Rokas Peciulaitis (Contrarian Ventures): Why responsible innovation wins with better products

0:00Rokas Peciulaitis:I will leave we got the name wrong from the very beginning. Climate change. Think about it. A word change. Change sounds neutral. For some people, like me, it actually sounds positive. Before I was an investor, I was actually a trader. And on the trading floor, we had a precise word for what is happening to the climate. It's volatility. So here's my hot take. climate worsening will not be reversed from a podium in Brussels or United Nations. It will be solved by responsible innovators. What's cool about this story, Vinted's answer to fashion was not a lecture. It was a product so good secondhand became the normal.

0:42Rokas Peciulaitis:Responsibility wins when it's a better product. Then he noticed his own product was actually damaging the rock that he so truly loved. You know what he did? He killed his best-selling product. And what he did instead? We are live. We are live. In five. We are live. Four. We are live. Three. We are live. Two. We are live. One.

1:13Rokas Peciulaitis:I'll do a little travel with you. The year is 1914. April, 1912, April 14. It's actually a few minutes before midnight. The largest ship ever built at a time hits an iceberg in North Atlantic. Here's the part that no one actually remembers. Two hours after impact, no one did anything. The music continued, the dinner continued, the party continued. Passengers refused to get into liveboats because everyone knew that ship was unsinkable. Lightboats were half empty leaving the ship. By the time people started to panic and realized, there were not enough lightboats. Everyone started to panic and we know the rest of the history.

2:05Rokas Peciulaitis:Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. This is me actually. This is me actually at the Spaniard. The Titanic last port before the call at the Atlantic was at Cobb. It's actually outside Cork in the Irish northern coast. The legend says the captain had his last plan before it was taken on board before that last trip. I came here today to tell you something uncomfortable. The modern version of that ship is the planet Earth. This summer alone, Europe had 14 ,000 heat-related deaths. But most of us are still at the dinner, listening to that band. But here's my take. The last, I believe we got the name wrong.

3:00Rokas Peciulaitis:This is me in London, having sweaty times at 38 temperatures not that long ago. Funnily, that's at Climate Tech Week in London. The funny part of it is we're trying to do something about climate change and half of the events got cancelled because of climate change. It's kind of an interesting situation. But here's my take. I will leave we got the name wrong from the very beginning. Climate change. Think about it. A word change. Change sounds neutral. For some people, like me, it actually sounds positive. Change drives progress. changes every startup founder promises to us. And nobody is scared of change.

3:46Rokas Peciulaitis:We're quite the opposite, excited about it. Before I was an investor, I was actually a trader. And on the trading floor, we had a precise word for what is happening to the climate. It's volatility. The temperature is not simply going up, which is an easy way to describe as part of change. Quite the opposite, the range is widening. More extreme on both ends. Hotter heat waves, harder floods, longer droughts, stronger winters. Less predictability, more chaos. So I want to propose a more honest name. And that is climate worsening. Because it's the truth, it's to the default path. Left alone every year, it's worse than the previous one.

4:35Rokas Peciulaitis:And every year we do nothing, it worsens faster. So hold on to that, where I'll come back to it later at the end. Now the big question, who slows it down? We usually think it's politicians. You know, we hear a lot of them, and it's been going for a couple of decades actually, I think. And I'm not saying policy does not matter. I'm just saying it's just too slow and we're running out of time, especially in Europe.

5:05Rokas Peciulaitis:The good part, which we have to come to the good news, is the builders are not waiting. At my firm, Concernium Ventures, we've backed over 35 companies in the last nine years, and they're doing every work, every day showing up, and making things better. One is making a jet fuel from renewable electricity, so you guys can fly to festivals like Tomorrowland, clean. The other is a building intercity bus network that is actually way more comfortable than running cars, so you can leave it in your garage to travel to places you need to. So nobody voted for them because they just went and started building.

5:44Rokas Peciulaitis:So here's my hot take. Climate worsening will not be reversed from a podium in Brussels or United Nations. It will be solved by responsible innovators and by all of us voting with not the ballot every four years but with every single euro in our pocket. And when I say responsible, I don't mean a glossy report. I mean an approach, a mindset. Responsible bidders make things that last. They fix what's not working, and they think decades, not quarters. The opposite of reckless, take, make, dump, redo. You know, when you see reckless, you know exactly how it looks like. I can stand here all day talking about electrons and jet fuel, which is my day-to-day job, but I want to talk about something much closer to Tomorrowland's spirit, what you're wearing right now.

6:34Rokas Peciulaitis:Fashion produces more emission than actually flying combined. That's just data. So let me take you on that short trip that I promised. At three places, a small fishing town in Kinsale, my hometown, Vilnius in Lithuania, and California. Wildly difference in size united by one intention.

6:58Rokas Peciulaitis:Remember the Titanic? 40 minutes down the coast in Ireland, there's a fishing town called Kinsale. We ended up by accident doing a due diligence on a semiconductor's company a month back. There, found a company called Mamuko. A small workshop with Nora and Atilia, a few generation leather workers, refused to follow the traditional path. They take decommissioned life rafts, sails that travel over the Atlantic, Seat leather, industrial offsets, materials the world has finished with and done. And turned them into bags. Every Momoko bag carries a story, a history, the possibility of a more responsible future.

7:39Rokas Peciulaitis:One crossed the Atlantic as a sail, the other one spent years inside a life raft waiting for an emergency that never landed. The New York Times and Forbes saw them, but at this point it's just two people in two workshops with a one stubborn belief, good materials deserve another chance. Their motto is, go your own way. And that's my definition of a responsible innovator. Now, let's go to Vilnius, my hometown. In 2008, a lady named Milda was moving apartments. And she had a problem every one of you had. Too many closes, most of them not worn. So with a friend, Justas, she started a website which would allow to give away these clothes.

8:27Rokas Peciulaitis:That little website is now called Vinted. It's the largest second-hand marketplace in Europe. First unicorn in Lithuania, valued at 8 billion euros, and transacting roughly around 10 billion of clothing every year in the marketplace. Think about what that means. One of the most valuable fashion companies on this continent has never manufactured a single piece of clothing. Its entire business is keeping clothes longer, alive. Hundreds of millions of items go on the platform and would have ended up in landfills, and now they're in someone's wardrobe being worn. What's cool about this story, Vinted's answer to fashion was not a lecture.

9:12Rokas Peciulaitis:It was a product so good secondhand became the normal. Cool. And I'm sure some of you are wearing some vintage clothing today. Responsibility wins when it's a better product. The last one would travel to California. I don't know if you know it, but this is Yvonne Churnard, a climber who forged steel spikes you hammer into the rock when you climb. The best in America at the time. He was a vivid climber. Then he noticed his own product was actually damaging the rock that he so truly loved. You know what he did? He killed his best-selling product. And what he did instead? He made a decision. He said, I'm going to make something more gentle.

9:57Rokas Peciulaitis:And that is a company called Patagonia. This is the company that took full-out page on Black Friday, which is the highest sales day, and said, don't buy this jacket. The company runs the largest clothing repair operation in North America. Because the most responsible garment is the one you already own. That's his motto. And then more so in 2022, Chouinard did something no billionaire has ever done. He said he actually gave away the company. All of it. The company was making$100 million a year in profits. And now it goes to fighting the planet. His words, Earth is now his only shareholder. Purpose is not a cost.

10:46Rokas Peciulaitis:Think about it. Purpose held for 50 years. That's what it took him to build a company. It's the strongest moat a company can have. Three stories, completely different scale. Two people in a little workshop, a tech unicorn, and a brand most of you here recognize. But there's one pattern that unites them. They're built with purpose. Built for the long run, with durability, repair, reuse, design in it. Not as a feature, but as a core product. And obsessed with their customers. I know Thomas very well. He's a good friend. And when you... He's obsessed with customers, not the next quarter. He has that long-term view.

11:34Rokas Peciulaitis:That is why their communities are so loyal, that's why customers come back. I call it building companies with a soul. When you walk in that workshop in Kingsale or an office in Vilnius at Vinted, or you go to one of the Patagonia repair shops, you can actually truly feel it. So what is your job in all of this? You thought you vote every four years And I actually disagree That's wrong You vote every single day Every euro you spend is a ballot And you will vote today You will go to the food stalls You will go to the merch stand You will probably do some renovation tomorrow at your home Or buy new clothing Unlike elections, this vote is counted instantly And remember the word from the start, worsening is the default.

12:34Rokas Peciulaitis:It is what happens when nobody chooses, when they just stand still. But better is the choice, and the choice is sitting in your wallet. The climate worsens by default, but it gets better by choice. The ship has hit that iceberg already, but this time we're not passengers. We're the captains and the crew. And let's steer that way forward together. Cast your word daily, and thank you, and have a great Tomorrowland.