A story of fairness & bias on the 75th Indian Independence Day

Happy 75th Independence Day, my country. It is a sad, ironic, but also very true reflection of the world and its biggest challenges & gravest shortcomings, that on this very day of August 15, 2022, Adam Neumann raised $350 million for his new startup to "revolutionize" residential real estate market and challenges from the most iconic investor a16z directly from the iconic partner - Andreessen Horowitz.

Just earlier this year in May 2022, Adam Neumann had raised $70 million pre-product, pre-seed for his "climate tech" startup to "revolutionize" carbon markets, which he has closed or now pivoted to real estate in Aug 2022, some 3 months later ?

What do these two things have to do with each other ? The 75th Indian Independence day, the day marking the end of formal colonial rule in India, one of the largest community / civilization in the world with longest contiguous history, after almost 200 years of indirect and some 90 years of direct & institutionalized colonial rule in India. For many of the non-Indian readers who might read this and even for Indians to reiterate and reflect, it meant that India, then a nation of 340 million people, roughly the size of present day America, was ruled by White men from Britain, who levied taxes on Indians, who drafted legislations for Indians, who made day to day decisions regarding Indian economy, society, polity, which in turn affected lives of 340 million Indians. Kind of like today, when we as Indians have limited say, influence, on the day to day decisions regarding the planetary health which in affects life of 8 billion humans.

The struggle for Indian freedom was probably one of the largest struggles to bring forth that hypocrisy & irony, and demand right to govern ourselves, right to make decisions about our own day to day lives, the right to define taxes, right to take those taxes and invest them in our people, projects, ideas, goals, and right to find our place and define our position in the global scheme of things; the right we and almost 80% of the planetary landmass and people living in that, didn't have for centuries.

Just yesterday, a British gentleman had posted (and I apologize to him for pointing this here), but I intend this merely with my best, honest intentions to highlight the fundamental problem plaguing our planet and its nearing destruction) - a very moving image of drought in France, with river Loire, completely dried up, and placing the blame on India, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia for not holding on COP commitments, rushing to our air conditioning. However, far apart, these events of Indian Independence, "private" capitalist investment decision of $350 million in Adam Neumann, and the narrative & words of this British gentleman on climate change, may seem; they are connected.

They are connected by the global challenge of inequality, a grave deep rooted, constantly ignored inequality, which is the fundamental & primary cause of climate change, global warming, and nearing planetary uninhabitability

The core to Indian Independence struggle, and most notable social-political movements in the world, starting with the very American Revolution, in US Declaration of Independence is outlined by the statement "All men are created equal" (but, are they?) started with questioning of precisely this inequality, unfairness, biases, hypocrisy, inequitable decision making.

Do we as global people, recognize and actually practice this equality, and lets bring my gender of 50% global population in the phrase with "All men and women and humans are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights", but are they ?

Are Abhilasha Purwar, my personhood and talent and potential, or for any other global founder, decision maker, organization builder and Adam Neumann created or treated equal ? Are Indians and Americans equals ? Are white and brown equal ? Are men and women equal ? Truly equal, in decisions that shape our lives, shape the present and future of our planet, and with the grave reality check of how the core of climate crisis traces its roots back to global inequality, do we care, are we reflecting and introspecting and learning from the mistakes of the past and incorporating in the future we are right now designing and building; or are we just blindly following the same past, no reflection/ introspection/ correction, mindlessly taking collective unequal inequitable biased decisions that will lead us back to the same future as our past and present, of an increasing planetary uninhabitability and an ultimate collapse of our precious and rare human civilization, including many short and new civilizations and cultures like the present day modern American civilization and other more complex intertwined across history and present long and 4000+ year old civilization like my own.

More than the equality around our personhood, the Indian independence movement and subsequently the day of August 15, marks the ability, equality, rights, and responsibility around decision making. The equitable ability to take decisions in the present to shape our future ourselves, rather than being at mercy of someone else.

Today climate action, is a global calling, a business priority, a roaring and soaring investment category. In fact, our very own Adam Neumann, CEO of the last organization I worked in WeWork, without any environmental background or any any climate science education unlike yours truly and her masters degree from the globally best environment school and 10+ years experience, raised $70 million in May 2022, pre-product for an "idea" of tokenizing carbon credits and "revolutionizing" carbon markets by some crypto/NFT/carbon combination, clearly marking the beginning of era of climate investment

The idea was clearly very well thought out, founder very passionate, team amazing for execution, technology USP top notch, all the investment criteria for decision making that I am and have been subjected for last 3 years running building Blue Sky Analytics, the first climate tech startup with a well built team, excellent processes, defensible USP, actual customers, market brand name, countless awards, and meager $1.2 million of private investment. Clearly Adam Neumann's short lived startup of 3 months was so much more "fairly" deserving of capital infusion than Abhilasha Purwar's Blue Sky Analytics with 3 year old existence, after a through analysis by analysts, evaluation by investment partners, devoid of any positive or negative biases, which inadvertently lead to success & growth of ideas/ technology/ organizations. Clearly, Flowcarbon won fairly equitably to have the right to deploy $70 million into creation of business & organization to create shareholder value and climate impact - the triple botton benefit as they say, clearly Flowcarbon & its founder, was more deserving of that trust, investment based on the through due diligence as other global startups by brown black female founders.

The same Adam Neumann had raised $21 billion in private capital over 10 years finally IPOed at share price of $9.82 trading today at market cap of $3.99 billion. That's more of less a capital destruction of about $17 billion, and sure some early investors have made billions of $s on their bit, but net net many lost abundant. But clearly capitalism, fair allocation of private capital to chase profitability and returns and fulfill the fiduciary responsibilities to the investors and LPs at play here, and definitely no proximity, gender or racial, or tall-man bias.

Sarcasm aside, which I am either ways terrible at, the private investor decisions to invest their financial capital, emotional/ mental/ personal time and effort capital into Adam Neumann to the tunes of $20 billion. $70 million for 3 month climate tech, and now $350 million real estate revolution; compared to say Abhilasha Purwar, and her current idea in Climate-tech and multiple other ideas in real estate, fashion, mobility, media, sports all again with a central theme/ purpose revolving around climate-action, my sole focus/ goal/ expertise/ passion, presently capitalized at $1.2 million; are reflective of the decisions our world makes, decisions we collectively as people make, the decisions of trust - to entrust Abhilasha with capital to build something for some purpose with a certain probability of failing at it vs Adam with capital to build something for some purpose with certain probability of failing at it; and the reality that these decisions are gravely unfair, inequal, biased, and honestly detrimental and inefficient.

Every decision we make individually and summed over people to yield collectively, with the limited impact of our decision or the outsized impact of our decision, will formulate and result in our present actions, which will form and shape our future.

Today, as we stand on the brink of global climate apocalypse, reflecting at the inequality of the planet in the past and present : with the US - a population of merely 300 million odd people and a civilizational history of 300 years at 25% of global GHG emissions produced till date resulting in climate change, also leading in climate "narrative", investments, capital allocated to founders to solve the very challenge of of climate change which is as planetary a problem can get and not at all local; we must ask, how are our decisions of today going to shape the world of tomorrow. We must ask, if we have indeed or are learning from the grave mistakes of our past which have created problems of tomorrow, to give us a meager shot at solving them in present and have a possibility of a future; or we like the Flow investment of $350 million pre product pre seed after $70 million FlowCarbon Investment pre product pre seed, continue to be infected and disabled by our biases, our deep rooted inequality - the inequality of trust, mindspace, support, care, love, attention, shoutout, capital.

As we stand on the brink of global climate apocalypse, looking at the table above clearly highlighting the problems in red, solutions in green, the deep unfairness and inequality of different personhoods, just like Adamn Nuemann and his right to raise and deploy $350 million, an average American's right to emit 14.24 tonnes per capita carbon; regardless of American history & hence responsibility of 25% GHG emissions cumulative to date and Indian excellent track record producing barely 3.2% of global GHG emissions in the air.

In the backdrop of universally accepted facts that billions and trillions of $s of investments have to be made into climate tech/ climate action; which will create millions of new jobs, 100s of thousands of new organizations, 1000s of key viral solutions and millions of other derived solutions, we must wonder, the implications of equality of distribution of this capital across the brown black women decision maker and organization builders of the world, who come from far more sustainable and low carbon cultures and societies; vs allocating the same capital to white male founders and builders of the world, who will then employ people, deploy people, to create organizations in their own image.

The whole point of these numbers & words is not a crib or a rant, which is often ascribed to an article by a woman, but a deep thought, a reality check, a look in the mirror by everyone in the world. We as people, as a whole planet, rich and poor alike, black brown or white, male or female, face an imminent threat to our very life. Our planet is getting increasingly uninhabitable. We have breached 418 ppm of Carbon Concentration in our atmosphere, which has never in more than 800,000 years of planetary history been this high, and we are increasingly running out of time.

And while there is a message of reflection for Americans and Europeans, or the "western", or the "rich", "more developed" across the world, to look at their decisions and actions; there is also, and especially and particularly a question for Indians.

As Indians are we truly independent, of the colonial constructs? As per Nehru's words on Aug 15, 1947 at the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps and shows another exhibit of inequality, bias, distorted power & decision making allocation, has India or is India ready to awaken to life and freedom, and the responsibility that rests upon us, to fulfill the pledge to service of India and also the world.

With our universally lackadaisical position and focus on single largest challenge threatening the life of our very own countrymen and planetary human beings, we as Indians of 17% of global population ready to take a leap into our biggest responsibility and opportunity of the decade. In a world, where $70 million pre-product bets are made on one founder to save the planet from imminent collapse, we as Indian founders, investors, teams, community, where are we making our bets. How are we advancing the same independence movement, independence from inequality of our personhood, imposition of someone else's decision making, and today's outcomes of biased narratives, how with a backfoot on climate and wait and watch in galleries when our climate focused founders run with hands tied behind their backs with fake cheers, are we doing any justice to the 75th year marking our independence.

And very last but not the least, with great power comes great responsibility; and also with great challenge comes great opportunity. The fairness of inequality or "right thing to do", "right horse to bet", "wrong biases to destroy" aside, Climate crisis provides one of the largest most critical opportunity to reshape our society, redesign our structures, destroy old organization, build new ones, with the principles of sustainability, fairness, equality embedded in them; and like the Internet opportunity of 1990s, this climate opportunity of 2020s, is passing by us, wondering when will we grab the moment and invest our time, money, mindspace and emotions, and create trillions of $s of value for our nation, people, and rest of the world. How even after 75 years of independence, do we find ourselves, so scared to take that leap of faith, while on other side of continent investors are jumping on the boat that has already drowned before, to set our sails on the journey to find sustainability of the planet.

And with the end of this very long essay, ladies and gentleman, if you are here, go support the people equally, invest in founders fairly, reflect and introspect on your own biases which have led us to this exact juncture of problems and challenges, and chose your leaders with the learnings of those mistakes, rather than repeat the exact same cycle that had led here. And I don't mean this is narcissism, but if you are not investing in a founder or idea, when 70x or 350x investments are being made in another equal, likely inferior founder/ idea, then question, your own hesitation. Is it the merits of the founder or idea, or is it the biases and limitation in your own heads. On the 75th Indian Independence Day, ask yourself, are your actions and decisions truly free, independent, responsible, in the light and trust of those who struggled to give us this freedom, or are they wrapped in a new cloak and updated version of the same colonialism that we faced 75 years ago.

TLDR, my intention is not to offend or hurt or call out anyone with my post, but to merely articulate the gravest problem on our planet, the primary challenge of climate crisis, and a personal pain, frustration, and hopelessness.