Great write up. I’m a fan of the systematic thinking and research. It’s interesting to compare how you approached it to how Charity Entrepreneurship are looking into non-profit startup opportunities. I’m interested in how you weighed up the decision criteria; was this just intuitive, based off the rest of the research, or did you have another approach?
One area where I might diverge from your approach here is in how you conceptualise expected social impact. I get the impression here (mainly from your use of “Filter #2: Social Impact—Comparing Animal Suffering”) that you primarily conceptualise the impact of a startup in terms of the the products that that startup produces and the animal products that it replaces counterfactually. But a broader conceptualisation of the impact of a startup might include its contribution (positive or negative) to the overall eventual success (i.e. market share) of plant-based meat and/or clean meat. In the long-term, this could well matter more for total impact.
So a startup which introduces a cellular agriculture product replacing an animal product that causes relatively small amounts of suffering might still be far more impactful than some other startup ideas (e.g. a startup that brings a good clean chicken product to market at a better price point than its competitors) if it helps to bring cellular agriculture products to market in a way that has wider public support. Although each of these examples has a long list of pros and cons, this specific goal might be better achieved by:
1) Focusing on animal products which aren’t actually eaten by humans, e.g. leather, pet food
2) Focusing on products which are more widely condemned by the public, e.g. foie gras
3) Focusing on marketising the products in countries which are more likely to be supportive, even if the total market is smaller, e.g. Singapore (see here).
In each of these examples, bringing the products to market in those specific contexts might increase consumer acceptance of the higher priority products, since they (or lots of people in other countries) will already be using cellular agriculture products.
A different approach might be to starting a B2B startup which focuses on providing a cheap—but also stable and secure—specific ingredient, e.g. growth media (this one overlaps with some of your suggestions). This might require that their business focuses on selling to a broader customer base, including medical companies and scientific researchers, to ensure that they have a business model that isn’t wholly dependent on the (potentially fluctuating) fortunes of the rest of the clean meat supply chain.
Potentially these strategic concerns might matter less for plant-based foods. I can think of ways it would influence decision-making though, like focusing heavily on price, so that less well-off people can access plant-based foods, to reduce the risk that plant-based food becomes confined to well-off people and specific demographics (hippies/hipsters) due to the real barrier that price puts up and/or due to public perceptions and identity issues.
Generally, I’m arguing for considering a long-term “strategic” perspective to thinking about the social impact of start-ups. J at Sentience Institute has written two technology adoption studies on nuclear power and GM foods which I think are helpful for thinking about these sorts of perspectives. He’s currently writing a third, on biofuels—I imagine that that will be similarly useful, and that we’ll start to see trends and patterns occurring across the technology adoption studies as he does more.
Hey, Jamie, thanks for your thoughts! I’ll speak for myself, as our entire team hasn’t had time to review your comment yet.
Your comparison to CE’s approach is fair, although there are a number of differences. We did consider opportunities outside of plant-based/clean meat but I was not involved with the research at that point. Our decision criteria within this space was informed primarily by our judgment as EAs and as a team with experience in business/consulting of the factors likely to matter most for impact and success of the company.
I definitely agree that the broader conceptualization of impact is a critical framework to consider. However, I don’t necessarily think that our two approaches are mutually exclusive. For example, a high-quality chicken/fish substitute could do just as much to advance the field of plant-based products as a high-quality burger (or perhaps even more, given the large number of beef products on the market now). We considered the factor you’re highlighting to some extent in our decision-making, as you can see in our selection of developing a product in an Asian economy, which could spur the creation of new products/companies in this area if done successfully. Our approach in clean meat—to focus on intermediary technologies, e.g. cell lines, media formulations, etc. is also informed by your approach, as this likely would do more good by advancing the field as a whole than by having direct impact.
Great write up. I’m a fan of the systematic thinking and research. It’s interesting to compare how you approached it to how Charity Entrepreneurship are looking into non-profit startup opportunities. I’m interested in how you weighed up the decision criteria; was this just intuitive, based off the rest of the research, or did you have another approach?
One area where I might diverge from your approach here is in how you conceptualise expected social impact. I get the impression here (mainly from your use of “Filter #2: Social Impact—Comparing Animal Suffering”) that you primarily conceptualise the impact of a startup in terms of the the products that that startup produces and the animal products that it replaces counterfactually. But a broader conceptualisation of the impact of a startup might include its contribution (positive or negative) to the overall eventual success (i.e. market share) of plant-based meat and/or clean meat. In the long-term, this could well matter more for total impact.
So a startup which introduces a cellular agriculture product replacing an animal product that causes relatively small amounts of suffering might still be far more impactful than some other startup ideas (e.g. a startup that brings a good clean chicken product to market at a better price point than its competitors) if it helps to bring cellular agriculture products to market in a way that has wider public support. Although each of these examples has a long list of pros and cons, this specific goal might be better achieved by:
1) Focusing on animal products which aren’t actually eaten by humans, e.g. leather, pet food
2) Focusing on products which are more widely condemned by the public, e.g. foie gras
3) Focusing on marketising the products in countries which are more likely to be supportive, even if the total market is smaller, e.g. Singapore (see here).
In each of these examples, bringing the products to market in those specific contexts might increase consumer acceptance of the higher priority products, since they (or lots of people in other countries) will already be using cellular agriculture products.
A different approach might be to starting a B2B startup which focuses on providing a cheap—but also stable and secure—specific ingredient, e.g. growth media (this one overlaps with some of your suggestions). This might require that their business focuses on selling to a broader customer base, including medical companies and scientific researchers, to ensure that they have a business model that isn’t wholly dependent on the (potentially fluctuating) fortunes of the rest of the clean meat supply chain.
Potentially these strategic concerns might matter less for plant-based foods. I can think of ways it would influence decision-making though, like focusing heavily on price, so that less well-off people can access plant-based foods, to reduce the risk that plant-based food becomes confined to well-off people and specific demographics (hippies/hipsters) due to the real barrier that price puts up and/or due to public perceptions and identity issues.
Generally, I’m arguing for considering a long-term “strategic” perspective to thinking about the social impact of start-ups. J at Sentience Institute has written two technology adoption studies on nuclear power and GM foods which I think are helpful for thinking about these sorts of perspectives. He’s currently writing a third, on biofuels—I imagine that that will be similarly useful, and that we’ll start to see trends and patterns occurring across the technology adoption studies as he does more.
Hey, Jamie, thanks for your thoughts! I’ll speak for myself, as our entire team hasn’t had time to review your comment yet.
Your comparison to CE’s approach is fair, although there are a number of differences. We did consider opportunities outside of plant-based/clean meat but I was not involved with the research at that point. Our decision criteria within this space was informed primarily by our judgment as EAs and as a team with experience in business/consulting of the factors likely to matter most for impact and success of the company.
I definitely agree that the broader conceptualization of impact is a critical framework to consider. However, I don’t necessarily think that our two approaches are mutually exclusive. For example, a high-quality chicken/fish substitute could do just as much to advance the field of plant-based products as a high-quality burger (or perhaps even more, given the large number of beef products on the market now). We considered the factor you’re highlighting to some extent in our decision-making, as you can see in our selection of developing a product in an Asian economy, which could spur the creation of new products/companies in this area if done successfully. Our approach in clean meat—to focus on intermediary technologies, e.g. cell lines, media formulations, etc. is also informed by your approach, as this likely would do more good by advancing the field as a whole than by having direct impact.