.

Nathan Paumier: 14:22

But a few other fun facts that I think are fascinating about lion's mane is that, I mean, as you mentioned, you know, they could actually help prevent dementia. They contain two very interesting classes of compounds called heresinones and erinacines, which are basically shown to do two things. One, they can, like, regenerate the myelin sheath on neurons. So these are like kind of like the fats that surrounds neurons, that isolates them and allows those electrical currents to go fast. So that can regenerate those myelin sheaths. And it's when you know that sheath gets broken that then neurons start sticking together. And this is when you get these things called amyloid plaques which contribute to most of the symptoms that we see in Alzheimer's. So that mushroom is helping to reverse that and at the same time it promotes this thing called NGF Nerve Growth Factor to basically, you know, help create new neural pathways in our brains. So like super, super interesting thing on how mushrooms like heal our brains as well.

Ryan Grant Little: 15:25

And is that all mushrooms, or that's especially in lion's mane?

Nathan Paumier: 15:28

That's especially in lion's mane. There's some other mushrooms have other benefits for immunity, health and so forth.

Ryan Grant Little: 15:35

Okay, next up is biodiversity, and I'm especially interested in the role that fungi plays in inoculating bees against disease and maintaining old growth forests. I think you touched on that already. From the communication side, talk about bees and inoculating bees. From what?

Nathan Paumier: 15:51

Yeah for sure. So we have a big problem right now with bees, and it's especially this phenomenon called bee colony collapse disorder where basically you have entire beehives that are getting wiped out. Sometimes from one year to the next some pollinators might lose 30 percent of their hives. That's catastrophic, obviously for the crops that need those, but also for the natural ecosystems that really rely on pollinators for their productive cycles. B-colonial collapse disorder is caused by combination of a few things.

Nathan Paumier: 16:26

Basically have these little mites, these little parasites that themselves carry these different viruses. Basically, if you're a mushroom and you're living for a long time in the forest, you eventually will have to fend off different viruses, different parasites, because you can't move, you're just there. A lot of these mushrooms have figured out how to fight off similar viruses and parasites. They produce some super interesting antiviral compounds that bees will actually seek out in nature. Some people have observed bees nibbling on exposed mycelium. What I find fascinating is that you can then take some of these antiviral extracts from mushrooms and put it in things like bird feeders I guess bee feeders you could have this in backyards basically some natural, vaccine-ish solutions to help prevent this really dramatic B-colonial collapse disorder.

Ryan Grant Little: 18:24

The most famous fungi-based health application, and for good reason, is penicillin. Can you talk a little bit about this discovery and what we've learned since then, and how we're applying fungi to human health?

Nathan Paumier: 18:37

Absolutely yes. Penicillin is probably one of the most important antimicrobials that was discovered in the 20th century, definitely something that, like we, gave the Allies an edge over Germans and some of the other folks in World War II because they were able to have much higher survival rates from injuries during the war than the others. The story of how penicillin was discovered so it goes is that Alexander Fleming was coming home from an application to a very messy lab bench. He had all these bacteria cultivations, but then he saw that they had been contaminated with this greenish mold not quite sure what it was, but surprisingly that mold was actually preventing his bacteria from growing. There's something interesting is happening here.

Nathan Paumier: 19:39

Upon further study, investigation found that that mold was producing different compounds, that was anti-microbial properties and that turned out to be penicillin. Since then we've looked to fungi for other compounds they may be producing. These are compounds that can fend off not just different other microbes but also entire diseases, things like hepatitis or E coli or other bacteria that cause strep, etc. I really believe fungi to be nature's pharmacy. They've figured out over time, building this huge repertoire of how we fight different viruses, different bacteria, different parasites. I think we should really continue to tap into that.

Ryan Grant Little: 20:24

There is a lot of emerging work as well in this base of mental health, with fungi and especially with psilocybin magic mushrooms being used through guided therapy. It's, of course, been used for thousands of years by Native Americans, more recently by hippies and by tech bros with their micro dosing. As an aside, I'm a really big believer in magic mushrooms. I'm a pretty staunch atheist, but the times that I felt most connected to the world and to nature and the most spiritual have been after taking magic mushrooms on a canoe trip and lying underneath a tree and staring up at the tree canopy and watching as insects and squirrels and leaves interact as one organism. It's really centering, it really. People describe how it can inform your worldview and your connection to nature for the rest of your life. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about some of the stuff that's happening. What developments are happening in the world of mental health with psilocybin?

Nathan Paumier: 21:34

Yeah, I think there's a lot of potential here for psilocybin and psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. Happy to talk about it, but I'd actually be curious to hear more about your experience kind of on that. What were some conclusions or thought or behavior patterns that you were able to reevaluate? Did it help you heal in some ways?

Ryan Grant Little: 21:56

It's hard to say.

Ryan Grant Little: 21:57

I don't know exactly if it's helped me heal in any way, but there was something very physical about just observing the interconnectedness of all, seeing these micro ecosystems at play, and you could look in the grass and watch ants moving along or something like these things that just kind of are you wouldn't notice in your day to day life.

Ryan Grant Little: 22:20

You really really see how all things are interacting with each other and without getting too mushy about it, but in this kind of harmonious way, and that everything has its purpose, everything is designed to facilitate. That leaf is shaped like that for a reason, and the way that water drop comes off that leaf and lands on another, and the way the bird is sitting on that branch. You feel really connected to the millions of years of evolution. I feel like in that moment you really see this kind of master architecture at play and how the flora, fauna and fungi, I guess, all interact together. That was kind of my experience with it and always in nature, always on canoe trips and this type of thing where you're in the middle of nowhere. I don't think it would be as fun or as insightful if I was sitting on the subway at rough shower.

Nathan Paumier: 23:13

For sure that sounds like, yeah, that would not sound pleasant in the subway for sure. But I love what you're mentioning about really tapping into the interconnectedness of all things. I think that's just one thing that's very powerful about these kinds of substances. I think there's so much potential to help a lot of people that are facing terminal illnesses, cancer-related anxiety, addiction, depression and just really inspired by some of the work coming out of Johns Hopkins, most universities at this point have different trials with different psychedelics, but I think just seeing that after one experience people are able to really overcome a lot of symptoms and up to one year after that experience like that, two thirds of participants still feel like positive residual benefits, I think is amazing.

Nathan Paumier: 24:07

And I think the way it works and the way it interacts with our brains is also very interesting. That kind of psilocybin helps silence what's called default mode network. So basically, like when we grew up and when we formed our identities and thought patterns, our brain kind of used these like highways of different neurons and this is what kind of shaped our ego, kept your shape, our identity. You know how we think and respond to things, and psilocybin helps us kind of step aside from that and now start to use all these different other pathways and how we can look at our problems differently, reflect on things differently, and I think that's why it has such a potential to heal people.

Ryan Grant Little: 24:49

Psilocybin. Have I been pronouncing it psilocybin this whole time?

Nathan Paumier: 24:53

Maybe. Yes, I didn't want to correct you, but I think it's psilocybin.

Ryan Grant Little: 24:56

Okay, so okay, we're just going to pretend right now that this is like a regional thing. You know, it's a regional pronunciation, Totally.

Nathan Paumier: 25:05

I'm sure in Europe they pronounce it differently. Yeah.

Ryan Grant Little: 25:07

Yeah, that's the. We'll go with that. That's the European. I'm just using the.

Ryan Grant Little: 25:10

American pronunciation here yeah, Okay, it's like you know, in Europe we throw use where they don't belong in words like color and yeah. So that's perfect, Okay, For all of our listeners. That's just the central European pronunciation and I'm going to stick with that. Two other things I want to talk about here, because it wouldn't be, you know, a podcast episode if we didn't talk about slime mold and cordyceps. So first of all, slime mold. Why is it awesome, even though it sounds terrifying?

Nathan Paumier: 25:37

It sounds disgusting, exactly as you mentioned it, but these are actually, you know, extremely smart organisms. So there's actually some you know kind of debates as to whether slime molds are part of the fungi kingdom. They were thought a long time to be part of it. I would still think there's very, very close relationships there, even though there's some evolutionary differences, but anyways, sounds like a lively cocktail party discussion.

Nathan Paumier: 26:03

Yes, so lively for all the mushroom nerds out there. And I think slime molds are especially fascinating because they're one single cell and they can spread in like these orange yellow webs to kind of capture food in all directions. And what's very interesting is that they're very efficient in how they connect different food sources. And there's some researchers in Tokyo and started in Tokyo and it's been done for many other cities that basically look to say, okay, like we think our subway system is pretty efficient, but like let's see how nature might, or slime molds might, react to different food sources. We map them out like population hubs in Tokyo and how they connect together. And they actually saw that the slime molds, you know, over time it'll spread in all directions, It'll try to get all the oats, but then it'll kind of, you know, thin out the less efficient pathways and really reinforce the most direct connections between those hubs. And they ended up seeing that, you know, the slime molds had outperformed Tokyo's engineers in like developing, like subway and highway systems.

Nathan Paumier: 27:14

And I find this so interesting. And if you do the same for the US and Germany, which has been done in the US, like you see a lot of similarities with how our highways are constructed. You know you would see connections between, you know, boston and New York on the I-95. But they've also, like, come up with all these clever solutions of linking up cities that we haven't thought of yet. So they're basically doing in a much more accelerated fashion. You know what we've done over the past couple centuries of figuring out, okay, what's the most direct point to tie these three cities? And yeah, I think they're very interesting.

Ryan Grant Little: 27:47

Look out AI and watch out for slime molds.

Nathan Paumier: 27:49

Yeah, exactly, they got some competition.

Ryan Grant Little: 27:52

The new hot funding topic in venture capital. So Cordyceps had its moment of fame this year in the spectacularly good TV series the Last of Us. This is the fun guy that zombified the majority of the world's population, kind of like coming out of their mouths and their eyes and stuff like that. But it's not as science fiction or as far out there as we might think, because Cordyceps actually does do this, but in much smaller critters. What's the deal?

Nathan Paumier: 28:24

So first to take a step back, I gotta may use something. Ryan, I totally mentioned the Last of Us in some posts. I've actually not watched it yet, but I know it talks about Cordyceps. It's really good. Okay, it's really good. I gotta bring it up the list, but anyways.

Nathan Paumier: 28:38

So Cordyceps Cordyceps are part of this group of, like parasitic fungi and basically the way they were produced I think is just so interesting. I mean, similar to the Last of Us can infect, you know, things like ants or different insects, and then kind of zombify them and trick them into climbing to the tallest possible point, then biting down on a leaf, and then they will sprout a mushroom from their heads and release their spores far and wide as possible. And this is actually something that we can use, you know, for different insect infestations that we don't necessarily want. So think about termites Like those are such a pain to get rid of. The current solutions are super toxic, but you can actually use this thing called Delayed's Porulation.

Nathan Paumier: 29:27

So, basically, like the insects, they know about this Cordyceps stuff and they won't be tricked easily. There's always guards at the front of the nests that will detect, you know, any ants or any insects coming in with the spores of Cordyceps, and usually those guards will bring those ants, you know, far away from the nests and then they'll kind of all die together and get consumed by the Cordyceps. But you can actually trick the ants and make those spores undetectable, and so with Delayed's Porulation, these you know ants will walk into the necks undetected, and then by the time Cordyceps start spreading it's too late. Now it's taken over the whole nest and you can get rid of entire termite colonies and they'll leave spores behind, and so you can make your home termite proof for like a decade with a solution that would cost something like a quarter. So yeah, super interesting stuff here.

Ryan Grant Little: 30:22

I mean, shouldn't we be afraid of this? Can't you do this to people too?

Nathan Paumier: 30:25

So actually, yes, that is something that we should definitely be concerned of.

Nathan Paumier: 30:30

I've talked a lot about the many different benefits of a fungi, but fungi also do carry some fungal infections that can be difficult to treat and actually in the past few years we've been seeing some instances of some very weird infections, first in India, some in Europe, more recently like July of this year in the US actually and there are different fungal infections.

Nathan Paumier: 30:55

If you look at from an evolutionary point of view, why haven't fungi infected humans more often? And it's because of the temperature difference. Like the human temperature, body temperature is actually made to avoid fungal infections and with climate change and with a lot of places getting warmer, you now have fungi that are getting used to these increased temperatures and are actually starting to infect some human hosts and, I think, to be crazy worried about right now. But there is, I think, one called Candida auroras, this one fungal infection that has been seeing some different instances and per the conversation earlier on how humans are much closer to fungi than we are to plants and that's also why we don't have that many really effective fungicides is because human and fungi are more similar than us and other bacteria, for example.

Ryan Grant Little: 31:56

So the best it could do for hundreds of thousands of years was athletes' foot, and now we have to watch out for the zombie apocalypse is what I'm taking away from that.

Nathan Paumier: 32:04

That is one interpretation, but nothing to get worried about.

Ryan Grant Little: 32:08

But hopefully it stays to the athlete's foot stuff for now you vary intentionally and, if I may say so, successfully developed an online writing practice through your weekly newsletter, brb with Nathan P. So this is where you put your recipes as well. Right and a climate tech breakthrough and a book recommendation. And I wonder if anyone out there is thinking of upping their online writing game, if you've got some tips for them and also if you just want to give a plug for where people can find BRB with Nathan P.

Nathan Paumier: 32:38

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks a lot for mentioning the newsletter, so yeah, so every week I write a food and climate newsletter called BRB with Nathan P and always has three things. You can expect the same for me every Wednesday, so I will share one cool thing that I've been learning about in the food and climate tech world, one recipe that I've made in the past week, and then one book that I'm reading could be fiction, could be nonfiction, also related to food and climate. And, yeah, I kind of started this journey, I think really wanting to develop a writing habit and, I think, build a community of people that are interested in the food and climate space and bring people investors, entrepreneurs, just citizens, people who are interested in making a difference through our food and climate choices and for anyone thinking of writing and getting more out there.

Nathan Paumier: 33:30

I was scared of writing on the internet for a while, always very sensitive to what people think about what I'm writing, and definitely helped overcome a lot of that and meet some incredible people like yourself, so very happy to be here For those who want to write more. So a few tips, I think. Number one and this can sound simple, but just get started. I think the first step is finding something that you're more obsessed about than the average person and that you really want to, I think, share more of and meet people in that space. I think, now that we're on the internet, no niche is too small. There will be people who are also interested in what you're interested in.

Nathan Paumier: 34:12

So, number one, just get started and find something to write about.

Nathan Paumier: 34:16

Number two, I think writing on the internet maybe similar to podcasts, curious to hear your thoughts on this can be a lonely journey at times, and so I think, number two, super important to find your tribe, and I think finding people who are writing about similar things are on a similar step of the journey or maybe even one or two steps ahead of you. And yeah, I think, just sharing tips, sharing resources with that tribe, send the texts in the group chats that kind of thing can be very powerful to, I think, one, help your reach, but also to learn from people who've done this already. And number three, I think it's just a question of being consistent how do you generate trust with this audience and community that you're building, and also be patient. I mean, a lot of people expect to write online and immediately get thousands of followers, but the volume really needed to be successful and be visible. Definitely takes some time and it's a journey that I'm very much still on, but, yeah, that's what I would say.

Ryan Grant Little: 35:21

And how do you feel about it as with this weekly cadence, is that something you feel like you can maintain? Do you plan on doing this forever, or this is kind of a let's see, or how do you think about that as a weekly podcaster? Also curious, asking for a friend.

Nathan Paumier: 35:35

Yeah, totally I think it really depends on the person. What's sustainable for you and where do you find energy and what drains your energy? For me, this is something that I'm already doing all these things, anyways.

Ryan Grant Little: 35:48

Exactly.

Nathan Paumier: 35:49

I'm already reading a book. I'm already having conversations with people on different topics. I'm already cooking a bunch and might as well share that and enjoy the process of writing it. So for me, I find that once a week is a very sustainable pace. I could do this for a very long time. No expectations on what the destination might look like, I think, for now just enjoying the process. But yeah, what about you? I'm also curious to hear how have you felt with this weekly cadence of the podcast.

Ryan Grant Little: 36:18

Maybe the same thing, and I mean it's been interesting. I thought that one of the harder things to do would be to kind of line up all the guests, but actually that's filled up very quickly, to the point that I'm usually many weeks ahead. So that also means you can kind of take a week off here and there. But yeah, I mean, as with you, it's something that I'm doing anyway. I'm having conversations with people like you day in and day out, and the whole kind of genesis of the podcast in the first place was why don't I just hit record once in a while and share this with some other people as well? Because as a clean tech investor, as a clean tech consultant advisor, I get to have all these kinds of really interesting conversations that also kind of germinate some hope for what in a world that has a bit of a dearth of it. So, yeah, it's been great and it's actually been something that definitely gives me energy. So I would totally reiterate what you just said about that.

Nathan Paumier: 37:16

I love that and, yeah, we met on LinkedIn Great place to meet people in your field. I'm also curious how do you find guests or the podcast? What's that process like?

Ryan Grant Little: 37:26

Well, it starts to snowball a little bit because I talk to my guests and say, basically who else should I talk to, who else do you think would be interesting? Whenever I see in my LinkedIn feed someone doing something interesting, a lot of times I'll send them a message and say do you want to talk about this on the podcast? I think that's how we met right and then it's a great chance to. It's a really great way to meet and get to know someone and then share it more broadly. So I'm really happy about doing this and, yeah, I think I don't know what the destination looks like either, but it's definitely a long way away.

Nathan Paumier: 38:00

Yeah, no, I love that. I think just great to reach out there and like I think so many people having conversations like super interesting conversations anyways and like might as well share those conversations, that might help or maybe inspire some people to get started 100% especially if it's so a lot of people who listen to the podcast are career switchers.

Ryan Grant Little: 38:20

So I've always been. You know, I worked in renewable energy in the mid 2000s and I would always take a coffee with people who wanted to get out of like banking or consulting and get into renewable energy and I think it's a really good way to kind of get people to see that you know there's like real people behind this and working in this field and to get kind of a sense of how you know how they can transpose their experience into the sector as well.

Nathan Paumier: 38:43

Yes For all the consultants, finance people out there. Climate tech is happening, food tech is happening. Come join us. There's a lot of exciting things happening. I also wanted to ask about a little bit about your you know you mentioned your clean tech investor. You know what are some theses that you're currently excited about in that front and, you know, is fungi maybe part of that.

Ryan Grant Little: 39:03

Fungi is a big part of it, actually, because I'm almost exclusively an alternative proteins investor, and what I like about alternative proteins is people assume that I'm like some big foodie, which I'm not at all. I'm really not, but I love animals and so finding ways to remove animals from the supply chain was interesting to me. Food tech is, you know, it's not as sexy a sector as, like you know, people don't get excited about it the way they get excited about Teslas or you know things like that. So that means it's kind of a bit of an underserved sector from the investment side. So you know food. Let's say, food represents 30% of greenhouse gas emissions but gets, like you know, six to 12% of VC attention from climate tech VCs. So you can see that there's kind of an opportunity there.

Ryan Grant Little: 39:51

It's a new market. It's, you know, I was an internet guy in the late nineties and in 2000 people said, okay, well, that's it. Internet was a fad and you know, and we're seeing, we're seeing the same thing happen to some extent right now in the alternative protein sector, like, okay, beyond, burger stock has crashed and therefore plant based is over, and it's like you know. So I see a lot of similarities. I like new markets. I like markets where people say not going to happen and then, to you know, be on the ground floor of proving them wrong, because obviously the food system has to change right. It just has to.

Nathan Paumier: 40:27

For sure. Yeah, I love that you know there's clean tech investors like you that you know are getting startups to support they need. And yeah, why debate people online when you can debate them in the marketplace?

Ryan Grant Little: 40:40

Yeah, it's putting your money where your mouth is and then still eating the product of the investment or whatever.

Nathan Paumier: 40:47

Yeah, and I love that. No, very excited for, I think, more plant based innovations and I think more like fungi forward innovations as well. You know, I think there's been either plant based or either kind of my cereal products, hopefully like combinations of both, very soon.

Ryan Grant Little: 41:05

It's going to be hybrid products. So I'm invested in 27 companies and they range from plant based to fermentation to cultivated, and people are always talking about which one's going to win. It's going to be hybrid products, right? It's not a silver bullet, it's silver buckshot.

Nathan Paumier: 41:23

No, I mean totally agree. I think, and we've also seen, I mean, I think, speaking of hybrid products, that you know a lot of people are still, I think, we're looking to give up meat, and you know, we've seen that, you know these are things that are very, very nostalgic, I think, very sensitive, very cultural for many people. Indeed, yeah, and I think you know, the reality of wanting everyone to be vegans is unfortunately not there yet and can't quite impose that on people. But I think you know, offering like alternatives, like hybrid alternatives that you know might have the same tastes, might have the same texture, might even be healthier, you know, just blends of like meats and mushroom, or meat and other products, or like just mushroom and plant products, I think are extremely exciting.

Ryan Grant Little: 42:07

It has to taste better and be cheaper. And then there's questions about accessibility and nutrition. But it's just, you know, those are the two things and I think we'll get there. I mean, if you consider the inefficiency of animal agriculture versus the efficiency of, you know, things like plant-based or cultivating meat, where you're using a fraction of the land and the resources, so you know there's still going to be real meat, but it just doesn't have to, you know, grow over six weeks or something eating soybeans to get there. I think that's kind of the future that we'll see.

Nathan Paumier: 42:37

For sure, I love that.

Ryan Grant Little: 42:39

Nathan, thanks so much for joining and thanks for asking me some questions. It's nice to be asked some questions too and be on the other side of the table.

Nathan Paumier: 42:46

No, of course, I mean like love this conversation and, no, love the work that you're doing. You know, supporting a lot of the startups in this space. And yeah, if you want to hear more from me every Wednesday, you can find me on Substack. So Nathan Pomier, brb with Nathan P, you'll get an email from me with some delicious recipes and some climate tips every Wednesday.

Ryan Grant Little: 43:07

Sign up before the quarter-steps turn us all into zombies.

Nathan Paumier: 43:11

Perfect, all right. Thanks so much for having me, ryan.

Ryan Grant Little: 43:14

Thanks a lot. Thanks for listening to another Climate Tech podcast. It would mean a lot if you would subscribe, rate and share this podcast. Get in touch anytime with tips and guest recommendations at hello at climatetechpodcom. Find me, ryan Grant Little, on LinkedIn. I'll be back with another episode next week. Bye for now.