Inevitable

Chase Lochmiller is the CEO and co-founder of Crusoe. If you’re a regular listener, Crusoe isn’t new to the pod. This summer, Cody sat down with Chase’s Co-founder and COO, Cully Cavness , during our live event in Austin. This latest episode was recorded live at the inaugural MCJ Summit in San Francisco at the beautiful Autodesk Gallery. Cody and Chase dive into how Crusoe is building data centers...

Juliann Edwards is Chief Development Officer at The Nuclear Company . The United States has 93 operating nuclear reactors providing about 20% of the nation’s electricity. After decades without new builds, Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia finally came online—despite cost overruns and delays that nearly derailed the project. Meanwhile, China has dozens of reactors under construction and is on pace to...

Steve Oldham is CEO of Captura . Captura develops Direct Ocean Capture (DOC) technology that removes CO₂ from seawater, triggering the ocean to draw more CO₂ from the air to rebalance. With CO₂ concentrations ~150× higher in seawater than air, Captura’s closed-loop process uses electrodialysis to create acid and base on site—no added chemicals, no waste—and can run largely on off-peak renewable en...

Ben Lamm is CEO and Co-founder of Colossal Biosciences , the world’s first de-extinction company. Colossal has raised more than $400 million at a valuation north of $10 billion to bring back extinct species using synthetic biology and genetic engineering. Just this year, the company unveiled the first dire wolves born in 12,000 years, created woolly mice with mammoth-like fur, and remains on track...

Dr. Stephen Beaton is Co-founder and CEO of Circularity Fuels , which develops compact reactors that turn waste carbon streams into high-value fuels and chemicals. Rather than compete with fossil fuels from the start, Stephen identified high-purity methane for lab-grown diamonds as a beachhead market—where Circularity’s product is 80–90% cheaper than incumbents while proving the core technology ne...

Marc Tarpenning is Co-founder of Tesla and a venture partner at Spero Ventures . In 2003, Marc and Martin Eberhard saw two signals: GM killed its beloved EV1, and Californians snapped up Toyota’s Prius despite its compromises. They realized the market was ready for an electric car that was better than gas, not worse. Their breakthrough: 7,000 off-the-shelf laptop batteries powering a sports car th...

Dr. Susan Hubbard is Deputy Director for Science and Technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory , the largest of the U.S. Department of Energy’s multi-program science and energy labs. With more than 7,000 scientists and engineers, Oak Ridge is advancing innovation across nuclear energy, grid resilience, AI, quantum computing, isotopes, and advanced manufacturing. In this episode, Susan shares how...

Mitch Lee , CEO of Arc Boat Company , is bringing the Tesla playbook to boating. Arc’s quiet, software-powered electric boats—like the sold-out Arc Sport—deliver cleaner rides, zero fumes, and customizable wave settings. Mitch shares why electric makes more sense on water than land, how dockside charging already works, and why Arc builds full boats instead of motors. With $100M raised and an expan...

Katherine Boyle and Erin Price-Wright are General Partners at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) , leading the firm's American Dynamism practice. This episode explores how their team invests in companies tackling national imperatives—ranging from defense and manufacturing to energy and critical infrastructure. Katherine shares how American Dynamism emerged from portfolio patterns at a16z, while Erin descr...

Dr. Michael Mann is Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He also serves as Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, and Vice Provost for Climate Science Action and Policy. Dr. Mann first entered the public consciousness in the late 1990s with his "hockey stick graph," a reconstruction of Earth’s cl...

Dr. Mark Jacobson is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere Energy Program at Stanford University, where he’s been one of the most vocal advocates for powering the world entirely with wind, water, and solar energy. No nuclear, no carbon capture, no fossil fuels of any kind. His research team has created 100% renewable energy roadmaps for all 50 U.S. state...

Suvi Sharma is the CEO and Co-Founder at SOLARCYCLE .  SOLARCYCLE is an emerging leader in the nascent category of solar panel recycling. The astounding ramp of solar panels deployed across the world rivals almost any technology adoption curve in history, and it's far from over. There were only five gigawatts of solar deployed globally between 2000 and 2005. By the end of 2025, a mere 20 years lat...

Haakon Brunell is the CEO and Co-founder of Carbon Crusher , a Norwegian company turning traditional road construction on its head. Carbon Crusher refurbishes existing roads using bio-based binders and on-site recycling to create carbon-negative, cost-effective, and more durable infrastructure.  In this episode, Haakon shares how their "Crushing-as-a-Service" model and SkyRoads AI platform reduce...

Cully Cavness is the co-founder, president, and COO of Crusoe , an energy-first AI infrastructure company.  In this live episode recorded in Austin, Texas, Cully shares how Crusoe evolved from capturing flared gas for Bitcoin mining to becoming a leading developer of hyperscale data centers. He discusses the company’s pivotal role in Project Stargate—a $500B AI infrastructure effort led by OpenAI,...

Today on Inevitable , we’re joined by three guests to focus on the clean energy tax provisions currently at risk in the Congressional budget reconciliation process—what’s being called the One Big Beautiful Bill. This is our second episode on this topic this week.  Our guests are Jeremy Harrell , CEO at the right-of-center clean energy policy firm ClearPath ; Spencer Nelson , Director of Federal Af...

Michael Thomas joins us to discuss the clean energy tax provisions and industrial stimulus in the Inflation Reduction Act, which have brought billions of dollars in private investment and added gigawatts of power. However, these provisions are at risk of being cut as the "One Big Beautiful Bill" makes its way through Congress. Michael is a repeat guest and a data expert who has been tracking over...

Brent Minchew is Co-Founder, Executive Director, and Chief Scientist at Arête Glacier Initiative , a new nonprofit launched to close the gap between frontier glaciology research and actionable sea-level forecasts—and to probe whether “brake-tapping” inside Antarctic glaciers can slow their slide into the sea.  Brent explains why current models still span 1–6 feet of rise by 2100—even if Paris targ...

Jonathan Godwin is co-founder and CEO of Orbital Materials , an AI-first materials-engineering start-up. The company open-sourced Orb, a state-of-the-art simulation model, and now designs bespoke porous materials—its first aimed at cooling data-centres while capturing CO₂ or water. Jonathan shares how his DeepMind background shaped Orbital’s “design-before-experiment” approach, why the team chose...

Matt Loszak is CEO and co-founder of Aalo Atomics , a startup designing 50-megawatt nuclear power plants made of pods of five 10-megawatt reactors each, targeting the data center market.  Inspired by the MARVEL test reactor that his CTO Yasir Arafat led at Idaho National Lab, Aalo pursues parallel DOE and NRC pathways, betting that factory-built, pad-ready nuclear plants can slash cost, schedule,...

Brandon Middaugh is the senior director of Microsoft’s $1 billion Climate Innovation Fund , created in 2020 to accelerate technologies that help Microsoft and the wider economy meet aggressive 2030 sustainability goals: carbon‑negative, water‑positive, zero‑waste and ecosystem‑protective.  Five years in, Brandon shares how the fund’s “invest‑to‑procure” model aligns capital with Microsoft’s own de...

Jacob Sandry is the CEO and co-founder of Euclid Power , a platform for renewable energy project development, financing, and operations—with AI-enabled services layered on top. MCJ is proud to be an investor in Euclid, having joined the company’s seed round in mid-2022. Jacob has worked in renewable power his entire career, starting at Generate Capital right out of college, where he worked under J...

Patrick Maloney is the Co-founder and CEO at CIV , and this episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the UCLA Anderson School of Management as part of LA Climate Week. Patrick's firm, CIV, is a new venture capital investment firm based in Venice, California, that backs and builds companies at the nexus of industry and technology. Patrick has had a long, successful career in clean tech....

Zack Bogue is co‑founder and co‑managing partner at DCVC , a $4 billion deep‑tech venture firm spanning 13 funds. In late 2024, DCVC launched DCVC Climate , a dedicated vehicle backing technologies that slash emissions in heavy industry, hasten the energy transition, and bolster climate adaptation. In this episode, Zack unpacks how the firm’s strategy evolved, how his journey—from Colorado outdoor...

Liz Muller is the CEO and Co-founder of Deep Fission , a company pioneering a new approach to the traditional light-water nuclear reactor. Rather than using concrete and constructed containment, Deep Fission places the reactor one mile underground, fundamentally changing the design paradigm. Liz was on the show over five years ago when she was building a company focused on storing nuclear waste de...

John Mills is the Co-Founder and CEO of Watch Duty , the leading app for real-time wildfire alerts in the U.S. In this episode of Inevitable , John shares how Watch Duty became a vital public safety tool—rising to #1 in the App Store during the recent Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Watch Duty delivers live updates on fire spread, evacuations, and recovery effor...