Ion Yadigaroglu trained as a physicist before becoming an investor, and Capricorn itself grew out of his Stanford friendship with Jeff Skoll, aiming to invest Skoll's eBay fortune for both strong returns and real-world impact; that science-first approach shows up in his early bets like Tesla, where he already knew JB Straubel from being his physics teaching assistant, and in SpaceX, which he saw as lowering launch costs enough to enable climate companies like Planet. He was also a founding member of the Global Impact Investing Network in 2007, and later joined MethaneSAT, a project that combined his background in astronomy, space investing, and climate work.