![Terrence Johnson, Nikki Hoskins, Kurt Keilhacker, Etosha Cave, and Dean Frederick pose for a photo during event](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-10/251021HDS_ClimateInno19.jpg?h=219c4c26&itok=bVJrz2_D) # Ethics and Innovation Meet at HDS Climate Panel In a recent conversation, HDS faculty and alumni explored the intersections of social values, climate innovation, and the interdisciplinary work required to ensure a sustainable future for all. October 30, 2025 [ Tyler Sprouse ](/people/tyler-sprouse) On Tuesday, October 21, Harvard Divinity School (HDS) [Dean Marla F. Frederick](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/about/dean) convened a panel discussion, “How Social Values Impact Climate Innovation,” that investigated the interconnections of ecology, climate technology innovation, interdisciplinary climate work, and questions of ethical and religious values. The panel featured Etosha Cave, co-founder and chief science officer of Twelve, a carbon transformation company pioneering climate technology. Twelve uses electrochemistry to convert carbon dioxide into sustainable replacements for petroleum-based products—from furniture and apparel to carbon-neutral jet fuel—all without fossil fuels or emissions. Co-sponsored by the Office of Development and External Relations (DER) and Religion and Public Life (RPL), the event was inspired by Dean Frederick’s visit last year to Twelve in Silicon Valley. On an alumni engagement trip to California, Dean Frederick went on a tour of the company’s headquarters with another of the event’s panelists, Kurt Keilhacker, MTS ’07, a member of the HDS Dean’s Council and general partner at the firm Elementum Ventures, a deep tech venture capital fund that invested early in Twelve. Along with her fascination with the scientific and technological breakthroughs that are revolutionizing the energy sector, Dean Frederick couldn’t help but see connections to the work done at HDS. “While on the tour of Twelve, I was struck by the intersections of ethics and ecology when learning about this industry breakthrough,” said Dean Frederick. “These are intersections that some of our faculty address in their research about climate and care for nature.” Cave and Keilhacker were joined on the panel by one such faculty member, [Nikki Hoskins](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/nikki-hoskins), MDiv ’12, Assistant Professor of Religion and Ecology at HDS. The discussion was moderated by [Terrence Johnson](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/terrence-l-johnson), MDiv ’00, Charles G. Adams Professor of African American Religious Studies at HDS and director of RPL. ![Professor Terrence Johnson speaking during panel conversation.](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/2025-10/251021HDS_ClimateInno9%20crop.jpg?itok=X_976lgc) Professor Terrence Johnson, MDiv '00, moderates a discussion of how social values inspire climate innovation on Tuesday, October 21. During the conversation, Cave described Twelve’s process of turning captured carbon dioxide into useful industrial molecules through electrochemistry. When asked by Johnson what inspired her to dedicate her life to this work, Cave appealed to her upbringing in Houston, TX, a major global hub of the energy industry. Growing up in Houston, she not only became interested in energy production, but she was also exposed to the inequities that sometimes accompany industry. “This made me ask myself, ‘Why do we live in a world in which waste impacts humans in this way?’” she said. “I knew I wanted to do something to change this.” For Keilhacker, whose own business ethic revolves around the concept of “stewardship,” a framework he explored and developed at HDS, it was the character and ethical grounding of Cave that made investing in Twelve so appealing. “Dr. Cave and her team embody an example of the kind of skill sets our firm looks for in terms of discovery and invention,” said Keilhacker. “You know that they will find the best usage of their observations in the market, wherein they are able to combine their ethical commitments with the opportunities that exist to address new technologies and new products.” We have to think about climate change in relation to what real lives are being changed and shifted because of it.” Nikki Hoskins, MDiv '12 Assistant Professor of Religion and Ecology Keilhacker also emphasized the importance of investing in and identifying innovators from diverse backgrounds. “When you look at the team at Twelve, these are world-class people in every category,” he said. “Firms like ours and other early investors need to reach out and identify brilliant innovators like Dr. Cave; we need to start looking in different areas, finding folks earlier in their careers.” Cave’s story resonated with Hoskins’s own research focus, particularly her approach to climate sustainability. “If solutions are based in science and technology, how do we get these disciplines to think and work decolonially and respond in different ways, so that we do not repeat the harm all over again?” she reflected. “We have to think about climate change in relation to what real lives are being changed and shifted because of it.” Hoskins also broadened the concept of “innovation,” explaining that it not only exists in Silicon Valley, but within vulnerable communities in crisis. She pointed to her work on the religious and ecological practices of Black women in Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens, an area sociologists identify as one of the worst cases of environmental racism in the U.S., as an example. Situated in a community built on a toxic waste dump, a group of women began organizing after the appearance of rare forms of cancer, skin rashes, asthma, and other issues impacting their neighbors. ![Kurt Keilhacker, Nikki Hoskins, and Etosha Cave sit in a row and speak with each other, showing the dialogue that took place during the event](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/2025-10/251021HDS_ClimateInno6%20crop.jpg?itok=9edoonZU) Kurt Keilhacker, MTS '07 (left), and Professor Nikki Hoskins, MDiv '12, listen to Etosha Cave during the panel discussion. “They went door to door and surveyed the community; they researched what the land was made of,” explained Hoskins. “They created different technologies to track dump trucks unloading the waste. They tracked the weather. Their example shows a kind of bottom-up innovation—a form of citizen innovation.” As Hoskins attested, the wide-ranging conversation was a testament to HDS’s unique approach to ecological concerns. “What makes HDS unique is that we engage religion and ecology from multiple religions,” Hoskins said. “We don’t buy in to the supposed separation between science and religion or science and technology. We take an interdisciplinary approach, dialoguing with scientists and engineers, as well as folks across many different religious traditions—always centering the most vulnerable, whose lives are affected both by climate change and this move toward a rapid response to save the planet.” *All photos by Jeffrey Blackwell.* ### Video Transcript expand\_more ANNOUNCER 1: Harvard Divinity School. ANNOUNCER 2: How social values inspire climate innovation. October 21, 2025. MARLA F. FREDERICK: Good afternoon, everybody. AUDIENCE: Good afternoon. MARLA F. FREDERICK: I am super duper excited about this panel conversation. And you will hear why in a few minutes. But I want to thank you for joining us today for this event, How social values inspire climate innovation. Before we begin, I would like to extend my appreciation to those who helped plan today's panel. Thank you to our colleagues across the Office for Development and External Relations, Religion and Public Life, communications, operations, and facilities for making this important conversation possible. I also want to recognize our speakers, their roles in and addressing climate change challenges and their diligent efforts to help us navigate these challenges as we set our sights on more sustainable future for all of us. We are joined today by industry leaders for a discussion about the vital need for ethical leadership, innovation, and interdisciplinary approaches to climate related work. You will hear more about these exceptional leaders in just a moment. But I wanted to share a brief story that helped inspire today's gathering. Last year, I had the privilege of joining Kurt Keilhacker for a visit to 12 while I was in California. Kurt is a graduate of HDS and a member of our HDS Dean's Council, and he's a general partner of a company called Elementum Ventures. At Elementum, Kurt focuses on investing in companies that make a difference in the world. That led him to Twelve. Twelve brings together the best of industry and technology in the name of sustainability. In short, they focus on transforming CO2 from the air to become replacement for conventional petroleum-based materials and ingredients found in everyday consumer products, things like apparel or personal care products, electronics, and furniture. They really are revolutionizing the energy sector with zero fossil fuels, zero emissions, and zero trade offs in quality and performance. I think that's pretty extraordinary. And I look forward to hearing more about it from our panelists. In their words, quote, "Twelve was born from a radical question. What if we could replace fossil fuels at the molecular level without compromising performance?" While Kurt and I were on site, one of the co-founders, Nicholas Flanders, gave us a tour of their facility, answering my many questions about their remarkable technology and their remarkable team. I'm thrilled to have Etosha Cave, co-founder and chief science officer for Twelve, here to educate us about this work, and the promise carbon transformation holds for the future. I was also struck by the intersections of ethics and ecology when learning about this industry breakthrough. Intersections that faculty at our school, such as Nikki Hoskins, address in their research about climate and care for nature. Furthermore, this is one of many examples, where issues facing our world intersect with values informed by religion and ethics. I'm especially grateful that our director of Religion and Public Life, Professor Terrence Johnson, will be facilitating today's discussion. Before turning things over to Terrence, who will be offering brief introductions for each of our esteemed panelists, I'd like to say a few words about his leadership. Terrence Johnson is a graduate of HDS, who now serves as the Charles G. Adams professor of African-American religious studies, and director of Religion and Public Life. His scholarship weaves together African-American religions, political theory, and American history to paint broad conceptual schemes for imagining religion, democracy, ethics, liberalism, justice, and freedom. He is the author of a number of books and articles, including, most recently, faculty associate-- and he's also a faculty associate of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics here at Harvard, and an inaugural Steven M. Polan Fellow in Constitutional Law and History at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy Institute. Before he joined HDS as an MDiv student, Terrence was a journalist with an interest in business, ethics, and religion. And so Terrence, thank you for facilitating this important conversation. And now, before Terrence begins his this conversation, we will see a brief video that explains the company's technology and work. \[APPLAUSE\] \[VIDEO PLAYBACK\] \[MUSIC PLAYING\] \[END PLAYBACK\] TERRENCE JOHNSON: Good evening, friends. Thank you, Dean Frederick, for your leadership and for coming up with this great idea. I want to thank all the panelists for coming as well, and for the guests who are here tonight. In the name of conservation, we chose not to print individual programs for tonight's event. So if you'd like to read through our bios for each of our guests, I invite you to use the QR code on the posters near the front door. So we're here tonight for a conversation about how social values inspire climate innovation. And I'm glad to be here with these amazing panelists. And in my research, I was just blown away by our first guest, to my far left, Dr. Etosha Cave, who is a co-founder of Twelve. She's a major superstar in all over the world speaking, recognized by all the major magazines. So it's an honor to be in your presence and to have you with us at the Divinity School. Dr. Cave, as you all know, is the co-founder and chief science officer at Twelve, the carbon transformation company, creating a future through electrochemistry. At total, she supports the efforts in applying research to convert captured carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals, fuels, and products typically made for fossil fuels. Her discoveries have driven technology that can disrupt supply chains across industries, including automotive, aviation, fashion, and consumer goods. Doctor cave has been recognized by the Smithsonian Institute, the US Department of Energy, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. She has spoken at the Mars conference, Fortune Brainstorm, and Aspen Ideas Festival. In 2004, CNBC named her to its Changemakers' list of women transforming business. Dr. Cave holds a master's and PhD in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. I'm also glad and honored to have my esteemed colleague, Dr. Nikki Hoskins with us, also a proud HDS alumni. She is assistant professor of religion and ecology at Divinity School. Her work attends to Christian histories of colonial, racial, and environmental domination. Professor Hoskins is completing a book manuscript titled Blackness Weathered, Decolonial Ethics for the Earth, where she researches the religious and ecological practices of Black women in Chicago's Altgeld gardens, an area sociologist identified as one of the most egregious cases of environmental racism in the US. And last but not least, we also have our friend and alumnus as well, Kurt Keilhacker. He is a general partner at Elementum Ventures. He is a venture capitalist with over 20 years of experience in Silicon Valley and Paris. He also teaches MBA courses in AI strategy, analytics, and entrepreneurial finance at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in the University of San Francisco. Previously, Kurt was an executive in tech and corporate finance in the US and Europe. He earned an MBA from the University of Chicago and MLA from Stanford. And as you all know, MTS from Harvard Divinity School. So before we get into our conversation, I want to take a moment to acknowledge how unique this panel is. It gives us all great pleasure to reflect upon how HDS can play a major role in linking together technology, innovation, and religious ethics. So I'll begin our panel discussion by asking two of our panelists to tell us about their stories and about their companies first. But before we do that, we have a short video presentation about the work of Etosha's company-- ETOSHA CAVE: \[INAUDIBLE\] TERRENCE JOHNSON: Sorry about that. So let's begin with the first question then. For Dr. Cave and Kurt, can you tell us about your companies, Twelve and Elementum Ventures. Dr. Cave ETOSHA CAVE: Yeah, absolutely. So just on the video, we do a process called industrial photosynthesis. So we take the carbon dioxide and water molecule. We put it in the presence of electricity and metal catalyst. And what happens with electricity. it effectively electrocutes the molecule into smaller atomic bits. And those atomic bits, we form into new molecules. So in my graduate work at Stanford, we identified 16 new molecules we can make with just CO2 water in the presence of a metal catalyst and electricity. And so I was really passionate about this research when I was a grad student, and I wanted to take it into industry, so I started a company where we now focus on making that a reality. I actually brought some materials that we made. So this is a polyurethane foam made from CO2 in our collaboration with Mercedes Benz. Also, we have this car part. And we also get with Mercedes Benz. So this is a C pillar and it explains cases. We took the CO2 and water molecule, broke it down to new atomic bits, and reform those bits into new molecules. And these are the same parts you would make from fossil fuels. We're able to make them from air, from CO2 and water. And so we're now scaling up that technology. We're building our first major commercial plant in Washington State. And our first flagship molecule will actually be jet fuel. So the same jet fuel that uses by commercial planes. You can drop in, our jet fuel, up to 50% blended with existing conventional jet fuel, and use it to reduce your carbon emissions for quite drastically. So we have partnership with Alaska Airlines, and we're excited to be selling that fuel and doing regular flights with Alaska Airlines. And we're currently commissioning that plant. So we're in the last 10% of getting everything going. So, knock on wood, in the next few months, we'll have a startup and be able to start up the plant and be able to sell that fuel to Alaska Airlines. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Kurt. KURT KEILHACKER: I'm Kurt Keilhacker. It's great to be with you all. I spent many, many hours as a student in this room. So I am both good and maybe memories of the stress of being in this room. It's good to be here. I am part of Elementum Ventures. We are a deep tech venture capital fund in Silicon Valley. And deep tech means that we actually try to seek out new technologies that are often at the intersections of several different disciplines and scientific disciplines and engineering disciplines. And it's just our pleasure to work with founders such as Etosha and Nicholas, who are the co-founders of Twelve. And because we're an early stage investor, we often will be meeting founders like them when it's just a business plan and it's just a slide deck. There's been no technology that can be demonstrated in terms of lab beyond a few experiments. And we love being amongst the first capital that comes into these companies. So that's why we're considered a seed deep tech venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Great. Professor Hoskins, can you say more about how you see HDS playing a role in these kinds of conversations? NIKKI HOSKINS: For sure. I mean, HDS, what makes this unique is that we engage in ecology from multiple religions. But what also makes us unique is that we don't buy in to the supposed separation between religion and science, or religion and technology. We approach it very interdisciplinary. And so that means being in conversation with scientists and with engineers, as well as folks from our religious traditions and the wisdom of our traditions, to think about innovation and climate change. But it was important within the tradition is always, always centering those who are most vulnerable. And so as we move into route to climate innovation, what I see she's doing is making sure that those who are poor and need-- those most vulnerable, the elderly, are not being left out of the conversation. And this move toward rapid change to \[INAUDIBLE\]. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Etosha, can you say more about how you got into this work? In our conversation, I assume you mentioned this idea rooted in community was the first thing you mentioned and how that community was so central to your life in Sanford. ETOSHA CAVE: Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in Houston, Texas. And when I was a teenager, it was discovered in a neighborhood adjacent to my parents-- where I grew up. And my parents still are, that there was an abandoned oil and gas waste site. And that waste that leached into the water supply and was linked to a higher rate of rare forms of cancers and diseases. It was actually a class action lawsuit. And a few years ago, I looked up, there was a master's student who wrote a paper about it because the EPA was involved. And it was kind of a big deal in the national scale. And even though my family wasn't directly involved. We were the upstream of where that had happened. But my friends and neighbors and so forth, we're all wrapped up into this ultimately class action lawsuit. And it had a huge impact on me because I asked the question like, why do we have to have this waste impact humans in this way? Why do we live in a world where this human impact is very-- what can I do to do something about it? So I was very drawn to math and science as a young student. And so I continued on that path. And I was always looking for a way like, how can we get the energy that we still use and love and build our civilization. In the case of Houston, Houston is an energy city. So you get indoctrinated pretty early about how important energy is in creating civilization and modern society. So I still wanted us to have that energy that we use and love, but let's do it in a cleaner way. So when I got to grad school, writing my finding my professor in chemistry, chemical engineering department, was really this Aha moment of OK, here's something where I can make an impact and do the science and math that I love. Also make an impact on communities that have to deal with waste and do this ways that we currently go into the air reuse it, and use it in a way that to me was very elegant. And it still meant that we could grow our societies and maintain modern society. And I think it also happens to-- we talk about natural capitalism a little bit. And that was one thing I studied as an undergrad. And to me this analogy with the trees that we use for our technology is very apropos. And when you think about a tree and the fruit that it bears, it doesn't-- trees don't make a calculation and only do as many seeds as it possibly need. So it makes as many as it possibly can. But those seeds and those apples and that fruit, they become a feedstock for another process, either food for humans or animals. Either they get planted and actually become another tree. And so asking the question, can we not do that in industrial context? Can we not have ways for the industrial source becomes feedstock for another? So this process is one of many that kind of answers that question. ETOSHA CAVE: Well, thank you. And Kurt, I'm curious, can you say more about how did you get into this work? Because often, think about religion and money, it's a huge battle, huge fight. And you were actually doing this work while you were a graduate student at the new school. So I'm curious why and how did you come to terms with what some people see as contradictions, but you found a way to make them quite well? KURT KEILHACKER: Great question. Working in venture capital and private equity, we're really good at measuring everything but meaning. And that's one of the things that actually was helpfully inserted into me and amplified at HDS was in terms of asking the more normative questions of the way that things should be not just the way that things are. And while I would like to say that when I was in my 20s, I was so conscious enough to think about the intentionality of going into finance and to venture capital, to be able to have that kind of agency. I think it checked the boxes of wanting to make a difference in the world with particular tools that I had, and being able to add something more to that. And of course, in Silicon Valley, there's many good examples of great technologies and great social progress. And there are many examples of the misuse of these technologies and their ambition and changing the world into a not so positive places. TERRENCE JOHNSON: And did you ever find moments where you were actually thinking, well, maybe the system needs to implode? Or were you really frustrated at moments? KURT KEILHACKER: Well, I'm a fan of elements of creative destruction. So there are elements of sometimes when you see parts of our economy of our systems that should get burned, that should get torched in some ways. I've been more recently doing a lot more work in mainland China. And there are a lot of things that I find very attractive in terms of how they've been able to create some social contacts within China and connection. There's a lot of complexity and a lot of nuance there that I want to unpack. But there are I think, a lot of things that we can learn from other countries and other societies to up our game. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Well, thank you. Professor Hoskins, can you say more about your work in terms of thinking about decolonization, thinking about race, and how you're bringing in really many different disciplines as you're approaching climate sustainability? Can you just say very briefly, how are you teaching students to ask the really hard are questions that are normative, also allowing for dissent. NIKKI HOSKINS: Yeah. I teach students-- you have to first understand the problem of what's happening. I think we often, are on a rush to removing a problem, which gets us to the innervation of the thing, but staying with the problem before we make the diagnosis. And what I've learned is that we often have some kind of historical amnesia, that colonialization, enslavement, these processes have created the state that we're actually in. So then what does it mean then to think about the problem in our solutions with that in mind? And so it's really about converting these various disciplines. So then if solutions are based in science and technology, how do we also get science and technology to think decolonially or to respond in ways so that we're not going back to past history to repeated all over again? So for me, it's about asking those hard questions and getting students to think differently, think otherwise. I really don't want them to repeat what's happened, who has got us here in the first place. And part of that is just knowing what has got us here in the first place, so that we can actually start to diagnose the problem and then imagine a more just future. So that imagination piece often find its labs. We spend a lot of time on what's happening in the world. And then what are some of our religious traditions saying about it. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Well, that's beautifully said. Thank you. And Dr. Cave, can you say more about-- because you actually lived this up. You didn't have amnesia. You came to Stanford, a set of questions, and yet, it seems like you allowed the lab and the process to drive books. So can you walk us through what exactly you're doing in the lab. And how are you trying to transform carbon dioxide into these sustainability? ETOSHA CAVE: Yeah I mean, a lot of what happens in the lab is very much like setting up reactors and testing different recipes and always kind of asking, OK, how can we make this better. But measuring, what the metrics are to improve the technology. So a lot of time on the day to day things are very much deep in this optimization. And it's really lovely being on panels like this and take a moment to step back and look at the big picture and see how that all fits in. And sometimes you can have very myopic view of must get to the next metric. Our mission, in general, attracts talent. Our mission, in general, is what we get up every morning for even though we don't consciously think about that. And serving these communities with the alternative to have the jet, you'll have the flight that you still want to take soon in a cleaner way, have the materials that bring comfort and materials in this room. But let's do it in a cleaner way. That's on my \[INAUDIBLE\]. TERRENCE JOHNSON: I read this question all the time, but as I was thinking about this conversation, why not electric planes? It seems like in the future, you see more of why that's physically not possible for the current moment. ETOSHA CAVE: Yeah. I think I can tell you a story about that. So when I was a grad student, NASA had this challenge. And you got $1 million if you solve this challenge. And the challenge was simple, it's just increase the energy density of batteries by 2X. So from the state of the art, just go to 2X. And clearly NASA wants us to use a lot of batteries in space and so forth. So me and my group of grad students, we're in electrochemistry lab. We're like, we can build a battery, 2X energy density, of course. So we went from first principles. We sat down with the periodic table and we said, OK, to make a battery, you need oxidation reaction. You need a reduction reaction. Basically, these molecules are basically transferring electrons. So we just did the atomic mass of column A, column B, and sum all that up. And it's all what weight that would have. And then calculate the energy that you produce from that battery and get energy density. And so we literally did the entire periodic table. And we came up with about four or five molecule pairs, where not including all the packaging and everything, just the molecules that transfer the electrons themselves would meet this 2X requirement. And the thing about those four or five pairs is that they have some of the most corrosive things. One is like this hydrofluoric acid, where it's like if it gets on your skin, it doesn't burn you strongly, but it eats your bones. And so we're like, we're not making that battery. And hydrogen itself is very difficult to work with. So at the end of the day, we were like, OK, we're not going to even-- we can't even do this. This is impossible challenge. And I think it just speaks to why we don't fly with planes because we just see the amount of energy you can get in a contained bit to be able to fly and use lift to go fly a 200 passenger plane, it's just not going to happen from the laws of physics as we know them. Now, if someone comes up with new laws of physics, that's a whole different thing. But the laws of physics that we know now, you can't get the energy in there. And you can, for two person short haul flights, you can even have hydrogen gas as a fuel cell and that could provide an alternative. But if we're going to do 200 passenger long haul flights, intercontinental, flights that get us to other parts of the country, other parts of the world that connects us all. I mean, we all are here in person. We could have done this over Zoom, technically. But there's something about being in person and using that energy to get us in person. I think is still valuable. It's something we still want for our kids and our grandkids. And so we said why don't we make the fuel that can get us there but make it cleaner. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Great. Thank you. And Kurt, I'm curious in terms of you talk a lot about HDS and the great courses you took here, the values. Do the values have to always align with the profit? In other words, why this particular company? KURT KEILHACKER: Yeah. Well, I think, first of all, in terms of coming alongside of some terrific founders that have a unique insight in something that will change a market or change an approach to something. And for us, we have the luxury of being able to decide what are the technologies we want to double down on. And we have, for the most part, chosen to do some more difficult things, not necessarily the easy ones. Now, clearly, where we are, we're motivated and we want to have great returns, but we also realize that those are probably going to be longer tail. So meaning that you could be invested in a company for 10 or 15 years. Whereas in terms of a classic venture capital model, in a perfect world, we would like to see some exit opportunities in five to seven years. If you're in private equity, you based on a five-year clock in many ways. So we, intentionally, choose some of these technologies that have longer tails. And we do them because we think that it's a way in which that we can not only make a difference in the world, but also that we can make a return, a fair return for our investors. TERRENCE JOHNSON: And what specifically stood out about this company? KURT KEILHACKER: Well, again, it's an early stage guy. When you meet the founders, they're just amazing. I mean, they're just absolutely amazing people. And so when we find amazing founders that are doing things that sound like science fiction, we're there. That's what we want to do. TERRENCE JOHNSON: And how long is this commitment? How does it work? Do you ask for a certain period of time? And then at what point do you say we need to pull out. KURT KEILHACKER: Yeah. Well, so that's the thing. One of the differences between venture capital and private equity is that we're there for the long term. So we don't get paid until there is an exit opportunity. Whereas in terms of oftentimes in private equity or in banking in general, it will be much more longer term where they need to get a liquidity at a certain point in time. You're also seeing venture capital industry change. Andreessen Horowitz is a perfect example. It's one of the largest, most well-known venture funds, where they're talking now about permanent capital. And so one of the things that I'm actually thinking more about both in terms of business models and in terms of my teaching, is what does it look like to actually invest permanent capital. How does that change the calculus as you as a decision maker, and is how you interact with the founders and creators of these companies? TERRENCE JOHNSON: This is a question we'll get to our panel. How do we deal with this conversation? And also climate change in the context in which people are raising questions about fundamental veracity in terms of the federal government, in terms of all kinds of fringe groups? What's the response, as people who are scholars, who are scientists? Just ignore the noise or is there a real deep engagement? ETOSHA CAVE: Yeah. I like to think about it in multiple ways. And one way to talk about climate is really just what future do we want to leave for our kids and grandkids. And in fact, this past summer, I went on a pilgrimage to Paris, France, The Beyoncé concert tickets, half price. \[LAUGHTER\] After the concert, I then went on a ghost tour and we went to Notre Dame. And there's two ghost stories in Notre Dame. The first one is this woman who fell off the thing and she's ghost now. And then the other one is this architect. And the tour was saying-- \[INAUDIBLE\] I was saying, it took 200 years to build Notre Dame. And they had five architects. And the fifth architect designed the doors. There's a whole story around it, and I won't go into details. But I was thinking like, wait, what? 200 years. Four or five architects. If you think about it, if you were the first architect on the first set of engineers have first set of bricklayers. You were building something that you knew, you would never see it finished. \[INAUDIBLE\] your kids, your grandkids, you would be-- you're building something for future generations to enjoy, which now, I, as one of those future generations, enjoy. So that's how I look at solving these really big planetary problems. In some ways, we're doing it for ourselves. I mean, we can build computers much quicker now. And it takes maybe 5 to 10 years, not 200 years. And so we can tackle this problem much quicker, but we're really doing it for the future. We want our kids-- I think we all want our kids and grandkids to be in a world in which they can say, wow, look at what past generations left for us to enjoy the beauty we now get to experience with others. And so I think grabbing into that more optimistic vision of the future. And again, when you're doing technology, you are still creating jobs. You have created economic value. And you think of more of an abundance mindset, as opposed to let's stop doing. I that's probably one of the things that got a little bit of division is we talk about climate change is like, stop doing this and stop doing that and change your habits. I personally think that we can redesign how we interact in the world and have technology, ways from one cycle becomes the feedstock or the other. And that's the way we can still coexist in this world, an industry that \[INAUDIBLE\]. NIKKI HOSKINS: And I mean, perfect thing that is piggyback on that and to say, regardless of climate deniers, we feel it happening even within Boston. And we see it happening in the news, what was happening in Texas with the flooding. And so I think for me, I'm always impressing on people just to open their eyes and see that winters have been warmer, or that children actually die in these floods because we don't have weather systems to support them and to alert us. So I think that for me, I'm always wanting to link toward the violence of denying that climate is changing. What does that do to folks who don't have certain protections? And I agree. I think regardless of whether or not we think climate is changing, we have some ethical responsibility to the Earth. There's stewardship. There's tradition that teaches stewardship. And so if we are in alignment with those, that that, in itself, should teach us how to behave and to act toward the Earth and to preaching others. And so I think that it's not just noise, climate deniers. I think about it in terms of trying to think about it in terms of power and politics, but also trying to put it in its place and talk about real lives are being changed and shifted because of climate change. So I try to put it in perspective there. So I think that's really my point. And it's kind of a harsh, hard look. I don't think about climate change outside of violence. I don't think about environmental racism, injustice outside of violence. That's a really big key thing for me. And that's not to say that there's not hope. My hope is that we rethink violence to each other and to the Earth, actually. And that's the kind of hope that I get out of working with students and working with the people who I work with in Chicago. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Do you see a tension in terms of this philosophy of abundance, and potentially need to pull back and reduce our waste? How do you deal with that tension? NIKKI HOSKINS: The tension of more like abundance and in-- TERRENCE JOHNSON: The potential need to maybe slow things down in terms of our footprint. NIKKI HOSKINS: For sure. I mean, yeah. I mean, I think the Earth is abundant. I'm not someone who thinks that it's all going up in flames, I think. I'm really wary of crisis language to think about what that language is serving, who is it serving. There's many communities who've been in crisis over and over again, even language around Anthropocene. The Indigenous community has experienced many, many atrocities. So if we really put it in that perspective. So yeah, I think there's some balance needs to be-- you have to strike a balance with it all, and certainly care for the Earth and the abundance it is providing, and care for in the ways that are sustainable. And always, always reduce waste in ways that we can do personally. But also these things are part of systems. And I don't ever want to put the responsibility back on individual people to reduce and change, climate change altogether, reduce waste. There are systems in place that perpetuate these things, and we have to actually affect things, in my understanding, in a way that I teach it. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Thank you. Kurt, can you say more in terms of what are you hoping that creativity in terms of your work that you want to focus on? And speak to our students now, just have to grasp what they're doing. And yeah, KURT KEILHACKER: Well, I really like that, the word that she used, stewardship. I think that we need to have a bigger imagination in terms of historical today with the resources that are there. And we can make one or two mistakes. We can, on the one hand, deny that there is anything to steward. Or we can believe that it's going to be easily solved with just an abundance mindset or something that we can conveniently throw and not actually deal with some of the incredibly important, significant historical dimensions that how we arrived at where we are today. But stewardship starts in on not in control. And I think that that's the a helpful position to start off from that has hope. But it also has agency. And I think that that's something that for all of us, as practitioners and being here preparing the next generation is that we need to be able to give that hope and that encouragement for agency. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Sure, sure. And do you talk about hope at work? And how do you translate that to all these business people? KURT KEILHACKER: Well, that's what's awesome about dealing with entrepreneurs. I mean, we have to have hope because so often, we don't. I mean, if you knew in terms of when I think about Twelve, which is very classic for any deep tech company, the challenges that they have to deal with every few months. I mean, most mortals will die after \[INAUDIBLE\]. I mean, the fortitude that they have to have. But it's not me. It's them that live this out. And it takes a lot of bravery. It takes a lot of steadfastness. But it takes a confidence that they can add something and be a good steward of the opportunity to make something better and hopefully a better place. TERRENCE JOHNSON: So Dr. Cave, can you say more about some of these challenges. Can you say more about what Kurt is referring to? ETOSHA CAVE: Oh, yeah. \[INAUDIBLE\] called it like, you have to produce several miracles. Yeah. Well, first, I want to say, I think Kurt giving us a lot of praise and I appreciate it. But I mean, Kurt is one of our early investors. Their team has been so amazing. They really are very founder-focused, which being at Silicon Valley, hear a lot of stories of VC firms that are not as founder-focused. And it's really been great to be part of their family. This is certainly a great example of how they're thinking much broadly and have that same passion for tech the way that we do. So that's been really lovely working with them. I think there's-- in every aspect, every dimension, starting a company is just a-- yeah. It's just like strategic thing that you're always navigating. There's the external market forces. When we first got started, we were 100% funded by grants, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, NASA. Now, in fact, I'm taking a bit of a sabbatical and I'm mentoring. I'm still with Twelve, part time, but I'm part time also mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers, whose nonprofit called Activate. By the way, applications are open. So if anyone's \[INAUDIBLE\] to that company, but no reply. But as I've been doing these early stages as a startup, they don't have the National Science Foundation funding. The Department of Energy is not giving out anybody. It's unclear what's happening. And NASA also. So it's just like there's this new marketplace where they are interacting with. And I'm happy to have those same conversations with him. OK, well, let's talk about some other avenues you can go through. And you're always kind of pivoting and looking over the horizon. So yeah. It is like this beautiful creation of people coming together, working toward a mission. But it's also like there's a lot of stormy seas out there on the ocean and getting to the next milestone. TERRENCE JOHNSON: And do you have any questions of each other if you'd like to ask? NIKKI HOSKINS: Yeah, I was wondering. I think both of you have mentioned ethics in one way or another. I think it's actually where you were talking about the NASA challenge, about how you were looking at different-- the periodic table, and you were going through different things, and you have the mind of discernment like, oh, we don't want to use that element. So how, in your work, do you-- is there an ethical process you go through for how you look to decide the kind of impact that you want to make or communities you want to serve. I'm thinking about ethical deliberation as we make technologies. Of course, even the good ones that are like, changing how we not using fossil fuels anymore, but how do-- you have this process for ethical discernment. Is it for you too, Kurt? Is there any process for ethical discernment as you're thinking about what companies to invest in and those sorts of things? ETOSHA CAVE: Yeah. I mean, I would say that ethics, for me, doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's always about talking to other people and getting different viewpoints. It was a grad student. I was in a graduate lab, and we would occasionally talk about these things over a beer or wine or something. Because any technology can be used for ill-gotten reasons. And so thinking through some of the nuances and complexities and what does it mean. How do you put in some guardrails? Because I do ultimately think as humans, we are built-- we're wired to use technology and make the world around us a better place. And just thinking about being in this building and all the things, ways in which we have modern society. We've lifted billions of people out of poverty. Billions of people exist because of technology. We don't have enough natural nitrogen products to support 8 billion people, but we were able to do the Haber-Bosch process that makes nitrogen, ammonia basically from air. And so there's a lot of amazing things that technology has done. And there's some ways in which the knowledge is not great. And so talking about these things has really been helpful. And again, this has been great to take a moment to step back and look at what one's doing. And I would say even specifically, in the company we had a moment where we were applying for a Department of Defense grant. So we did apply, but we didn't get it. It's one of our first contracts was with making fuel for the Air Force. And this was during the Biden administration. So it was very clear that it was for low carbon use fuel. But there are folks in the military who care about that. Now we talk about domestic production of fuel, but it's the same fuel, but it's just a different way to talk about it. But we definitely had employees that would come up to us all the time and say like, hey, we thought about what it means to be working with the Department of Defense. And as we have these really deep conversations, and I remember one time what really got tricky was like we're talking with one of our employees, who was a veteran. So he was in the Navy. He worked in submarines. And for him to talk about-- and to be in front of him and talk about, oh, we-- we're not going to engage with this entity that you served and that you felt you had this mission with it. It was just it made ethics very real. And it made it a very different conversation, I thought, than this more cerebral one where people would not serve in the military, not have to go defend for reasons that they presumably thought were righteous at the time and defend this country. And so it's still kind of a line in which it should be discussed many times about how are we supporting or not supporting different missions. Yeah. It's still a question that comes up. KURT KEILHACKER: Well, the answer to your question, I think that for us, we've seen enough in terms the companies that we invest in that we really want to double down on who the founders are, unless on the first idea that they have, because oftentimes, they will pivot into a second or third idea or incarnation of that. And if you invest in the right people, they're going to be having an approach that's going to allow them to make good decisions along the way that will optimize the opportunity. And so if they have anything to get in touch, is a perfect-- excellent example of the kind of skill sets that she or the rest of her team have in terms of discovery and of invention. There's many different ways that they can apply those learnings and those capabilities. But you know, when you meet them, that they will find the best usage of their observations in the market that's there. And the beautiful thing about the market is if you can combine those elements together of people that are ethically grounded, of a market that has opportunities, and be able to address new technologies and new products or services, that is the Holy Grail. And so that's how we think about it. TERRENCE JOHNSON: I'm curious, can you address this issue around access? Because I've watched interviews with Dr. Cave, and people make a big deal. Oh, this woman doing these weird things. And you think that acknowledgment is an indication that clearly there's a historical kind of issue of access. And how are you negotiating that, given the history of where we are now? How do we name it? How do we ensure that there are more Dr. Caves? KURT KEILHACKER: Well, first of all, we do it very poorly. And I think that we are continuing to learn all the ways on how to do that better. And there's nothing better than in terms of investing early on early examples of people who can embody the best that they can be in an incredible market. And there is a market discipline here in terms of where there is-- you look at a team of at Twelve, these are world class people in every category. And in terms of you need to make sure that you are reaching out and trying to identify people, perhaps earlier in your career than you normally might, perhaps you're looking at different areas than you normally might. But there's still the natural pattern recognition that we have as VCs in terms of that. Anybody gets extra points if they're coming from a place like Harvard or Stanford. There are things that are embedded in those experiences that gives an investor confidence that they will higher probability of being able to attract like-minded, talented individuals. And again, there's a lot of imperfection in that. But it is something that is done, first of all, imperfectly. But it can be done intentionally and with a humility that we need to learn how to continue to get better at this. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Would you attribute part of that thinking based on your experience at HDS? KURT KEILHACKER: Yeah. I did my undergraduate at a college called Wheaton College. And I think it was embedded in me from the very beginning of that I wanted to make the world a better place. And I wanted to be a good Steward of the opportunities that the creator gave us. And so that was embedded there as well. And I think it was turbocharged here in HDS. TERRENCE JOHNSON: And Nikki, I'm going to just expand this a bit in terms of innovation. Often, our students look at the organization. We're thinking of something new. And again, taken out of context, can you talk about innovation in terms of your work and really complexify that category, and historically, what it means for you as a thinker, how you talk about it in your classrooms? NIKKI HOSKINS: Yeah. I mean, I often deter students from going on to innovation first because they want to go there before understanding the context. But once we're past that, I really do look at the way in which community members who are under duress are already being innovative in ways that are not getting any of light shown on them. I think about the women who I study in this community called \[INAUDIBLE\] Garden. It's called a toxic downpour. Basically polluting industry circle the community on all sides. And before this Black housing project was built there, it was an industrial sewage site. And so when the city sold the industrial sewage, instead of them getting rid of the sewage, it just kind of pounded it into the soil and built this housing, Black housing complex on top of it. So this Black community was literally thrown in the trash. And just after a year or so of being there, residents started having skin rashes, rare forms of cancer started appearing, kids being born with all kinds of birth defects, and kids with asthma and breathing issues. And I watched the women in that community galvanize. And they did what I would call a kind of citizen science, citizen sociologists. They went door to door and literally surveyed their entire community. I'm talking about women who don't have anything past elementary school education, but understood what was happening was not supposed to be happening in the community. And then they go to a library and they research what the land was. And so all of these things started coming together. And this was what I would call citizen's innovation. And then they started making different technologies and things to track trucks coming in and out of the communities and dumping on them, to track the weather. So this is all just kind of grassroots of this, folks, everyday folks in a housing project in Chicago coming together to figure this out. And so I really try to think about innovation from the bottom up sometimes, because I think that's one of the key ways in which we often miss what's important. And sometimes we miss the problem, too, if we don't go from the bottom up. So innovation is important, but it's not value neutral. It's not something that is just a neutral category. So I really get trying to help students understand how to complexify that. TERRENCE JOHNSON: Great. ANNOUNCER 1: Sponsored by Religion and Public Life and Development and External Relations at Harvard Divinity School. ANNOUNCER 2: Copyright 2025 the President and Fellows of Harvard College. See also:- [ Alumni News and Profiles ](/discover-stories-about/alumni-news-and-profiles) - [ Ethics ](/discover-stories-about/ethics) - [ Faculty and Research ](/discover-stories-about/faculty-and-research) - [ Religion, Science, and Sustainability ](/discover-stories-about/religion-science-and-sustainability)