Dax Dasilva along the Pitt River, B.C. Mr. Dasilva pursued conservation efforts around the world after stepping down as Lightspeed CEO in 2022.Marietta Raina/Supplied
After protesting against old-growth logging in British Columbia during his teens, Dax Dasilva vowed that he would devote time and money to conservation efforts once he had the means.
When he stepped down in 2022 as chief executive officer of Lightspeed Commerce, the Montreal-based point-of-sale software company he’d founded, he immersed himself in conservation efforts globally. He did more than write $40-million worth of cheques – Mr. Dasilva visited the projects and people doing the work to protect fragile ecosystems against poaching, trawling, slash-and-burn and mining. He worked with conservation champions, including Jane Goodall and the Re:wild organization co-founded by Leonardo DiCaprio, and co-produced films about the projects, one of which, Wildcat, won an Emmy.
He’s now published a book about those efforts, Echoes from Eden, co-written with Eric Hendrikx. It’s very different from his first book, 2019’s Age of Union, a call to action for others to become “changemakers.”
Echoes from Eden is an immersive, gripping account about his travels to the Amazon, the Congo and Borneo, where he encounters snakes, vampire bats, tarantulas, botflies and piranhas, and wrestles caimans. (And that’s just in the first chapter; later on, he’s charged by a gorilla.)
Mr. Dasilva comes to appreciate that the non-profits he funds are startups in spirit, led by scrappy visionaries who are always one grant or setback away from collapse. He returned in 2024 to lead Lightspeed’s turnaround and recently spoke to The Globe about his new book.
Mr. Dasilva, left, with Paul Rosolie, founder of Amazon conservation organization Junglekeepers, to which Mr. Dasilva has provided funding.Supplied
How is Echoes from Eden different than your first book?
This is much more of a narrative. It’s about going out into the field and being terrified. I’m sleeping under bats and there are snakes being plunked down beside me, and I’m going down a river at night where there are caimans all around us. I’ve never done anything like that. Also travelling with [Forest Health Alliance founder] Dr. Kerry Bowman in the Congo, you can barely go into that region any more. We went to Haiti a few weeks before the gangs took over. There is a lot of political danger, but wildlife danger, too. You have to lose your fear. I climbed a tree in the Amazon where we placed a baby boa constrictor that we rescued. It reminds you how precious and delicate and how easy it is to lose these things if we don’t help these creatures.
Who do you hope reads it?
The book is about protecting the Earth’s last wild places. It’s like a tool, something I can give to somebody and say I went on the ground and saw how important it is to support grassroots projects that give me hope because they make such a big difference. There are so many people doing incredible things that are super-underfunded. With a bit of fuel they can do spectacular things. You cannot have hope without action, but when you see action on the ground, you know that you can actually make a huge difference when it comes to nature, because nature is resilient and it can be restored and resurge. Even in areas we think are too far gone.
For those of us that have made money in business or tech, I think we have a responsibility to fund some of the bigger things. The people in the book are not billionaires. It shows the power of individual action of somebody, anybody, who can go and do incredible things. But local change needs global support. Who is global support? Yes, it’s governments, but it’s also people that have done well in society. It’s a responsibility to engage, to get involved and to bring your resources where you can. For the critical moment that we’re at, there aren’t enough people fighting for it.
Mr. Dasilva reviews damage from a forest fire in the Peruvian Amazon.Paul Rosolie/Supplied
You write that when you quit as Lightspeed CEO in 2022, you wanted to devote more time and energy “to something even bigger than commerce – our planet.” Now you’re back. Is your heart 100 per cent into leading Lightspeed?
People wonder, how can you care about multiple things? I don’t know how to answer that. Lightspeed is my absolute top priority. But do we really want people that are only one-note to be leaders of businesses?
The journey in this book is me being the leader I am today. When I visited the conservation projects, it reminded me of Lightspeed at different stages. It also reminded me of the retail and hospitality businesses we serve that are starting something from scratch. That entrepreneurial spirit, that startup DNA, is the common link. It gets me excited. It’s something I can contribute to, and I know people on those journeys need a tremendous amount of support. We’re passionate about the customers at Lightspeed and that’s why it’s easy to feel very aligned with some of these conservationists that are up against incredible odds, just like somebody who is starting a restaurant.
This is my favourite period of Lightspeed. It feels like the early days. We had to move into a new phase of profitable growth. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I balanced that in the beginning, before all the venture capitalists joined and we put the company on steroids. Now, all of our key investors have said, this is the time to build a real business, not just a pure growth machine but one which will generate EBITDA and free cash flow. That’s something I want to do. It felt like the right time to do something that was also super important for the company and important for me. It’s another personal-growth journey.
How did the experiences you describe in the book change you as a CEO?
Mr. Dasilva with Dr. Jane Goodall. Mr. Dasilva had previously said he dreamed of working with the renown conservationist.Richard Ladkani/Supplied
When I started Lightspeed, I didn’t see myself as a leader. I was just a developer and I would avoid the team; I had no leadership skills, I was shy. Being in the field with conservation, I got to test being a leader of something that I had no knowledge of. I didn’t know anything about conservation, I didn’t know anything about film, I didn’t expect to go into films. I said at the beginning the dream would be to work with Jane Goodall and Leonardo DiCaprio because they’re the biggest conservationists. By the end, we were.
It made me realize that if I was going to return to Lightspeed, it had to be in the field. Before I left, I was more removed from operations. I’ve come back a different CEO. The company needs a lot of operational rigour. I’m more involved in operations than before. I love being on the ground with customers. Now that we’re in an execution year, I’m everywhere. It’s fun, and that energy from you gets other people excited.
I think the book shows I’m a person that is not afraid of getting his hands dirty, that can take the word “dedication” to a different level, that can truly commit.
You’ve shifted your conservation projects to Leo DiCaprio’s Re:wild organization. Are you still committed to the cause?
I think conservation will always be a part of my story. All my new projects will be in collaboration with Re:wild, and all the proceeds from the book will go to Jane Goodall’s legacy foundation. The next chapter for conservation, later in my life, is yet to be written.
Dax Dasilva will be speaking about the book at Indigo at 55 Bloor St. W. in Toronto on Thursday, Sept. 4, at 7 p.m.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
