Marc Tarpenning has twice helped build products in old industries that initially seemed unlikely to work—an early e-reader at NuvoMedia and later Tesla, where he saw firsthand how treating car development more like software, with fast iteration cycles, gave the company an edge—and that pattern, combined with early exposure to oil dependence in Saudi Arabia, now shapes how he evaluates sustainability-focused companies. Beyond investing, he spent two terms as an elected school board member, giving him a more hands-on, community-rooted background than most venture investors.