Inevitable

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 describes how her background at Palantir ...

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 ye...

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 ...

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 gigawa...

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, a...

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 ...

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, ...

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...

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,...

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 beac...

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 ...

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 r...

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 year...

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 Inspir...

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‑scienc...

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...

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 donat...

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...

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 ...