December 15, 2020 • 32 mins
Patrick Maloney is the founder and CEO of Inspire Clean Energy, where he leads the execution of its mission to transform the way consumers access clean energy and accelerate a net-zero carbon future.
A lifelong entrepreneur in the energy and technology spaces, Patrick is dedicated to building world-positive businesses that align profitability with purpose. He founded Inspire with the vision to answer the call of millions of consumers demanding action on climate change by empowering them with the tools to make a sustainable impact. Patrick is a nationally recognized leader in the clean energy technology sector, having received numerous awards and recognition from the likes of Forbes, Fortune, FastCompany, and was selected as the 2018 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner in the Cleantech and Renewables category for his outstanding vision and achievement.
In addition to his work at Inspire, Patrick is a member of YPO, a premier global community of chief executives committed to leading the world's most impactful organizations, and is a frequent speaker and thought leader on impact and sustainability. Prior to Inspire, Patrick worked in venture capital and served on the founding teams of two of the fastest-growing and most successful ventures in the competitive energy landscape.
He joins us to talk about living in the age of "electrification," curating a consumer-led marketplace for clean energy, and the intersection of commerce and doing good for his company, our planet, and the future.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled and learned their way into achieving great things.
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
(00:24):
today on the show, I had the pleasure of chatting
with Patrick Maloney. Patrick is the founder and CEO of
Inspire Clean Energy, where he leads the execution of its
mission to transform the way consumers access clean energy and
accelerate a net zero carbon future. A lifelong entrepreneur in
the energy and technology spaces, Patrick is dedicated to building
world positive businesses that aligned profitably with purpose. He found
(00:47):
an Inspire with the vision to answer the call of
millions of consumers demanding action on climate change by empowering
them with tools to make a sustainable impact. Patrick is
a nationally recognized leader in the clean energy technology sector,
having received numerous awards recognition from the likes of Forbes, Fortune,
Fast Company, and was selected as the Ernst and Young
(01:08):
Entrepreneur of the Year in Clean Tech and Renewables for
his outstanding vision and achievement Prior to Inspire, Patrick worked
in venture capital and served on the founding teams of
two of the fastest growing and most successful ventures in
the competitive energy landscape. He joins us to talk about
living in the age of electrification, curating a consumer led
marketplace for clean energy in the intersection of commerce, and
(01:29):
doing good for his company, our planet, and the future.
Please enjoy my conversation with Patrick Malooney. Patrick, Welcome to
the podcast. Thanks Jeff, Long time no see. I know
what's it was? It been a week or so. How
long has it been around that? Patrick and I are
(01:49):
dad bros. We take our boys to the to the
beach together on a weekly basis. We do we do
that the double dad life is I think I think
we're wearing it well. For its only our wives. I
think been pretty happy with us. But nothing more of
magical than seeing our kids out there playing out the
beach uh where we can hang together. Well, I think
(02:09):
the most brilliant thing either of us I did in
our careers is actually in our households. We married up,
significantly married up. You know, it's always good to kind
of set a long pole that you have to reach for.
I think you actually told me a quote ones which
I always really loved, which was, you know, my my
grasp far extended my reach. And I think that that
(02:30):
applies here as it relates to the women we were
lucky enough to marry. Well, I'm a big fan of yours,
as you know, I I love Patrick. You're such an
inspiring guy. I mean, like you're an amazing entrepreneur. You know,
you've built a number of really impactful energy ventures over
your career and now inspire is inspiring man, Thank you.
(02:51):
It's uh, I think like you. You know, I've had
a chance to kind of take a step back and
listen to some of your podcasts, and I always just
love how you do always reference the power of the
community that's a boarded you, and I think that also
couldn't apply more than here. You know, it's sometimes we
get to take the credit, but the reality is has
always been a kind of groundswell of people behind us,
(03:11):
you know, customers, mentors, supporters of candidly folks like you
that have created such amazing communities that have actually you know,
allowed things like you know, inspired to to kind of
grow and thrive. So we're grateful to have it. Well,
and I know that's deep in your own personal entrepreneurial history.
You know, mentors and people who are experienced seeing your
(03:32):
talent and giving you an opportunity to step into the game.
You know, Inspire is really a new type of energy
company that has simplified and automated and make made experiencing
you know, choosing clean energy, rewarding and helping us use
less of it, and and how many and it's over
what a hundred thousands or so customers now around the country, correct, Yeah,
(03:53):
we have we have about a little over two hundred
thousand actors drivers on platform today. And you know, it's
I think it's interesting when we take a step back.
I think when we first launched the business in two
thousand and fourteen, it's kind of a simple view that
we thought that someday there might be a significant number
of people that you know, might really believe clean energy
(04:15):
was important. I don't think we could have forecasted that.
You know, a few years later, you know, it started
to be kind of millions of people marching in the streets,
kind of demanding action on climate and you know, kind
of believing clean energy was important to that future. And
so it's it's been a wild ride, but we're grateful
and hopefully just getting started. And tell tell the listeners
(04:35):
a little bit more about like the foundational principles of
inspired energy. Sure as absolutely so, I think, you know,
first what I say is, you know, really what we're
trying to do every day is just accelerate the path
to a carbon free future. And you know, for me,
as I took a step back, actually first entered the
energy space kind of the day after I graduated in
(04:58):
the founding of a venture within at you know, within
that category. And what I did not know at the
time was that the energy sector specific electricity was the
number one source of carbon emissions at the global level.
And you know, I think through the process of coming
to that awareness and then realizing that the same carbon
emissions were actually also driving you know, kind of a
(05:21):
significant impact and changed to our climate is what really
drove me to disbelieve that we needed to create a
company that in success would rapidly decarbonize the grid and
ultimately reverse the trend that I think we're all seeing.
And so, you know, for me, it's just it felt
like energy needed its Amazon moment as we looked out
(05:43):
and saw you know, kind of all the world's greatest
companies were consumer centric technology companies, and then you looked
at the energy landscape and kind of realized that while
there's so many amazing things that have been done, really
I believe one of the kind of greatest modern morals
of industrial era was the creation of our electricity grid system. Unfortunately,
(06:04):
what was missing with this the digitization of that, the
consumerization of that, and so you know, what we set
out to build was just a completely virtual energy platform
that would make it easy for consumers to just begin
to access clean energy anywhere by providing an unlimited basis
is a flat kind of monthly subscription at home, we're
out of home to power your life, and you do
(06:27):
that in a couple of minutes sign up, and so
that's kind of what we've been working on for the
last five six years. So the disintermediation of the consumer
in their power supplier. Yeah, I mean, I think the
simple way to think of it is just, you know,
what we needed to do is create technology that allowed
consumers to free themselves from this old kind of monolith
(06:49):
and then be able to then access the sources of
power and the clean energy technologies that candidly are powering
every piece of our life. We're now living in this
what I always call it is the electrification of everything.
Right every single thing we have right now is powered
with electricity, whether it's our phones, our headphones, are you know,
our of course, our homes, our cars. You know, I
(07:11):
think we probably saw just you know, two days ago,
Governor Newsom now outlawing you know, gasoline powered new vehicles.
By I mean, we're we're living in the era of electrification.
And while that's amazing, we need to ensure that all
of that power is coming from renewable sources. And so
what we really needed to do is build this kind
of virtual energy platform that allows consumers to get on
(07:34):
that platform, power their lives with renewables, and just do
it in a frictionless way that gives them unlimited access.
I recall the days before Nest. It's just incredible that, like,
you know, nobody had sort of made that jump to
our level of I guess user interface design that we
expect out of the things that we go from like
(07:55):
a nice to have and something like a digital air
conditioning interface is nice, it's better than analog, but it
doesn't break into the fun category. It doesn't you know,
it doesn't return any serotonin or dopamine loops to me,
whereas like you know, my nest does. And I had
never considered energy being something that you could take to
(08:15):
the consumer in this way. It feels like it's something
that's like buried on a bill that comes once a
month that I didn't know I had any control over. Yeah,
I mean, I think that's exactly the point. In the
same way that Amazon created a website that allowed you
to access any of the world's products in a simple,
seamless way, we needed to create a digital product that
would allow consumers to access the clean energy products, whether
(08:38):
that be the power that powers their home, or the
devices in their home that give them more control but
save energy, the solar storage, and you know, in the
future kind of the electric mobility technologies, they need that
freedom and just kind of a completely virtual energy platform.
And so that's kind of for us. We're just really
trying to build that top to bottom platform and just
(08:58):
hopefully empower the next generation of of consumers that seem
to care a lot about these issues. We care a
lot about these issues. We also have like you know,
loss aversion, and you know, we value our time and
our convenience. Like, I'm definitely against the destabilized congo. I
still use my iPhone with Colton that was mine from there.
I just can't even imagine if every time you ordered
(09:20):
something internationally you had to fill out customs forms. And
that's why it just always comes back to again, the consumer.
How do you build a consumer facing kind of digital
experience that disintermediates everything downstream just to give them the
power to choose what they want when they want it,
and ideally do it in a way that enlightens them, uh,
in their experience. I know that Inspire has a focus
(09:44):
on new generation, but do you mind unpacking that a
little bit further? What I would say is, you know,
the the energy sector special and specifically the electricity sector,
it's a really challenging, you know kind of area. And
the reason is because you know, ultimately the laws of
physics kind of per event, you know, an electron going
from you know, point A to point B, it's just yeah,
(10:06):
it's going to follow the path at least resistance. And
so you know the world is kind of thought really
long and hard about how best to solve that issue.
So that when Jeff Rosenthal says he wants to adopt
clean energy, It wants to use clean energy to power
his home. Like, how do we actually make that happen?
How do we allow Jeff to take claim to that
and to actually support those resources? And so, you know
(10:29):
what Inspired is it said, listen, we need to build
a piece of technology that sits on top of the
grid that allows Jeff Rosenthal to say, if I want
to adopt clean energy, I can join the Inspired platform
and then Inspire can connect me through to those environmental
resources that then ultimately power Jeff's home. And so I
think that's kind of the interconnection play that needed to
(10:51):
take place, And I think that's kind of where we've
really focused in terms of the way we think about, Like,
you know, what is the principles of the generation we see?
We seek to always purchase from, you know, newer generation
facilities predominantly wind and solar facilities that kind of aligned
with you know, just providing the highest quality renewable resources
(11:13):
to the grid. And you know, when you're buying from Inspire,
you can kind of know that you're directly supporting those resources,
even though the exact electron may not come into your
house because we didn't actually put a windmill into your
front yard, right, We kind of have to build that
connection layer so that you can access those things. A
lot of it comes down to figure out like how
do we empower Jeff Rosenthal to say in less than
(11:35):
five minutes, I want to eliminate my carbon impact. Is
the whole world is going that zero carbon? How can
we bring that down to the individual consumer? And that's
how we think about kind of building this virtual energy
platform to make that connection. You know, one of the
things that I often steal from you and don't attribute
when I'm talking about their friends is how you talk
about energy and power and electricity as an enabling technology.
(11:58):
Do you mind unpacking that a little further? You know,
one of the things that I think it has always
been kind of for me an organizing principle, is that,
you know, if you want to create the Amazon moment
in this space, you have to focus on the consumer.
We kind of need that consumer to be a king.
We need retail to become a digital transformative consumer experience.
(12:20):
We need, you know, same thing as media with Netflix
or you know, kind of hospitality with with the Airbnb.
We kind of need that same moment to happen here
and if you start there, then you'd say, well, you
know electricity. You know, nobody goes to their their light
you know switch and says, you know what I want
to do right now, I wanna I want to use
some electricity. Right they go to that light switch and
(12:41):
they say I want light. And so when I think,
when you kind of when you make that leap, you
start to say, okay, cool, Then how do I improve
the experiences of getting light, or how do I improve
the experiences of getting mobility, or how do I improve
the experiences of my climate through my thermostatic technology. When
you solve those those actual consumer needs, you can ultimately
(13:04):
then transform the source of that power and ensure it's
all you know, it's all being powered through net zero
carbon technologies. You know, you need to create sustainable social
impact and to me, the way to do that is
to figure out how do you build impact in a
way that's intrinsic to your business model. Mean, by virtue
of success you are in, you know, having a one
(13:25):
to one accretion to your ability to have impact. It's
it's when they become you know, a side CSR project
that it becomes unsustainable. We just try to align everything
top to bottom and say, by bringing a new subscriber
onto our platform, this is going to immediately eliminate eight
thousand pounds of coal from you know, from having been
(13:47):
burned or you know, the carbon emissions associated with that.
We need more users on platform, We need to solve
more of their problems, so more users continue to join.
We'll be back with more art of the Hustle after
the break. You know, I know you grew up in
(14:10):
Chicago with just your mom. Correct, that's right, that's right.
What sort of things do you think, you know have
emerged for you that you apply to your own home
or to your work, that you know come from that
period of your life? You know, I often like to
take a step back, and you know, when I'm interviewing
folks to join Inspire, just you know, generally I always
(14:30):
like to just start with the question kind of tell
me the story of your life, and you know, start
at the beginning. And and I think for me, when
I take a step back and really think about what
the beginning of that story was for me, it kind
of goes back to that first memory I had, you know,
as a child, like literally the actual first memory I
can recall, and it was actually me sitting on my
(14:51):
front porch with my mom and my sister. Next time
I started watching my dad walk away to his car
to to never come back. And I think, when I
think about that moment, and this is of course a
story that so many I think people in this country experience,
is that the experience of growing up in a single
(15:11):
parent household and watching kind of the plight of the
single mother and candidly the lessons that you learn and
watching what you know a single mother has to go
through to figure out, you know, how do I how
do I put food on the table, how do I
have the resilience and optimism to keep this family together?
(15:31):
How do I how do I just keep it together
candidly while also you know, doing everything else that life requires.
There's so many lessons and so many parallels that I
take from that moment. And as much as that may
have been a challenge growing up, I probably said many
times myself that I'm actually really grateful that I had
to go through some of that adversity. And as much
(15:51):
as I feel bad for my mom for having had
to have lived through it, the lessons you learned that
you take forward from an entrepreneurship from entrepreneurship perspective and
just from a life perspective are probably things that guide
me the most today. Right the relentlessness and persistence that's
required to build a company from a piece of paper
through to scale is the same thing that I think
(16:13):
my mom felt when, you know, she was left with
no money and two kids and you know, just mortgage
and I had to go figure it out. And I
think that the other thing that comes from the type
of experiences and frankly, just any sort of like you know,
trauma that we experience that also leads to a lot
of empathy, you know what I mean, and sympathy for
(16:33):
other people, um and what they're going through and and
you know, relentlessness is one component of being like a
really great entrepreneur. For sure, it's impossible to do without it.
But I think that that next level up is these
things like sympathy and empathy and human relation and like
just frankly, being a good leader. I don't necessarily see
myself that way as like a talented leader. I've never
(16:55):
really been like the team captain. I love being an organizer,
I love being on a team, but I've always respected,
you know, captains frankly, and you're a captain. You've got
captain energy. So I'm when you you know, so again,
like we we're talking about like the formative years and experiences,
you know, like that relentlessness piece. Does that resonate with you?
Do you think that the empathy and sympathy sympathy part
(17:17):
has been as important? Yeah? Absolutely absolutely. I mean I think,
you know, for me, a couple of things have been true,
and especially at Inspired is just this desire to just
lead passionately and authentically through how I really feel and
what I really value. And I do think that a
(17:37):
lot of that I personally ascribed to kind of growing
up in that single parent household, but just an amazing
mom who is unbelievably loving and a sister who was
also an amazing support system, and and just bringing that
energy through to guide an organization with empathy and authenticity
is to me what I've always kind of found to
(17:58):
be a little bit of a I always say it's
like a happy accident, meaning I didn't realize what it was.
But the deeper I kind of began to just lean
into that, the more I found it gave me just
the power of community and the power of real connection,
and I think for me, it's interesting when I think
back to kind of some of the stories that I
(18:19):
remember and inspired. I remember there was a phase early
on when you starting up and beginning to build the
business and build out our team, and and maybe there
was a moment when I was not always making all
of the decisions through the lens of what I was
really a kind of purpose driven or passionate about. And
(18:40):
I remember in all of those moments, I made the
wrong decision, and ultimately, you know, there came a time
when I realized that I needed to make a significant change,
and indeed kind of made a very significant change to
the culture and staff. I remember kind of sitting there
and just saying, listen, I don't care. But what I
what I care most about is that I'm going to
to work every day and build a company based on purpose,
(19:02):
to build a company based on mission. This is what
drives me. I believe we need to attack climate, and
we need to do that through accelerating the clean ergy transition.
And it turns out that when you lead through, at
least for me, what I've found is when when you
lead so clearly and so deeply and so authentically through
that mission and that purpose. There might just be a
(19:23):
lot of people, if it's noble enough, that actually also
care about that same thing. You know, you've been, you know,
transitioning and hiring really amazing people. Has that been hard
for you to like let go of your attachment or
direction of certain components of the product, or has it
just been, you know, a true pleasure when talented people
join the cause. And I'd say I feel very lucky
(19:48):
to feel like I I generally approach life from the
perspective of I don't know, and I think from that
perspective it allows me to just speak endlessly curious about learning,
and that means that there's so much I can learn
from every single person, whether that be you know, a
new entry level employee that's joined our business, or you know,
(20:09):
the opportunity to learn from some of the world's greatest
thought leaders, you know in the clean energy transition or
kind of climate you know. Fight. So I think throughout
this journey, if I have, I had to say the
thing that kind of really guides my energy the most,
it's just this constant opportunity to learn and grow and
drive that makes it so that you know, every new
(20:30):
moment and every new transition to me, even if it's hard,
is just kind of seen through the prism of what
an amazing opportunity to learn, What an amazing opportunity to grow.
And there's kind of no point that's more clear in
that journey than when you bring on a new leader,
a new executive, a new manager, director that just has
(20:53):
a set of experiences that you do not have, whether
it be personal or professional. And then if you you know,
just starting from that position of learning this, you know,
the opportunity is just to aggregate that knowledge and to
learn and to empower those folks and kind of coach
and develop them to to find their you know, their
greatest you know, their greatest joy. And one important message
(21:15):
for the moment that we're all in during COVID and
you know, the social upheaval that we're all experiencing right now.
But uh, but in this moment, I find that, you
know that the companies that we see thriving are the
ones that you know, are sort of breaking the shackles
of self definition and really like honing in on the
core and highest purpose those organizations can provide. And I
(21:38):
see a lot of organizations that are also just sort
of like stuck in neutral sort of waiting this out.
I remember, you know, uh, I think I guess it
was maybe end of March of this year. I think
is the world was really just beginning to realize that
everything was going to shut down and that you know,
we were about to find ourselves in the midst of
(21:58):
this pandemic and you know, kind of looking out at
our executive team and just saying, you know, listen, this
looks like it's going to be a real thing. But
it's in the moments of adversity like this that the
greatest opportunities present themselves. And I think the opportunity for
us is to ask ourselves, how are we going to
take this moment and use it as our moment to
(22:19):
create the most amount of opportunity for our mission, for
our cause, for our employees, for you know, for everyone.
And I think that that's It's been an inspiring rally
crawl across a rarey cry across our organization that's resulted
in just you know, continued transformation, really just an acceleration
of everything that we've been doing. And I think it's
been so lucky. Is it seems like we're now finally
(22:42):
at the moment we used to say, you know, we
we think clean energy and the energy transition is going
to be inevitable. We're not sure if it's imminent. And
I think as we take a step back, it feels
like for some reason, in all the things that we've
observed and so many challenges that the world has faced,
it does feel like in this year, we've now finally
(23:02):
seen this, you know, this reality that the world now
seems to think that this transition is imminent. You know,
it's we've always known it's been inevitable, but now the
tail winds. I've never felt the kind of tail winds
that we feel today, And candidly it's a bit disorienting
but really energizing at the same time. Art of the
hustle will be right back after this short break, you know,
(23:31):
I think about when you talk about like wanting to
get things done, there's the simulation of the thing in
your head, and then there's just like the actions, right,
and like it's so encouraging to see, you know, a
generation below us really leading a lot of like the
modern protest movement around the world and in this country,
because it's like people actually sacrificing their own comfort for
(23:51):
the rights of others. It's so encouraging. And similarly, when
you look at like technological evolution for humanity in nine,
we couldn't break the earth atmosphere in by nineteen sixty nine,
you know, through the space program we landed a man
on the moon. So I mean, for you, like, where
does this take your head? Like, what's the what's the
future that you want to live in? Yeah, I couldn't
(24:13):
agree with you more. I mean, we need that exact
type of transition to occur within you know, the energy
transition if we even hope to have a chance addressing
you know, the climate crisis that we're all experiencing. And
so I think there's a graph that I often point
to that shows carbon dioxide levels over the last four
(24:35):
thousand years, and then what we see has happened over
the industrial era where that's now gone to consistently historic
and repeated highs, and then how that correlates with temperature,
and what that future looks like if we don't begin
to address that change. I think what we said, you know,
the climate crisis is truly going to be the defining
(24:57):
issue of our generation. And at the same time, it's
also I believe personally the greatest financial opportunity. And when
you find the intersection of those two things, the opportunity
to do well and do good, you know, you truly
have the greatest I think personal you know, kind of
opportunity that that could exist. And so that's I think
(25:17):
where we look at first. But I think what's always
missing from that is just the consumer sentiment. And again,
when we first launched to Inspire in two thousand and fourteen,
you know, there was a small segment of the consumers
that really seem to kind of resonate with this, you know,
clean energy value proposition and believed it was going to
be important to our future. And now we sit there
(25:37):
and look in the world and we find that you know,
nearly you know, eight and ten people in this country
believe the clean energy is important to our future and
that we need to be investing there. And so, you
know that the politics will kind of lead you to
believe a different set of facts than you know, what
people will actually tell you when you survey, and for
different reasons. You know, I think that the reality is
(25:58):
that it seems like that can Sumer Bell Weather has
finally shifted and and we're seeing it again at the
global level, whether that be the federal know, the global governments.
And then we find that down at the corporate level
with folks like Amazon and their climate pledge. I don't
know if you saw it, you know, yesterday for an example,
have They'm now looking to kind of label their products
on the Amazon marketplace, you know, as you kind of
(26:21):
socially responsible alignment their climate pledge that's now the largest
pledged endowment in climate is the BESA. I believe it
was what ten or twenty billion dollars they just set
aside that they intend to dedicate to the climate fight
exactly exactly. And so so it does seem like that
consumer bell weather has finally shifted, and it seems like,
you know, I think we're seeing that transformation take place,
(26:44):
and that's encouraging to me when it's led by the customer.
I think that, you know, fortunately and with it to
a degree. But just in this example, like you know,
part of the reason why you know, the Amazon and
the extended family has the resources to make that kind
of edge, and that you know, like we all need
that in our you know, karma, is that we're all
(27:06):
consuming more every day, Like every household everywhere. I believe
that the start of the pandemic in the US, four
percent of Americans were getting groceries delivered. Now it's forty.
And I don't know about you, but every time that
happens at my home, there's like the silver like like
refrigerator bags, and there's all the paper bags, and there's like,
I don't know, I feel like every American that has
(27:29):
the means is consuming more and more. And I think
that's a global trend. And frankly, a lot of the
people that hold environmentalism in their hearts and and like
and externally define themselves as environmentalists are also part of
those consumers, right, Like they're the ones taking more flights,
eating steak on a more regular basis. Like I don't know,
I'm I'm just I'm curious how you think about this,
(27:49):
because there is this like interesting push poll to where
like we seem to be on this endless, you know,
like uncontrollable urge to consume as a species, and yet
we also recognize that it will be our death right,
like we will be and and I guess to put
it in really like dark terms, like when when you say,
you know, the defining generational issue, not to take away
(28:12):
from anything that's happening today, but when like you know,
eighteen of the most populous cities in the world have
to like relocate or where you know, like rivers flood
and and you know, wars begin, Like there's a lot
of climate and food based issues are the reasons for
you know, the wars of the last thousand years, Right,
(28:32):
So it's like, um, I'm just curious, Like you know,
I think that I agree with you. I am also encouraged,
but I'm also a little afraid of our nature. Yes,
I think I think you're I think you're right to
be afraid, and I think, you know, to your point,
if you look at that same chart I was just referencing,
it's then the last hundred years that you see the
massive up into the right, and that's been just driven
(28:53):
by well, really you know, a the industrialization of our
economy and the ability to consume at those levels. Right,
We've industrialized every major segment of the economy and have
created for us the opportunity to massively produce carbon in
the process of that. At the same time, what we're
(29:14):
seeing is now the electrification and decarbonization of all of
those activities and so I think that, you know, when
I take a step back and look at those activits,
and yes, we're consuming more, and yes, that is why
we need to ensure that we're decarbonizing the value chains
of all of those activities to then result in, you know,
the ability to consume because consumers are absolutely going to
(29:38):
continue to seek to live their lives in a more
friction this way, what we can do is solve the
issues of decarbonizing the value chains that have gotten to
those products. I hear you and you guys are at
sort of like the bottom of the pyramid. Like if
if a coal fired power plant provides my electricity and
that's what's powering my electric car, I'm still in you know,
(30:00):
carbon negative cycle. But if I can you know, start
at the basis of like where this is being generated,
then everything down that value chain you're saying has the
opportunity carbonized. Right, the whole world is becoming electrified. Every
every every single piece of our economy will will ultimately
become electrified over time. And what we there with then
(30:22):
then what there then follows is we need to ensure
that all of that is coming from nets your carbon
forms of production. Well, dude, I think this has been
an incredible interview. I really appreciate you letting me just
pepper you with questions across history, inspire and then just
global macro issues. No, man, I'm so grateful to have
(30:45):
been able to join. As I shared you You've always
been an inspiration to me and so many entrepreneurs you know,
like me. I know that there's so many people within
the stomit community that you know, have have in boldened
their commitment to you know, having purpose and creating purpose
(31:05):
driven business is really due to your leadership and the
leadership of the Summits. So really honored to be able
to be a part of it with you and to
share this life of you. But well, thank you, thank
you Patrick, thank you for joining us on the podcast.
And if you want to learn more about Inspire Clean Energy,
head over to Inspire Clean Energy dot com. And I
believe you guys are about to scale nationally, correct that's right. Yeah,
(31:29):
we're now in the process of beginning to open up
our platform nationally um throughout early this year and uh
in one. All right, Well, thank you again, lots of
love and see you next time. Awesome. Thanks Jeff for
(32:00):
more podcasts from my iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled and learned their way into achieving great things.
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
(00:24):
today on the show, I had the pleasure of chatting
with Patrick Maloney. Patrick is the founder and CEO of
Inspire Clean Energy, where he leads the execution of its
mission to transform the way consumers access clean energy and
accelerate a net zero carbon future. A lifelong entrepreneur in
the energy and technology spaces, Patrick is dedicated to building
world positive businesses that aligned profitably with purpose. He found
(00:47):
an Inspire with the vision to answer the call of
millions of consumers demanding action on climate change by empowering
them with tools to make a sustainable impact. Patrick is
a nationally recognized leader in the clean energy technology sector,
having received numerous awards recognition from the likes of Forbes, Fortune,
Fast Company, and was selected as the Ernst and Young
(01:08):
Entrepreneur of the Year in Clean Tech and Renewables for
his outstanding vision and achievement Prior to Inspire, Patrick worked
in venture capital and served on the founding teams of
two of the fastest growing and most successful ventures in
the competitive energy landscape. He joins us to talk about
living in the age of electrification, curating a consumer led
marketplace for clean energy in the intersection of commerce, and
(01:29):
doing good for his company, our planet, and the future.
Please enjoy my conversation with Patrick Malooney. Patrick, Welcome to
the podcast. Thanks Jeff, Long time no see. I know
what's it was? It been a week or so. How
long has it been around that? Patrick and I are
(01:49):
dad bros. We take our boys to the to the
beach together on a weekly basis. We do we do
that the double dad life is I think I think
we're wearing it well. For its only our wives. I
think been pretty happy with us. But nothing more of
magical than seeing our kids out there playing out the
beach uh where we can hang together. Well, I think
(02:09):
the most brilliant thing either of us I did in
our careers is actually in our households. We married up,
significantly married up. You know, it's always good to kind
of set a long pole that you have to reach for.
I think you actually told me a quote ones which
I always really loved, which was, you know, my my
grasp far extended my reach. And I think that that
(02:30):
applies here as it relates to the women we were
lucky enough to marry. Well, I'm a big fan of yours,
as you know, I I love Patrick. You're such an
inspiring guy. I mean, like you're an amazing entrepreneur. You know,
you've built a number of really impactful energy ventures over
your career and now inspire is inspiring man, Thank you.
(02:51):
It's uh, I think like you. You know, I've had
a chance to kind of take a step back and
listen to some of your podcasts, and I always just
love how you do always reference the power of the
community that's a boarded you, and I think that also
couldn't apply more than here. You know, it's sometimes we
get to take the credit, but the reality is has
always been a kind of groundswell of people behind us,
(03:11):
you know, customers, mentors, supporters of candidly folks like you
that have created such amazing communities that have actually you know,
allowed things like you know, inspired to to kind of
grow and thrive. So we're grateful to have it. Well,
and I know that's deep in your own personal entrepreneurial history.
You know, mentors and people who are experienced seeing your
(03:32):
talent and giving you an opportunity to step into the game.
You know, Inspire is really a new type of energy
company that has simplified and automated and make made experiencing
you know, choosing clean energy, rewarding and helping us use
less of it, and and how many and it's over
what a hundred thousands or so customers now around the country, correct, Yeah,
(03:53):
we have we have about a little over two hundred
thousand actors drivers on platform today. And you know, it's
I think it's interesting when we take a step back.
I think when we first launched the business in two
thousand and fourteen, it's kind of a simple view that
we thought that someday there might be a significant number
of people that you know, might really believe clean energy
(04:15):
was important. I don't think we could have forecasted that.
You know, a few years later, you know, it started
to be kind of millions of people marching in the streets,
kind of demanding action on climate and you know, kind
of believing clean energy was important to that future. And
so it's it's been a wild ride, but we're grateful
and hopefully just getting started. And tell tell the listeners
(04:35):
a little bit more about like the foundational principles of
inspired energy. Sure as absolutely so, I think, you know,
first what I say is, you know, really what we're
trying to do every day is just accelerate the path
to a carbon free future. And you know, for me,
as I took a step back, actually first entered the
energy space kind of the day after I graduated in
(04:58):
the founding of a venture within at you know, within
that category. And what I did not know at the
time was that the energy sector specific electricity was the
number one source of carbon emissions at the global level.
And you know, I think through the process of coming
to that awareness and then realizing that the same carbon
emissions were actually also driving you know, kind of a
(05:21):
significant impact and changed to our climate is what really
drove me to disbelieve that we needed to create a
company that in success would rapidly decarbonize the grid and
ultimately reverse the trend that I think we're all seeing.
And so, you know, for me, it's just it felt
like energy needed its Amazon moment as we looked out
(05:43):
and saw you know, kind of all the world's greatest
companies were consumer centric technology companies, and then you looked
at the energy landscape and kind of realized that while
there's so many amazing things that have been done, really
I believe one of the kind of greatest modern morals
of industrial era was the creation of our electricity grid system. Unfortunately,
(06:04):
what was missing with this the digitization of that, the
consumerization of that, and so you know, what we set
out to build was just a completely virtual energy platform
that would make it easy for consumers to just begin
to access clean energy anywhere by providing an unlimited basis
is a flat kind of monthly subscription at home, we're
out of home to power your life, and you do
(06:27):
that in a couple of minutes sign up, and so
that's kind of what we've been working on for the
last five six years. So the disintermediation of the consumer
in their power supplier. Yeah, I mean, I think the
simple way to think of it is just, you know,
what we needed to do is create technology that allowed
consumers to free themselves from this old kind of monolith
(06:49):
and then be able to then access the sources of
power and the clean energy technologies that candidly are powering
every piece of our life. We're now living in this
what I always call it is the electrification of everything.
Right every single thing we have right now is powered
with electricity, whether it's our phones, our headphones, are you know,
our of course, our homes, our cars. You know, I
(07:11):
think we probably saw just you know, two days ago,
Governor Newsom now outlawing you know, gasoline powered new vehicles.
By I mean, we're we're living in the era of electrification.
And while that's amazing, we need to ensure that all
of that power is coming from renewable sources. And so
what we really needed to do is build this kind
of virtual energy platform that allows consumers to get on
(07:34):
that platform, power their lives with renewables, and just do
it in a frictionless way that gives them unlimited access.
I recall the days before Nest. It's just incredible that, like,
you know, nobody had sort of made that jump to
our level of I guess user interface design that we
expect out of the things that we go from like
(07:55):
a nice to have and something like a digital air
conditioning interface is nice, it's better than analog, but it
doesn't break into the fun category. It doesn't you know,
it doesn't return any serotonin or dopamine loops to me,
whereas like you know, my nest does. And I had
never considered energy being something that you could take to
(08:15):
the consumer in this way. It feels like it's something
that's like buried on a bill that comes once a
month that I didn't know I had any control over. Yeah,
I mean, I think that's exactly the point. In the
same way that Amazon created a website that allowed you
to access any of the world's products in a simple,
seamless way, we needed to create a digital product that
would allow consumers to access the clean energy products, whether
(08:38):
that be the power that powers their home, or the
devices in their home that give them more control but
save energy, the solar storage, and you know, in the
future kind of the electric mobility technologies, they need that
freedom and just kind of a completely virtual energy platform.
And so that's kind of for us. We're just really
trying to build that top to bottom platform and just
(08:58):
hopefully empower the next generation of of consumers that seem
to care a lot about these issues. We care a
lot about these issues. We also have like you know,
loss aversion, and you know, we value our time and
our convenience. Like, I'm definitely against the destabilized congo. I
still use my iPhone with Colton that was mine from there.
I just can't even imagine if every time you ordered
(09:20):
something internationally you had to fill out customs forms. And
that's why it just always comes back to again, the consumer.
How do you build a consumer facing kind of digital
experience that disintermediates everything downstream just to give them the
power to choose what they want when they want it,
and ideally do it in a way that enlightens them, uh,
in their experience. I know that Inspire has a focus
(09:44):
on new generation, but do you mind unpacking that a
little bit further? What I would say is, you know,
the the energy sector special and specifically the electricity sector,
it's a really challenging, you know kind of area. And
the reason is because you know, ultimately the laws of
physics kind of per event, you know, an electron going
from you know, point A to point B, it's just yeah,
(10:06):
it's going to follow the path at least resistance. And
so you know the world is kind of thought really
long and hard about how best to solve that issue.
So that when Jeff Rosenthal says he wants to adopt
clean energy, It wants to use clean energy to power
his home. Like, how do we actually make that happen?
How do we allow Jeff to take claim to that
and to actually support those resources? And so, you know
(10:29):
what Inspired is it said, listen, we need to build
a piece of technology that sits on top of the
grid that allows Jeff Rosenthal to say, if I want
to adopt clean energy, I can join the Inspired platform
and then Inspire can connect me through to those environmental
resources that then ultimately power Jeff's home. And so I
think that's kind of the interconnection play that needed to
(10:51):
take place, And I think that's kind of where we've
really focused in terms of the way we think about, Like,
you know, what is the principles of the generation we see?
We seek to always purchase from, you know, newer generation
facilities predominantly wind and solar facilities that kind of aligned
with you know, just providing the highest quality renewable resources
(11:13):
to the grid. And you know, when you're buying from Inspire,
you can kind of know that you're directly supporting those resources,
even though the exact electron may not come into your
house because we didn't actually put a windmill into your
front yard, right, We kind of have to build that
connection layer so that you can access those things. A
lot of it comes down to figure out like how
do we empower Jeff Rosenthal to say in less than
(11:35):
five minutes, I want to eliminate my carbon impact. Is
the whole world is going that zero carbon? How can
we bring that down to the individual consumer? And that's
how we think about kind of building this virtual energy
platform to make that connection. You know, one of the
things that I often steal from you and don't attribute
when I'm talking about their friends is how you talk
about energy and power and electricity as an enabling technology.
(11:58):
Do you mind unpacking that a little further? You know,
one of the things that I think it has always
been kind of for me an organizing principle, is that,
you know, if you want to create the Amazon moment
in this space, you have to focus on the consumer.
We kind of need that consumer to be a king.
We need retail to become a digital transformative consumer experience.
(12:20):
We need, you know, same thing as media with Netflix
or you know, kind of hospitality with with the Airbnb.
We kind of need that same moment to happen here
and if you start there, then you'd say, well, you
know electricity. You know, nobody goes to their their light
you know switch and says, you know what I want
to do right now, I wanna I want to use
some electricity. Right they go to that light switch and
(12:41):
they say I want light. And so when I think,
when you kind of when you make that leap, you
start to say, okay, cool, Then how do I improve
the experiences of getting light, or how do I improve
the experiences of getting mobility, or how do I improve
the experiences of my climate through my thermostatic technology. When
you solve those those actual consumer needs, you can ultimately
(13:04):
then transform the source of that power and ensure it's
all you know, it's all being powered through net zero
carbon technologies. You know, you need to create sustainable social
impact and to me, the way to do that is
to figure out how do you build impact in a
way that's intrinsic to your business model. Mean, by virtue
of success you are in, you know, having a one
(13:25):
to one accretion to your ability to have impact. It's
it's when they become you know, a side CSR project
that it becomes unsustainable. We just try to align everything
top to bottom and say, by bringing a new subscriber
onto our platform, this is going to immediately eliminate eight
thousand pounds of coal from you know, from having been
(13:47):
burned or you know, the carbon emissions associated with that.
We need more users on platform, We need to solve
more of their problems, so more users continue to join.
We'll be back with more art of the Hustle after
the break. You know, I know you grew up in
(14:10):
Chicago with just your mom. Correct, that's right, that's right.
What sort of things do you think, you know have
emerged for you that you apply to your own home
or to your work, that you know come from that
period of your life? You know, I often like to
take a step back, and you know, when I'm interviewing
folks to join Inspire, just you know, generally I always
(14:30):
like to just start with the question kind of tell
me the story of your life, and you know, start
at the beginning. And and I think for me, when
I take a step back and really think about what
the beginning of that story was for me, it kind
of goes back to that first memory I had, you know,
as a child, like literally the actual first memory I
can recall, and it was actually me sitting on my
(14:51):
front porch with my mom and my sister. Next time
I started watching my dad walk away to his car
to to never come back. And I think, when I
think about that moment, and this is of course a
story that so many I think people in this country experience,
is that the experience of growing up in a single
(15:11):
parent household and watching kind of the plight of the
single mother and candidly the lessons that you learn and
watching what you know a single mother has to go
through to figure out, you know, how do I how
do I put food on the table, how do I
have the resilience and optimism to keep this family together?
(15:31):
How do I how do I just keep it together
candidly while also you know, doing everything else that life requires.
There's so many lessons and so many parallels that I
take from that moment. And as much as that may
have been a challenge growing up, I probably said many
times myself that I'm actually really grateful that I had
to go through some of that adversity. And as much
(15:51):
as I feel bad for my mom for having had
to have lived through it, the lessons you learned that
you take forward from an entrepreneurship from entrepreneurship perspective and
just from a life perspective are probably things that guide
me the most today. Right the relentlessness and persistence that's
required to build a company from a piece of paper
through to scale is the same thing that I think
(16:13):
my mom felt when, you know, she was left with
no money and two kids and you know, just mortgage
and I had to go figure it out. And I
think that the other thing that comes from the type
of experiences and frankly, just any sort of like you know,
trauma that we experience that also leads to a lot
of empathy, you know what I mean, and sympathy for
(16:33):
other people, um and what they're going through and and
you know, relentlessness is one component of being like a
really great entrepreneur. For sure, it's impossible to do without it.
But I think that that next level up is these
things like sympathy and empathy and human relation and like
just frankly, being a good leader. I don't necessarily see
myself that way as like a talented leader. I've never
(16:55):
really been like the team captain. I love being an organizer,
I love being on a team, but I've always respected,
you know, captains frankly, and you're a captain. You've got
captain energy. So I'm when you you know, so again,
like we we're talking about like the formative years and experiences,
you know, like that relentlessness piece. Does that resonate with you?
Do you think that the empathy and sympathy sympathy part
(17:17):
has been as important? Yeah? Absolutely absolutely. I mean I think,
you know, for me, a couple of things have been true,
and especially at Inspired is just this desire to just
lead passionately and authentically through how I really feel and
what I really value. And I do think that a
(17:37):
lot of that I personally ascribed to kind of growing
up in that single parent household, but just an amazing
mom who is unbelievably loving and a sister who was
also an amazing support system, and and just bringing that
energy through to guide an organization with empathy and authenticity
is to me what I've always kind of found to
(17:58):
be a little bit of a I always say it's
like a happy accident, meaning I didn't realize what it was.
But the deeper I kind of began to just lean
into that, the more I found it gave me just
the power of community and the power of real connection,
and I think for me, it's interesting when I think
back to kind of some of the stories that I
(18:19):
remember and inspired. I remember there was a phase early
on when you starting up and beginning to build the
business and build out our team, and and maybe there
was a moment when I was not always making all
of the decisions through the lens of what I was
really a kind of purpose driven or passionate about. And
(18:40):
I remember in all of those moments, I made the
wrong decision, and ultimately, you know, there came a time
when I realized that I needed to make a significant change,
and indeed kind of made a very significant change to
the culture and staff. I remember kind of sitting there
and just saying, listen, I don't care. But what I
what I care most about is that I'm going to
to work every day and build a company based on purpose,
(19:02):
to build a company based on mission. This is what
drives me. I believe we need to attack climate, and
we need to do that through accelerating the clean ergy transition.
And it turns out that when you lead through, at
least for me, what I've found is when when you
lead so clearly and so deeply and so authentically through
that mission and that purpose. There might just be a
(19:23):
lot of people, if it's noble enough, that actually also
care about that same thing. You know, you've been, you know,
transitioning and hiring really amazing people. Has that been hard
for you to like let go of your attachment or
direction of certain components of the product, or has it
just been, you know, a true pleasure when talented people
join the cause. And I'd say I feel very lucky
(19:48):
to feel like I I generally approach life from the
perspective of I don't know, and I think from that
perspective it allows me to just speak endlessly curious about learning,
and that means that there's so much I can learn
from every single person, whether that be you know, a
new entry level employee that's joined our business, or you know,
(20:09):
the opportunity to learn from some of the world's greatest
thought leaders, you know in the clean energy transition or
kind of climate you know. Fight. So I think throughout
this journey, if I have, I had to say the
thing that kind of really guides my energy the most,
it's just this constant opportunity to learn and grow and
drive that makes it so that you know, every new
(20:30):
moment and every new transition to me, even if it's hard,
is just kind of seen through the prism of what
an amazing opportunity to learn, What an amazing opportunity to grow.
And there's kind of no point that's more clear in
that journey than when you bring on a new leader,
a new executive, a new manager, director that just has
(20:53):
a set of experiences that you do not have, whether
it be personal or professional. And then if you you know,
just starting from that position of learning this, you know,
the opportunity is just to aggregate that knowledge and to
learn and to empower those folks and kind of coach
and develop them to to find their you know, their
greatest you know, their greatest joy. And one important message
(21:15):
for the moment that we're all in during COVID and
you know, the social upheaval that we're all experiencing right now.
But uh, but in this moment, I find that, you
know that the companies that we see thriving are the
ones that you know, are sort of breaking the shackles
of self definition and really like honing in on the
core and highest purpose those organizations can provide. And I
(21:38):
see a lot of organizations that are also just sort
of like stuck in neutral sort of waiting this out.
I remember, you know, uh, I think I guess it
was maybe end of March of this year. I think
is the world was really just beginning to realize that
everything was going to shut down and that you know,
we were about to find ourselves in the midst of
(21:58):
this pandemic and you know, kind of looking out at
our executive team and just saying, you know, listen, this
looks like it's going to be a real thing. But
it's in the moments of adversity like this that the
greatest opportunities present themselves. And I think the opportunity for
us is to ask ourselves, how are we going to
take this moment and use it as our moment to
(22:19):
create the most amount of opportunity for our mission, for
our cause, for our employees, for you know, for everyone.
And I think that that's It's been an inspiring rally
crawl across a rarey cry across our organization that's resulted
in just you know, continued transformation, really just an acceleration
of everything that we've been doing. And I think it's
been so lucky. Is it seems like we're now finally
(22:42):
at the moment we used to say, you know, we
we think clean energy and the energy transition is going
to be inevitable. We're not sure if it's imminent. And
I think as we take a step back, it feels
like for some reason, in all the things that we've
observed and so many challenges that the world has faced,
it does feel like in this year, we've now finally
(23:02):
seen this, you know, this reality that the world now
seems to think that this transition is imminent. You know,
it's we've always known it's been inevitable, but now the
tail winds. I've never felt the kind of tail winds
that we feel today, And candidly it's a bit disorienting
but really energizing at the same time. Art of the
hustle will be right back after this short break, you know,
(23:31):
I think about when you talk about like wanting to
get things done, there's the simulation of the thing in
your head, and then there's just like the actions, right,
and like it's so encouraging to see, you know, a
generation below us really leading a lot of like the
modern protest movement around the world and in this country,
because it's like people actually sacrificing their own comfort for
(23:51):
the rights of others. It's so encouraging. And similarly, when
you look at like technological evolution for humanity in nine,
we couldn't break the earth atmosphere in by nineteen sixty nine,
you know, through the space program we landed a man
on the moon. So I mean, for you, like, where
does this take your head? Like, what's the what's the
future that you want to live in? Yeah, I couldn't
(24:13):
agree with you more. I mean, we need that exact
type of transition to occur within you know, the energy
transition if we even hope to have a chance addressing
you know, the climate crisis that we're all experiencing. And
so I think there's a graph that I often point
to that shows carbon dioxide levels over the last four
(24:35):
thousand years, and then what we see has happened over
the industrial era where that's now gone to consistently historic
and repeated highs, and then how that correlates with temperature,
and what that future looks like if we don't begin
to address that change. I think what we said, you know,
the climate crisis is truly going to be the defining
(24:57):
issue of our generation. And at the same time, it's
also I believe personally the greatest financial opportunity. And when
you find the intersection of those two things, the opportunity
to do well and do good, you know, you truly
have the greatest I think personal you know, kind of
opportunity that that could exist. And so that's I think
(25:17):
where we look at first. But I think what's always
missing from that is just the consumer sentiment. And again,
when we first launched to Inspire in two thousand and fourteen,
you know, there was a small segment of the consumers
that really seem to kind of resonate with this, you know,
clean energy value proposition and believed it was going to
be important to our future. And now we sit there
(25:37):
and look in the world and we find that you know,
nearly you know, eight and ten people in this country
believe the clean energy is important to our future and
that we need to be investing there. And so, you
know that the politics will kind of lead you to
believe a different set of facts than you know, what
people will actually tell you when you survey, and for
different reasons. You know, I think that the reality is
(25:58):
that it seems like that can Sumer Bell Weather has
finally shifted and and we're seeing it again at the
global level, whether that be the federal know, the global governments.
And then we find that down at the corporate level
with folks like Amazon and their climate pledge. I don't
know if you saw it, you know, yesterday for an example,
have They'm now looking to kind of label their products
on the Amazon marketplace, you know, as you kind of
(26:21):
socially responsible alignment their climate pledge that's now the largest
pledged endowment in climate is the BESA. I believe it
was what ten or twenty billion dollars they just set
aside that they intend to dedicate to the climate fight
exactly exactly. And so so it does seem like that
consumer bell weather has finally shifted, and it seems like,
you know, I think we're seeing that transformation take place,
(26:44):
and that's encouraging to me when it's led by the customer.
I think that, you know, fortunately and with it to
a degree. But just in this example, like you know,
part of the reason why you know, the Amazon and
the extended family has the resources to make that kind
of edge, and that you know, like we all need
that in our you know, karma, is that we're all
(27:06):
consuming more every day, Like every household everywhere. I believe
that the start of the pandemic in the US, four
percent of Americans were getting groceries delivered. Now it's forty.
And I don't know about you, but every time that
happens at my home, there's like the silver like like
refrigerator bags, and there's all the paper bags, and there's like,
I don't know, I feel like every American that has
(27:29):
the means is consuming more and more. And I think
that's a global trend. And frankly, a lot of the
people that hold environmentalism in their hearts and and like
and externally define themselves as environmentalists are also part of
those consumers, right, Like they're the ones taking more flights,
eating steak on a more regular basis. Like I don't know,
I'm I'm just I'm curious how you think about this,
(27:49):
because there is this like interesting push poll to where
like we seem to be on this endless, you know,
like uncontrollable urge to consume as a species, and yet
we also recognize that it will be our death right,
like we will be and and I guess to put
it in really like dark terms, like when when you say,
you know, the defining generational issue, not to take away
(28:12):
from anything that's happening today, but when like you know,
eighteen of the most populous cities in the world have
to like relocate or where you know, like rivers flood
and and you know, wars begin, Like there's a lot
of climate and food based issues are the reasons for
you know, the wars of the last thousand years, Right,
(28:32):
So it's like, um, I'm just curious, Like you know,
I think that I agree with you. I am also encouraged,
but I'm also a little afraid of our nature. Yes,
I think I think you're I think you're right to
be afraid, and I think, you know, to your point,
if you look at that same chart I was just referencing,
it's then the last hundred years that you see the
massive up into the right, and that's been just driven
(28:53):
by well, really you know, a the industrialization of our
economy and the ability to consume at those levels. Right,
We've industrialized every major segment of the economy and have
created for us the opportunity to massively produce carbon in
the process of that. At the same time, what we're
(29:14):
seeing is now the electrification and decarbonization of all of
those activities and so I think that, you know, when
I take a step back and look at those activits,
and yes, we're consuming more, and yes, that is why
we need to ensure that we're decarbonizing the value chains
of all of those activities to then result in, you know,
the ability to consume because consumers are absolutely going to
(29:38):
continue to seek to live their lives in a more
friction this way, what we can do is solve the
issues of decarbonizing the value chains that have gotten to
those products. I hear you and you guys are at
sort of like the bottom of the pyramid. Like if
if a coal fired power plant provides my electricity and
that's what's powering my electric car, I'm still in you know,
(30:00):
carbon negative cycle. But if I can you know, start
at the basis of like where this is being generated,
then everything down that value chain you're saying has the
opportunity carbonized. Right, the whole world is becoming electrified. Every
every every single piece of our economy will will ultimately
become electrified over time. And what we there with then
(30:22):
then what there then follows is we need to ensure
that all of that is coming from nets your carbon
forms of production. Well, dude, I think this has been
an incredible interview. I really appreciate you letting me just
pepper you with questions across history, inspire and then just
global macro issues. No, man, I'm so grateful to have
(30:45):
been able to join. As I shared you You've always
been an inspiration to me and so many entrepreneurs you know,
like me. I know that there's so many people within
the stomit community that you know, have have in boldened
their commitment to you know, having purpose and creating purpose
(31:05):
driven business is really due to your leadership and the
leadership of the Summits. So really honored to be able
to be a part of it with you and to
share this life of you. But well, thank you, thank
you Patrick, thank you for joining us on the podcast.
And if you want to learn more about Inspire Clean Energy,
head over to Inspire Clean Energy dot com. And I
believe you guys are about to scale nationally, correct that's right. Yeah,
(31:29):
we're now in the process of beginning to open up
our platform nationally um throughout early this year and uh
in one. All right, Well, thank you again, lots of
love and see you next time. Awesome. Thanks Jeff for
(32:00):
more podcasts from my iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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