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Chris Sacca apologized for joining our Zoom call a few minutes late. He had to deal with a moose. “When a moose decides to sit, they go nowhere,” Sacca told me from his home in Jackson, Wyoming. Thankfully, he shooed the moose out of the way with his truck before it settled down. Then he conferenced in over his Starlink satellite internet connection.I’ve been trying to convince Sacca — an early investor in both Uber and Twitter — to give me an interview for a while.
Sacca and I were not close during the whole Uber saga. He didn’t generally return my messages, but I’ve always suspected that he was leaking to certain competitors during the fall of Travis Kalanick. Sacca and I knew all the same characters. Well, he knew them personally, while they were the subjects of my stories. Finally, when Sacca announced last week that his climate investing firm, Lowercarbon Capital, had raised $800 million, I DM’ed him and he agreed to talk.
So, when we started chatting it was something like meeting your good friend’s childhood friend who you’ve heard about for years, with whom you share a lot of acquaintances, but you don’t actually know this friend of a friend.This guy just happens to be a billionaire.
Sacca and I talked for an hour and a half. He divulged more than he would have liked. (I know this because he called me the next morning to obsess over what he’d said.) We talked about Sacca’s views on Jack Dorsey and Travis Kalanick — neither of whom he’s on speaking terms with these days. Sacca told me about his ongoing relationship with the Collison brothers and a conversation he had with President Joe Bidena few months ago. Sacca told me about his new calling as a climate-oriented investor, how his partner at Lowercarbon came recommended by way of Barack Obama, and how even though Sacca is trying to save the planet he’s still investing in “bloodthirsty capitalists.”