“What can I do?” This is the question I get most often. 

It’s the question that early on pivoted our newsletter and then this podcast towards measurable action steps that help you feel better and drive systemic change.

I don’t have anywhere near all the answers to basically anything, so I usually answer people with “What CAN you do?”…to stall for time, but also to open up the conversation.

Because the answer to what CAN you do is usually best found at the intersection of your interests or passions or skills, and the eleventy billion problems and opportunities we have before us.

And so, almost a hundred and fifty published conversations later and ten times as many offline, some of my favorites remain talking to young people about their lived experiences and how they’re directing it towards a problem and solution, towards a radically better world, however ambitious and however much I am a moron and don’t understand the basic science behind it.

But on the other hand, somebody’s gotta support these folks. And so those of us with privilege, with a mic or a checkbook or both have to – at the very least – step up and ask a slightly different version of that question, which is:

“How can I help?”

My guests today are Lissie Garvin and Laura Stieghorst.

Lissie is the Foundation and Fellowship Director at the new 776 Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the venture capital firm with the same name, both founded by Alexis Ohanian.

Lissie helped run Reddit, was chief of staff at Initialized Capital, working alongside Alexis.

Laura Stieghorst is one of the first 776 Fellows. She is the co-founder and CEO at BASICO2, where they are working to understand how we can safely rebalance ocean chemistry using natural mechanisms to remove CO2 from the ocean and restore coral reefs. No biggie, right?

Combined, these two humans are a shining example of humanity’s young people, our most affected, our most ambitious, doing hard things. Because we have to, because they want to, because, in the end, some of these things might be possible, and might change the world.

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INI Book Club:

• The Wild Trees by Richard Preston
• Climate: A New Story by Charles Eisenstein
• Lessons from Plants by Beronda L. Montgomery
• Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

• Follow Lissie and the 776 Foundation on Twitter
• Follow Laura and BASICO2 on Twitter
• Donate to BASICO2
• Apply to the 776 Fellowship Program

Follow us:

• Subscribe to our newsletter at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com
• Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
• Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
• Edited by Anthony Luciani
• Produced by Willow Beck
• Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
• Artwork by Amrit Pal