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 climate history over the past 1,000 years. The graph became both a cornerstone of climate science and ...
Jul 22, 2025•48 min
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. states and 149 countries, helping shape policies like New York’s clean energy mandate. In this episode, D...
Jul 15, 2025•48 min
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 later, there will be around 2,000 gigawatts of solar deployed globally, and the growth is expected to co...
Jun 30, 2025•36 min
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 emissions, increase road longevity, and drive down costs. He explains why roads are both a climate pr...
Jun 23, 2025•38 min
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, SoftBank, and Oracle—and how Crusoe is building a 1.2 gigawatt data center campus in Abilene, Texas....
Jun 17, 2025•54 min
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 Affairs at Form Energy ; and Vikrum Aiyer , Head of Global Public Policy and External Affairs at Heirlo...
Jun 13, 2025•45 min
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 10,000 clean energy projects through his business, Cleanview . Since his last appearance, he's been ...
Jun 09, 2025•47 min
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 targets are met—and how melting glaciers, especially Antarctica’s so-called “Doomsday Glacier,” drive tha...
Jun 02, 2025•50 min
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 data-center sustainability as a beachhead market, and what it takes to build a vertically integrated...
May 27, 2025•37 min
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, and grid-interconnection delays. Now 45 teammates strong and raising a Series B, Aalo aims to break g...
May 19, 2025•43 min
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 demand for clean power, fuels, carbon removal, low‑carbon materials and water solutions; what’s working...
May 12, 2025•40 min
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 Jigar Shah. He then spent several years on the investment team at Goldman Sachs' Renewable Power Grou...
May 05, 2025•50 min
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. Before CIV, he founded and led Inspire, a clean energy technology company acquired by Shell in 2021....
May 01, 2025•43 min
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 outdoors‑kid to Harvard environmental‑science major to Silicon Valley deal‑maker—shaped his worldview, and ...
Apr 17, 2025•41 min
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 deep underground—a related concept. Now, she’s back with a fresh vision and a new venture. Deep Fissio...
Apr 10, 2025•36 min
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 efforts. While historically funded by donations and memberships, the platform now also offers a pro versi...
Apr 03, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Roman Arutyunov is the Co-founder and SVP of Products at Xage Security , a Series B startup focused on protecting critical infrastructure—including energy systems—from cyber threats. Xage is backed by investors like Chevron Technology Ventures, Aramco, Piva Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and Overture. Cybersecurity is a growing concern as our energy systems become more distributed, electrified, and digitally connected. We spoke with Roman about the vulnerabilities in today’s infrastructure, the...
Mar 27, 2025•39 min
Mike Schroepfer is Partner at Gigascale , a venture firm he founded and self-funded to back startups building venture-scale businesses with the potential for outsized climate impact. Previously, Mike served as CTO at Meta (Facebook’s parent company) from 2013 to 2022, having originally joined in 2008 as VP of Engineering. In this episode, Mike and Cody discuss his career journey, key lessons learned, and their shared counterpoint to the often-repeated myth that "America doesn’t build hard things...
Mar 20, 2025•1 hr 2 min
James McWalter is the CEO and co-founder of Paces , an AI-powered software platform that helps clean energy project developers identify and evaluate the best sites for new projects. Paces streamlines the process by integrating interconnection, environmental, zoning, and legal data on land parcels—key factors developers must navigate when selecting viable locations. MCJ is proud to be an investor in Paces through our venture funds. In renewable project development, one of the biggest challenges i...
Mar 13, 2025•49 min
Cathy Zoi is a clean energy veteran with a career spanning leadership roles across government, industry, and investment. Most recently, she served as CEO of EVgo from 2017 to 2023, taking the company public in 2020. EVgo is now one of the largest EV charging networks in the United States. Today, Cathy is deeply engaged in the energy and climate space. She serves on the board of directors for Con Edison, the major investor-owned utility serving the New York City metro area. She’s also on the boar...
Mar 06, 2025•47 min
Dan Preston is the co-founder and CEO of Stand , a brand-new startup property insurer providing homeowners insurance for climate-exposed properties. They’re launching with a go-to-market focus on higher-end properties in California—homes that are otherwise unable to obtain affordable rates or any coverage at all due to wildfire risk. Stand claims that their differentiation, as Dan will explain in depth, comes from how they assess fire risk at the individual property level and help homeowners tak...
Feb 27, 2025•44 min
Marc Mezvinsky is a partner at TPG Rise Climate . TPG Rise Climate is among the largest pools of capital ever raised with a dedicated focus on climate tech. They announced a debut fund in 2021 at over $7 billion—and another very large fund currently in the works. Rise Climate is part of the broader TPG Rise platform, the impact arm of the publicly traded private equity firm TPG, which manages more than $220 billion in assets. Marc and I discuss his background and career path in finance across va...
Feb 20, 2025•48 min
Hudson Gilmer is the co-founder and CEO of LineVision . LineVision is a Series C-stage startup helping utilities monitor and increase the capacity of the vast network of transmission lines that serve as the vascular system of the U.S. electric grid. The U.S. transmission grid spans 600,000 to 700,000 circuit miles of high-voltage lines, connecting energy generation with consumption and delivering power across the country. This infrastructure typically lasts for decades, yet much of it was built ...
Feb 13, 2025•40 min
John Rappaport is the Chief Investment Officer at Keyframe Capital , a special situations fund manager. They help management teams solve complex asset and corporate financing requirements. In finance speak, this is often referred to as structured capital—the process of separating a company's capital structure into layers, enabling each layer to be fit for an investor seeking that specific risk-return profile. As John shares, structured capital can often be a good fit for companies in the energy ...
Feb 06, 2025•40 min
Paul Lambert is the Co-founder and CEO of Quilt , a company designing smart ductless heat pumps for residential heating and cooling with intelligent room-by-room controls. Quilt was founded in 2022 and launched in the San Francisco Bay Area in spring 2024. Since then, they have achieved hundreds of deployments and are preparing to expand to their next market in Southern California. Earlier this year, they announced a $33 million Series A financing round co-led by Energy Impact Partners and Galva...
Jan 23, 2025•48 min
Sharon Schneider is the Founder of Integrated Capital Strategies , a consulting firm that helps founders and family offices drive positive social change. Her firm specializes in setting up or realigning family offices to better align with the values and evolving priorities of individuals seeking a more integrated approach to life. We invited Sharon on the show after being inspired by one of her posts, where she highlighted a growing trend: younger generations of high-net-worth families are rethi...
Jan 20, 2025•49 min
Eliot Brooks is the CEO and co-founder of Cocoon . Cocoon is driving the industrial circular economy, starting with a process that helps the steel industry continue supplying a critical feedstock for cement production. This feedstock is increasingly at risk as steelmaking transitions from coal-based blast furnaces to lower-emission electric arc furnaces. Cocoon was founded on the realization that as industries decarbonize, certain process changes disrupt circular supply chains. The connection be...
Jan 16, 2025•34 min
Adrian Deveny , former Director of Energy and Environmental Policy for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, was a key architect of the Biden-era climate policy agenda, including the landmark Inflation Reduction Act. In this conversation, we explore Adrian's perspective on what to expect from Washington, D.C., in the years ahead, as the federal government transitions to Republican control of the executive branch and both chambers of Congress. We discuss the likely fate of the climate and cl...
Jan 13, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Kathryn Bakos is the Managing Director of Finance and Resilience at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation , an applied research center within the faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Our conversation today is all about the inevitable impacts of climate change, including floods, wildfires, and heat waves in particular, as these phenomena are Kathryn's main focus. We talk about the increasing severity of each of these, the preventative efforts that individuals and comm...
Jan 06, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Seyed Madaeni is the co-founder and CEO of Verse . Verse develops software that helps organizations understand, plan, and manage clean energy. Their platform simplifies the complex clean energy procurement process, enabling companies to meet their emissions goals in the most economical way possible. MCJ is proud to be a repeat investor in Verse through our venture capital funds, including participation in their recent Series A round alongside GV and Coatue. To us, Verse embodies the inevitable s...
Jan 02, 2025•47 min
