Eugene Kirpichov’s origin story is classic Climate Swings: he spent 15 years as a top-tier engineer in big tech, sent a viral farewell LinkedIn note from his job at Google that detonated a global call from thousands who wanted to do something about climate change—just like Eugene—and then founded Work on Climate, a community that turns climate grief into collective momentum. Yet Eugene’s theory of change goes well beyond “career pivot”: in this episode, he lays out a startlingly detailed, systems-level diagnosis of the polycrisis—climate, inequality, democratic backsliding, AI risk, geopolitical fracture—not as separate fires to fight, but as one underlying failure of human collaboration. With bracing honesty, he argues that “more climate jobs” and market-only solutions aren’t enough—that what we need is a new kind of movement: professionals across every industry organizing as transformation leaders, building coordinated power and rewiring incentives toward a genuinely regenerative economy. If you’ve ever wondered what real leverage looks like, Eugene offers something rare: a path from anxiety to agency—together.

Notes and resources

* Eugene Kirpichov’s LinkedIn

* Work on Climate

* Eugene’s Google farewell LinkedIn post

* Climate Swings interview with Astrid Atkinson, founder and CEO, Camus Energy

* Climate Swings Substack

Nick Halla has had a wild arc—from his upbringing on a small dairy farm in Minnesota to becoming employee #1 at Impossible Foods, where he helped turn “meat from plants” into a mainstream, climate-first movement and scaled the company from little more than an idea to a global brand reshaping how we eat. In this episode, Nick discusses ditching his safe career path in big food and energy, betting it all on a radical new way to make meat, navigating the hype and turbulence of the alternative protein boom, and why he now sees “climate” not as an industry but as a design constraint for every business he helps build through GigaClimate, his current venture. It’s a story about serendipity, stubborn optimism, and what it really takes to bend entire systems toward a livable future.

Notes and resources

* Nick Halla’s LinkedIn

* GigaClimate

* Impossible Foods

* Climate Swings Substack

About this episode

Duncan Logan is a Scottish “farm kid” who walked away from a 6,000-acre fruit and veg operation, crashed into the adrenaline of London derivatives trading, and reinvented himself as the founder of RocketSpace, the launchpad that quietly incubated Uber, Spotify, Flexport, and more. In this episode, we trace his swings from battling the National Association of Realtors over a radical real-estate play, to expanding startup hubs into China just as the political winds shifted, to shutting down RocketSpace and starting over with 9Zero, his bid to build the “rails” for climate entrepreneurship and a physical, human-scale Silicon Valley for climate. Along the way, Duncan opens up about regret, risk, compounding, mentorship, political backlash, second careers, and why he believes every company will ultimately become a climate company.

Notes and resources

* Duncan Logan’s LinkedIn

* 9Zero

* Climate Swings Substack