Brent Schulkin
The planetary emergency we're living in will be the central force impacting the world for the rest of our lives. I believe this is a lens through which we all must learn to view everything, including the way we choose to live our lives and what we choose to work on.
Success requires cultivating curiosity about the ways that very complex systems interact with each other. I've learned that I am somewhat unique in my tendency to look at fintech, predictive analytics, and the data infrastructure underneath capitalism, and see the ways they connect to social change or collective climate action.
For example, I have co-founded 3 companies that all give people a way to express their values by creating meaning around how they use their money, while also providing valuable data and insights to businesses. Why the consistent theme?
Well, I only got involved with fintech because years ago I realized that it was simply a lack of fintech tools that was preventing me from achieving my social impact goals. It's actually a pretty interesting story...
The planetary emergency we're in is not an "issue." It is an era that we are now living in, and will be for the rest of our lives. It is a lens through which we all must learn to view everything, including the way we choose to live our lives and what we choose to work on.
This requires cultivating curiosity about the ways that very complex systems interact with each other. I've learned that I am somewhat unique in my tendency to look at fintech, predictive analytics, and the data infrastructure underneath capitalism, and see the ways they connect to social change or collective climate action.
For example, I have co-founded 3 companies that all give people a way to express their values by creating meaning around their payment experience, while also providing valuable data to businesses. Why the consistent theme?
Well, I only got involved with fintech because years ago I realized that it was simply a lack of fintech tools that was preventing me from achieving my social impact goals. It's actually a pretty interesting story...
After growing up in the Bay Area and graduating from Stanford, I invented a new type of consumer advocacy which is essentially the opposite of a boycott: In a Carrotmob campaign, a business agrees to take an action, and in return people spend money at the business to reward them and make it profitable.
I believed that in order to solve the world's most important problems, people needed a better way to influence businesses to change their practices. I ran the first ever Carrotmob campaign in San Francisco, and after that video went viral, I started leading a social movement of community organizers around the world....
In support of this movement I started two venture-backed companies and built technology products that allowed people to participate in Carrotmob campaigns as they made payments (both online and offline) to businesses. People and businesses both absolutely loved being a part of the Carrotmob movement.
Despite all the success, our unit economics were poor, and we never found a viable, scalable business model. We even tried making Carrotmob a non-profit, but it turns out that's illegal. So we decided to try something new....
I led another startup called The Spring. This was an app where you could connect your payment card, go spend money at participating restaurants, and the restaurants would donate to projects that benefitted your local community. You also earned cash back. It was a slam dunk good deal for our users.
We partnered with First Data to integrate our app with merchant banks, for a seamless restaurant experience. Great restaurants (such as Dosa, Gracias Madre, and American Grilled Cheese Kitchen) signed up to gain new customers and support good causes. I eventually came to believe that restaurant margins were too thin for the business to work long-term, and we shut down.
By this point I had become a global expert on the nearly universal human desire people have to "vote with their money." People want their purchases to be an expression of their identity, their values, and their power. They want to feel heard. They want to have an impact. They want to feel like their purchase decisions really matter. Nevertheless, I saw that there was no product which delivered this sort of experience that people yearned for. So I started MoneyVoice.
As CEO, I led product development for both our consumer app and our enterprise SaaS product for businesses.
I raised almost $500k, built a full-time team of 8, and launched our consumer app. Our 700 early users loved it, but it had no practical purpose prior to the launch of our product for businesses. While fundraising so we could launch our business product, I failed to convince investors that our consumer growth plan would work, so we never got to fully launch, despite the high level of interest on both the consumer and B2B sides. I'm grateful to the team who joined me in this quest to redesign the incentive structure of capitalism by putting a voting layer on top of global commerce.
The theme of all of this: Building tools to create financial data that changes incentives, sparking business action to address the climate emergency. Meanwhile, I've also worked on climate in a variety of other ways...
In 2008, I co-founded my first company, Virgance, which was an incubator for various social good and climate-related startups.
I later led product development at California Clean Power. We built a full-service back-end provider for cities interested in launching clean energy programs. The product included a custom-built CRM, telephony software, and support for data transfer with utilities. The company was acquired by Pilot Power Group.
Our biggest success was building One Block Off The Grid, a nationwide solar energy program. We soon pivoted our company to focus exclusively on helping get solar panels installed on as many houses as possible.
We raised $5M in investment, put solar on thousands of roofs, and the company was acquired, eventually becoming the foundation of NRG's residential solar division.
For VERGE I also produced invite-only VIP summits focused on grid resilience, commercial zero-emission vehicles, and food waste. I'm not allowed to tell you everyone who was in the room, but just picture the world's most important companies and government officials for each topic and you'll have a good idea.
At the 2015 UN climate meetings in Paris I volunteered to help build a coalition supporting Project Drawdown, and I have been active as an advocate for climate action in a variety of ways for well over a decade.
Three friends and I did freestyle hip hop for years, and then wrote a theatrical hip hop musical about startups. We did our first sold-out performance in 2016, followed by performances at Silicon Valley Fashion Week, 500 Startups Demo Day, and more. We raised $27k on Kickstarter to improve our show, and in June 2018 did a 3 night theatrical run in which we performed along with an expanded cast of collaborators and leading figures in Bay Area hip hop culture.
We also make videos. "The Arrival" was the first song we released publicly (which I wrote most of). Reid Hoffman then hired us to produce a viral video about Bitcoin (2.9M+ views), and a year later he worked with us to produce a series of strategic anti-Trump rap cartoons (18M+ views) aimed at influencing moderate Republicans. In summer 2020 the NY Times called Rhyme Combinator "a viral media company that promotes artistic and progressive causes."
I've spent less time on this in the past couple years as more world-class creatives have joined the team to push the vision forward. The new version of the show is called "CO-FOUNDERS". It is now being produced by A.C.T. (American Conservatory Theater), and you'll be able to see it at San Francisco's Strand Theater from May 29 - July 6, 2025.
In 2015 I co-founded a co-living community called Euclid Manor in a 13-bedroom mansion in Oakland where I still live today. I love it so much. We have an incredible culture, wonderful humans, and we are also known for being a very active concert venue and event space.
Our home has been featured in the LA Times, SF Chronicle, The Guardian, NBC News, Wired, and Marketplace (NPR). Being there usually feels a bit like this. This lovely video was filmed on location:
Speaking of bringing people together in community, I also founded a men's group that has been active since 2015. I sometimes plan elaborate parties or pranks. And I've been involved with 3 Burning Man camps.
