Climate CEOs

20 recent climate, industrial, and energy tech fundraises teach us new lessons: Sell into AI infrastructure, national security, resource scarcity, and hard economics. Climate impact can still be enormous. But for now, it might belong in the appendices. Seven things you’ll learn in this episode: AI is creating a second climate capital market. Data centers need enormous amounts of power, creating ne...

Your CRM probably contains millions of dollars in imaginary revenue. Climate tech and energy startups often mistake customer interest for buying intent. “Really interesting” and “this fits our decarbonization strategy” feel good, but they don’t pay the bills. This episode applies lessons from The Mom Test to help founders separate compliments (like your mom would make) from real demand and build a...

What if AI could find billion-dollar critical mineral deposits hiding in forgotten geological data? Atana combines oil-and-gas geology, proprietary datasets, and AI to discover and de-risk lithium and other critical mineral resources faster. Company bio: Atana uses AI, data science, and subsurface expertise to discover and de-risk overlooked critical mineral deposits. The company has secured 1.5 m...

Industrial heat consumes more energy globally than electricity, yet it remains one of the hardest parts of the economy to decarbonize. GlassPoint has spent nearly two decades figuring out how to make solar heat cheaper than burning fossil fuels at industrial scale. Company bio: GlassPoint is an industrial heat company using concentrated solar thermal technology and molten-salt storage to deliver l...

Climate change may be one of the biggest forces reshaping the global economy, yet we still treat climate collaboration like a pop-up event. The New York Climate Exchange wants to change that with a $440M first phase on Governors Island that brings business, universities, government, and innovators together year-round. Guest bio: Sanjayan Muttulingam is CEO of the New York Climate Exchange and form...

Today I’m sharing a conversation where the tables are turned: I was a guest on the Supercool podcast with my friend Josh Dorfman, the cofounder of climate tech startup Plantd. We get into: Why I built Entrepreneurs for Impact, and what I’ve learned from working closely with 45 investor-backed CEOs. What climate and energy CEOs are struggling with right now, from fundraising and customers to hiring...

Most climate investors ask which project offers the best return. A better question: Which investment makes the next 100 projects easier, cheaper, and faster? This episode explores the Transition Acceleration Framework developed by CalSTRS, Generate Capital, and Rhodium Group, and why catalytic capital can have an impact far beyond a single project. Seven things you’ll learn in this episode: Why th...

Roughly 70% of U.S. substations were built before modern digital technology. Now AI, renewables, batteries, and EVs are forcing a century-old grid to become something fundamentally different. Company bio: NovaTech Automation provides automation, monitoring, and control technology for electric utilities, with equipment in roughly 25% of U.S. substations. Founded in 1979, the family-owned company he...

Hiring mistakes can cripple a startup in energy, infrastructure, or industrial technology. This simple three-trait framework helps CEOs spot great team players and six dangerous hiring archetypes before they join the company. The Frramework: Adapted from Patrick Lencioni’s "The Ideal Team Player," this episode applies three traits to climate tech hiring: humble, hungry, and smart, meanin...

What kills hard-tech startups usually isn’t the technology. It’s everything surrounding it: unit economics, supply chains, customers, workforce, financing, and the long road from demonstration to deployment. Guest bio: Dr. Vanessa Chan is an entrepreneur, engineer, angel investor, and educator who works at the intersection of technology, commercialization, and business. She previously served as Ch...

Big projects routinely blow their budgets, schedules, and sometimes the companies building them. But research across 16,000+ projects reveals surprisingly consistent rules for getting them right. In this solo episode, I translate lessons from How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner into practical strategies for entrepreneurs building factories, energy projects, infrastructure, an...

Nitrogen fertilizer feeds billions of people. But producing it consumes staggering amounts of energy. Switch Bioworks is engineering microbes that could replace industrial fertilizer with biological alternatives at a fraction of the cost. Company bio: Switch Bioworks is a biofertilizer company engineering programmable microbes that colonize plant roots and then switch from growth to producing ammo...

Legendary venture capitalist Brad Feld, co-founder of Foundry Group and Techstars and author of Give First, explains how founders can use resilience, mentorship, long-term thinking, and non-transactional relationships to build stronger startups and startup communities, especially in climate tech and turbulent markets. This podcast was so important when we recorded it last year that I'm republi...

Climate tech is scaling fast. But the data shows huge gaps in industrial decarbonization, carbon removal, energy storage, and the capital needed to turn breakthrough technologies into profitable businesses. Company bio: Speed & Scale is a climate action initiative built around measurable objectives and key results (OKRs) for reaching net-zero emissions, originating from John Doerr’s Speed &amp...

Climate CEOs are expected to project confidence. But acting invincible can make investors, employees, and customers trust you less. This minisode explores the "vulnerability paradox" and why selective candor can be a leadership advantage. Confidence and vulnerability aren’t opposites — CEOs need to project conviction, especially during fundraising, layoffs, missed milestones, and difficu...

What if America could add gigawatts of nuclear power without building new nuclear plants? Alva Energy is upgrading existing reactors to produce 20–30% more power, potentially adding 200–300 megawatts per plant in just 3–5 years. Company bio: Alva Energy is developing technology to increase the output of existing nuclear power plants by upgrading their nuclear steam systems and adding a second turb...

Most hiring mistakes don’t happen because CEOs can’t recognize talent. They happen because interviews reward candidates who are good at interviewing. This minisode explores a more rigorous method for hiring executives (topgrading), and how climate CEOs can uncover performance patterns before making an expensive mistake. Look for patterns, not polish — Walk through a candidate’s career job by job t...

What if commercial businesses could cut clean energy project costs by up to 45%, all while someone else finds, buys, finances, and operates on-site systems on massive real estate portfolios? Company bio: VECKTA Energy is a technology platform that helps businesses design, procure, finance, and operate on-site energy systems, including solar, batteries, and generators. Its platform can analyze thou...

Most acquisitions don’t fail because the deal thesis was wrong. They fail because integration breaks exactly what made the company worth buying. This minisode explores why climate tech M&A goes sideways and four questions CEOs should ask before signing the deal. Why good deals go bad — The spreadsheet may show compelling synergies (ugh, that word!), but value disappears when key employees leav...

Electric vehicles shouldn't just be gas trucks with batteries. They should be entirely different machines. That's the premise behind Tello Trucks' attempt to reinvent one of America's most iconic vehicles. Company bio: TELO Trucks is an electric vehicle company building a mini truck designed to deliver full-size truck utility in a much smaller footprint. The vehicle is engineered for city life, wi...

What if the cheapest, largest carbon removal machine on Earth isn't a factory, but phytoplankton in the ocean? Company bio: Gigablue is building MCFS (Microalgae Carbon Fixation and Sinking), a marine carbon removal method that uses phytoplankton and carbon carrier pods to capture and store carbon in ocean sediment. They recently raised a $20M Series A to scale their work.  Speaker bio: Ori Sh...

How do you turn degraded farmland into an investable climate asset? Living Carbon has raised $76M in equity and unlocked $500M in project finance by combining reforestation, biomass, and long-term infrastructure thinking. Living Carbon restores degraded agricultural and mine lands through reforestation while developing biomass supply chains for industrial customers.. Maddie Hall is the co-founder...

Smart CEOs make bad decisions all the time. Often, the problem isn't intelligence; it's solving the wrong problem. This minisode explores the Double Diamond framework, a decision-making tool that helps climate CEOs avoid premature conclusions and improve strategic choices. The first diamond: discover and define the problem — Many leaders jump straight into execution mode. The Double Diamond encour...

What if your home could cut electricity bills by 60%, survive weeks without the grid, and earn money while you sleep? Lunar Energy is building an integrated home energy system combining solar, batteries, load controls, and AI-powered software. Its GridShare platform already manages 650+ MW across 150,000 homes, including third-party hardware. Founder and CEO Kunal Girotra previously led Tesla Ener...

The skills that help climate tech founders survive the early years can become liabilities as companies scale. This minisode explores the tension between founder mode and manager mode, and how CEOs can know when to optimize for speed versus systems. Founder mode creates momentum — Fast decisions, direct involvement, and relentless problem-solving are often essential in the earliest stages of a comp...