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“Who deeply influenced the person and the startup leader you are today?”

I posed this question in a recent EFI climate CEO peer group meeting. Here’s a story about my answer.

Dr. Sam McFarland ran the Western Kentucky University (WKU) honors program when I was there about 30 years ago.

One Christmas holiday, I got an early morning call from Sam.

I was in bed, groggy, thinking, “Who in their right mind would call me this early?”

He said, “There’s this Barry Goldwater Scholarship in math and science. Applications are due soon. I think you could win. How about you come back to WKU from holiday early, and I’ll work on it with you?”

Coming back early was sacrilege. But he had confidence in me.

So…

I crafted a plan for a mobile environmental bioremediation technology, and I won the scholarship.

OK, I’m not that special. I was one of 250 math and science nerds in the US who won it.

The funds allowed me to study rainforest ecology on an island in Panama and monastic living in an ancient walled city in Spain.

That Spain experience later helped me connect with my future wife. She had studied there, too. A year later, while we were both teaching in Japan, it became one of our first connections.

The result?

A Cape Verdean immigrant to the US meets a small-town Kentucky boy in a five-star Tokyo hotel.

Obviously.

You can’t make this stuff up.

I recently thought about reaching out to Sam to say thank you.

Unfortunately, my Google research showed an in memoriam post from the American Psychological Association. I was too late.

Don’t make my mistake.

Tell your mentors early.

And if you see something in someone that they don’t yet see in themselves, tell them. You have no idea where it might lead.

Thanks again, Sam.

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That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Listen to our Climate CEOs podcast: This electric truck is half the size of a normal truck and just as useful | TELO Trucks

P.P.S. The Zen Zone: “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, honorable, compassionate.” ~ Emerson

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Highlight: Your best employee might be making everyone else worse.

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A CEO came to me with a painful decision.

One of the company’s most valuable executives was brilliant.

They had helped build the company for years. They knew things nobody else knew.

So far, so good.

There was just one problem.

Their EQ was way lower than their IQ.

Managing tech? No problem.

Managing people? Lots of problems.

Turns out humans are harder to engineer.

So should you fire them?

Maybe.

But “fire toxic people immediately” is easy advice from people who don’t have to run your VC-backed startup.

24/7.

Removing a critical executive creates its own problems: lost knowledge, customer uncertainty, team disruption, and investor leverage.

The better question:

When is their damage > their value?

Four things I’d do:

1. Measure team output, not individual output.

Stop asking, “How good is this person?”

Ask: “What happens to everyone else’s performance because this person is here?”

You’re optimizing for enterprise value, not individual relationships.

Optimize the system, not the component.

2. Separate the person from the company stage.

Someone can be a superhero at getting a company from zero to one. And terrible at getting it from one to 100.

That doesn’t mean you made a hiring mistake.

The company changed. The job changed. Maybe they changed, too.

Yesterday’s perfect energy technology can become tomorrow’s stranded asset. So can talent.

3. Don’t confuse “fire” with “fire tomorrow.”

If the person owns key relationships, knowledge, or execution, an immediate exit can create more damage than it solves.

Build the transition plan. Recruit the successor. Protect their direct reports.

Quickly.

But…

Urgency ≠ recklessness.

4. Understand what they actually care about.

This matters when negotiating a graceful exit.

It’s not about your logic. It’s about theirs.

Money isn’t everyone’s primary currency.

It might be status. Power. Reputation. Mission.

And crafting the story they tell themselves, or the world, about what happened.

After you make the decision, ask:

Do I feel more sadness? Or relief?

You may feel both.

But relief is data.

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That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Zen Zone: Which are you solving for: “freedom to” vs. “freedom from”?

P.P.S. Climate CEOs podcast: The Ocean’s Billion-Ton Carbon Removal Opportunity | Gigablue: What if the cheapest, largest carbon removal machine on Earth isn’t a factory, but phytoplankton in the ocean? A $20M Series A says they might be right.

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Highlight: Climate tech is getting funded. Just not for climate.

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The 5 lessons

1. AI is creating a second climate capital market.

Everyone wanted a piece of a foundational AI model.

Turns out the model needs a power plant before it needs a prompt.

Verse. Aston Power. Antora.

None of them are selling a cleaner planet. They are selling an outlet before your competitor finds one.

This also helps companies like Commonwealth Fusion ($1B) and Thea Energy ($100M) raise massive rounds. Climate tech can now tap into AI infrastructure budgets.

Somewhere, a fusion physicist is thanking a chatbot.

Takeaway: The addressable pool of capital just got bigger.

2. Climate tech is becoming a national security asset.

Antares sells into military installations.

Sila reduces dependence on Chinese battery materials.

Foundation Alloy strengthens domestic manufacturing.

Different technologies. Same shift.

Takeaway: National security can underwrite technologies climate markets couldn’t.

3. Scarcity may be more investable than substitution.

Terra AI helps find minerals.

Cuprum helps squeeze more copper from existing resources.

Neither requires customers to adopt a new green product category.

They’re selling into an existing shortage.

Takeaway: Removing a bottleneck may be easier to finance than replacing an incumbent.

4. Cost parity is becoming the floor, not the ambition.

Revoy targets diesel economics.

Lydian targets cost-competitive SAF.

NxLite sells retrofit ROI.

The interesting shift isn’t that green products need to compete on cost. We’ve known that forever.

Investors are less willing to subsidize a green premium.

Takeaway: Climate capital is behaving more like normal growth capital.

5. The best climate companies increasingly don’t need a climate thesis.

This is the thread connecting the other four.

AI needs the power.

The military needs resilient energy.

Industry needs copper.

Customers need cheaper products.

Carbon reduction still matters. But increasingly, it’s not the lead.

It lives in the appendix. (And, oh, how I loved appendices.)

Takeaway: The strongest climate thesis may be the one that survives without climate.

The 20 financings

Note: I’m focusing only on North American corporate raises over $12M. And I surely missed some!

Energy generation, storage & grid

Commonwealth Fusion Systems - $1B equity financing

• Commercial fusion power using high-field tokamak technology

• CEO: Bob Mumgaard

• Investors: institutional investors, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds

Antora Energy - $550M Series C

• Thermal batteries for power and heat to data centers and industry

• CEO: Andrew Ponec

• Investors: G2 Venture Partners, Eclipse, Breakthrough Energy Ventures

Antares - $470M Series C ($370M equity, $100M is debt)

• Compact nuclear microreactors for remote and defense applications

• CEO: Jordan Bramble

• Investors: Paradigm, Caffeinated Capital, Point72 Ventures

Thea Energy - $100M Series B

• Simplified stellarator fusion plants using modular magnet systems

• CEO: Brian Berzin

• Investors: USIT, General Innovation Capital Partners, Linse Capital

Verse - $54M Series B

• Software helping data centers secure and manage power

• CEO: Seyed Madaeni

• Investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, GV, NVIDIA

Endurance Energy - $54M Series A

• Offshore geothermal systems tapping heat beneath the seafloor

• CEO: Andrew Redd

• Investors: Founders Fund, Construct Capital, Felicis Ventures

Aston Power - $20M Series A

• Power delivery platform for AI data centers and large-scale industrial infrastructure

• CEO: Greg Robinson

• Investors: TDK Ventures, Building Ventures, JLL Spark

Materials, mining & manufacturing

Sila - $300M private financing

• Silicon-carbon anodes increasing lithium-ion battery energy density

• CEO: Gene Berdichevsky

• Investors: Atreides Management, Sutter Hill Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners

Foundation Alloy - $22M Series A

• Advanced metal alloys manufactured without conventional melting processes

• CEO: Jake Guglin

• Investors: Voyager Ventures, Yamaha Motor Ventures, Material Impact

Terra AI - $20M Series A

• AI modeling for mineral and subsurface resource exploration

• CEO: John Mern

• Investors: Khosla Ventures, BHP Ventures

Cuprum Metals - $19.4M Series A

• Water-based technology extracting copper from challenging ore deposits

• CEO: Roger Pettman

• Investors: Lundin Family Office, Woodline Partners, BHP Ventures

NxLite - $13.1M Series A

• Energy-control coatings for windows and other transparent surfaces

• CEO: David Mather

• Investors: Crabtree Lane Alt, VoLo Earth Ventures, Earth Foundry

Transportation & fuels

Lydian - $43M Series A

• Lower-cost synthetic aviation fuel production technology and projects

• CEO: Joe Rodden

• Investors: Breakthrough Energy Ventures, AP Ventures, Builders Vision

Evotrex - $30M Series A

• Electric RV trailer with battery storage, solar, and onboard power generation

• CEO: Alex Xiao

• Investors: GSR United Capital, Forebright Concerto Capital, Unique Capital

Revoy - $27M Series A

• Electric propulsion system retrofitting existing diesel tractor-trailers

• CEO: Peter Reinhardt

• Investors: Standard Capital, XYZ Venture Capital, Doerr Capital, Y Combinator

Carbon, water & industrial technology

Captura - $12.5M Series B first close

• Electrochemical platform for ocean carbon and direct lithium extraction

• CEO: Steve Oldham

• Investors: Equinor Ventures, EDP Ventures, Eni Next, Hitachi Ventures

P2 Science - $23M growth round

• Green chemistry converting renewable feedstocks into specialty materials

• CEO: Oihana Elizalde

• Investors: Sofinnova Partners, BASF, Chanel

Food & agriculture

Hippo Harvest - $30M Series C

• Robotic greenhouses growing produce with fewer natural resources

• CEO: Eitan Marder-Eppstein

• Investors: Cox Farms, Collaborative Fund, Congruent Ventures

Phytokana Ingredients - C$25M financing

• Plant-protein ingredients produced through dry fractionation technology

• CEO: Chris Theal

• Investors: Strategic investor and existing shareholders

Leaf Agriculture - $13M Series B

• Data infrastructure connecting farm machinery and agricultural software

• CEO: G. Bailey Stockdale

• Investors: Leaps by Bayer, undisclosed strategic and financial investors

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That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Zen Zone: Can a single person oversee 35 businesses with 7,000 employees and be a dedicated Zen mindfulness practitioner? This Vietnamese CEO says yes.

P.P.S. Climate CEOs podcast: From OpenAI to $500M in Project Finance for Sustainable Forestry | How do you turn degraded farmland into an investable climate asset? Living Carbon and CEO Maddie Hall are combining reforestation, degraded land, biomass, and long-term infrastructure thinking.

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Your CRM probably contains millions of dollars in imaginary revenue.

Because climate startups mistake interest for intent.

Customers say:

• “Really interesting.”

• “This fits our decarbonization strategy.”

• “Let’s stay in touch.”

Congratulations.

You’ve earned a compliment. But QuickBooks shows $0.

Instead, ask:

• How are you solving this today?

• What did that cost you last year?

• Where would the budget come from?

Enter The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you by Rob Fitzpatrick.

Climate tech founders love explaining technology. Customers care about explaining pain.

Spend your first meeting:

• 70% diagnosing

• 30% pitching

Look for evidence:

• Quantified cost or risk

• Approved budget this fiscal year

• Buyer with spending authority

• Decision timeline

• A real next commitment

If those don’t exist, neither does your pipeline.

It’s just climate flirting.

Before your next board meeting, review every “likely” deal. Ask these four questions:

• Is the pain measured in dollars?

• Is there an approved budget?

• Who signs off?

• Has the customer made a meaningful commitment?

Forget “brag-a-watts” or billion-dollar whales that once winked at you.

Hope is not a sales strategy. Or a financing strategy.

It’s pain not yet realized.

Plenty of startups mistake pipeline for revenue. Investors notice the difference.

Many buyers have an innovation team. Fewer have an actual budget.

Find buyers with a headache. Not buyers browsing supplements.

Advil beats creatine every time.

👉 Get more details:

Read the book. It’s a funny and quick Audible listen.

Or get my three-page summary.

That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Listen to our Climate CEOs podcast: The $230M Bet on Turning Homes Into Power Plants | Kunal Girota, CEO of Lunar Energy — What if your home could cut electricity bills by 60%, survive weeks without the grid, and earn money while you sleep? 150,000 homes have been helped so far.

P.P.S. Zen Zone: Which is more important to you: freedom or relevancy?

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In my reader survey last week, many of you expressed interest in occasional deeper dives in this newsletter.

Here’s my first experiment.

Hit reply to this email and let me know what you think.

Every climate CEO should understand why big projects fail.

Not because you’re all building nuclear plants. (And if you are, God bless you.)

But because climate change will require building more infrastructure over the next 30 years than humanity has ever attempted.

IEA, BNEF, and McKinsey say we need roughly $5–9T invested every year.

Last year? $2.3T.

Not too shabby.

But kind of like bringing home a grade of B- with two professors as parents.

Building more won’t be enough.

We also have to build better.

Because…

Big projects are usually late or over budget.

Based on 16,000 projects over 25 years in 136 countries:

• 52% are over budget, with average cost overruns of 62%

• 60% are late, averaging 44% behind schedule

• 99.5% are late, over budget, or did not meet project expectations

Yikes.

The good news…

Solar and wind projects perform the best.

1% and 13% cost overruns.

0% and 10% delays.

The same can’t be said yet for new low-carbon technologies.

But six human biases are serious roadblocks to success.

(Yes, sad pun intended. I’m a father, and it is my duty to speak them often.)

Most people think projects fail because of engineering.

Bent Flyvbjerg’s massive database suggests something else:

The engineering usually isn’t the problem. The humans are.

1. Optimism bias

We all think our projects will be the exception. No permitting delays. No supplier bankruptcy. No tariff surprises. No utility asking for “just one more study.” (Lord, help me.) History’s not so optimistic.

2. Uniqueness bias

Many CEOs think their project is a snowflake.

Sometimes they’re right. And sometimes the first draft of our pitch deck actually gets funded. (hilarious, I know)

3. Early lock-in

The first budget and timeline come from meetings when nobody has enough information to know either one.

Five years later, everyone acts surprised that yesterday’s guess became today’s promise.

4. The billion-dollar white lie

Sometimes projects aren’t underestimated by accident.

The real numbers wouldn’t survive the investment committee.

Once construction starts, false optimism quietly becomes everyone else’s problem.

5. Sunk cost fallacy

We’ve already spent $200M. Surely spending another $200M will fix it.

Discipline? Or dishonesty and denial?

Don’t fuel a burning dumpster fire. Sometimes quitting is cheaper than perseverance.

6. Availability bias

One successful project makes us overconfident. One failed project makes us overly cautious.

Neither is data. They’re anecdotes. Short-term memory.

Follow these rules for better big projects. 16,000 projects know more than you do.

“Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others’ experience.” ~ Otto von Bismarck

Don’t be the fool.

7. Slow planning is fast execution

This sounds like a Zen koan.

But it’s actually one of the biggest findings in the book.

Erasing a pencil line costs pennies. Rebuilding parts of a power plant later costs millions.

Invest time getting the design right so you don’t want to fist-fight your EPC later. Think slow, act fast.

8. Ask why before what

Executives might approve the $20M manufacturing line before agreeing on the real $2M problem they’re trying to solve.

Ask “why” repeatedly until you uncover the real pain point. You might just need a simple process shift instead of concrete and steel.

9. Use Reference Class Forecasting

Your gut is an optimist. Historical data is not.

Forget the boilerplate 10% contingency. Look at how badly similar projects blew their budgets and schedules; then plan for reality instead of wishful thinking. If the data doesn’t exist, beg and borrow the wisdom of experts across related projects.

10. Hire master builders

Don’t let your first-of-a-kind climate project become someone else’s on-the-job training program.

Hire people who’ve already earned the scars, gray hair, and therapy bills building your exact asset class.

11. Build modular (”Bespoke” is a four-letter word)

Every customized feature makes engineers smile today, and CFOs cry two years from now.

Find your LEGO brick (e.g., solar panels, battery cells, or modular housing), copy it shamelessly, and save your creativity for the business model.

More and more of the CEOs I work with rely on this approach.

12. Try before you buy

It’s much cheaper to embarrass yourself in a simulation than during commercial operation.

Break your darling assumptions with prototypes, digital twins, and simulations, over and over again, before reality does it for you.

13. Say “no” to untested technology, sometimes

Unproven tech multiplies errors.

Use commercial, off-the-shelf components for the majority of project needs. Innovate on the small remainder.

One thing I love hearing from climate CEOs: “Ninety-five percent of our system is boring.”

That’s usually a good sign.

That 5% of innovation makes the whole thing game-changing.

14. Protect the “window of vulnerability”

Every extra month gives inflation, tariffs, elections, utilities, and supply chains another chance to ruin your spreadsheet. Black Swans may be beautiful, but you don’t want them visiting your project.

Compress the time between investment decision and first revenue because calendar time compounds risk. Get teams on your timeline by using their own self-interest.

15. Kill the “us vs. them” contracts

Nothing delays a project faster than five contractors explaining why the delay belongs to someone else.

Draft “skin-in-the-game” deals where contractors earn bonuses for on-time, on-budget completion and share equal pain if they don’t.

Most project failures aren’t engineering failures.

They’re decision failures.

So, my wish for you all:

• May your projects be modular.

• Your contractors aligned.

• And your optimism moderated.

Not quite a Hallmark card. But it’s the thought that counts.

One book that could save your next big project millions:

This award-winning book inspired this post.

When I listened to it, I kept thinking: All climate entrepreneurs need to hear this.

• How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner

That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Listen to our Climate CEOs podcast: “The Robot Crew Building Solar Farms Faster Than Humans” — 4,000-pound robots helping solar developers install panels faster, safer, and with fewer defects…using “virtual conveyor belts” while financing fleets through sale-leaseback structures | Jay Wong, CEO of Luminous

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Today’s newsletter is different than the others.

After 245 issues, 50,000 readers, and 1.5 million views, I have just one question…

How can I make Climate CEOs more useful for you?

Hit reply to this email and share answers to questions like these:

1. Which length is better?

• (a) 2-minute brief

• (b) 5-minute deeper dives

• (c) both

2. Which 2 topics make you most likely to read?

• (a) deals / capital

• (b) growth / strategy

• (c) leadership / hiring

• (d) climate market trends

• (e) mindset / resilience

3. Finish this sentence…

• “I wish Climate CEOs helped me solve ____.”

4. Bonus question (optional):

• What would make you share Climate CEOs with a friend?

—

Even a 30-second reply would be super helpful. I read every response.

Cave man speak is just fine.

Before I end too abruptly, I hate to leave you empty handed, so here are…

3 popular prior Climate CEOs issues, ICYMI.

Fund Vintage > Pitch Deck

• Investors with the driest powder | Make better decisions: OOCEMR Tool |

  Take responsibility, give credit

Fire Your “Snowflake” Customers

• Gross margin: quality > percent | Quiz: 5 types of wealth | Motivation: identity > consequences

Busy is the New Stupid

• Optionality’s balance sheet cost | McKinsey’s Three Horizons of Growth | Stop “complain-bragging” about how busy you are

That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Zen Zone: If someone or something “makes you angry,” have you given all your power and autonomy away?

P.P.S. Climate CEOs podcast: Data > Hardware: 190% Net Revenue Retention for the Operating System for the Power Grid | Sanjiv Sanghavi, CEO of Texture

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If you could invest one more dollar in climate, where would it remove the most CO₂?

Most investors optimize for project returns.

This framework asks a different question: Which investments make every future project easier?

The new Transition Acceleration Framework tries to answer that question.

Along with its creators:

• CalSTRS — one of the world’s largest pension investors ($400B)

• Generate Capital — leading sustainable infrastructure investor ($16B)

• Rhodium Group — leading nonpartisan climate/energy research

The answer:

The farther right a technology sits, the greater its expected climate impact per dollar invested.

Not because it’s bigger today, but because it helps unlock the next wave of deployment.

The logic:

Build a new system over time.

Not just one company or one project.

Systems change makes the next 100 projects easier, faster, or cheaper by:

• Reducing future costs through learning curves

• Unlocking new sources of project finance

• Building supply chains and manufacturing capacity

• Expanding markets and customer demand

• Strengthening policy and regulatory support

Who finances systems change?

Not multi-billion-dollar infrastructure funds.

Their motto: Never lose money.

Asking them to fund first-of-a-kind projects is like asking your grandparents to invest in crypto.

For now.

Instead, it’s:

• Family offices

• Syndicates and angel investors

• Venture capital

• Corporate venture capital

• Philanthropic capital

• Government grants

Beyond equity, the tools also look different:

• Recoverable grants

• Revolving funds

• First-loss capital

• Pre-purchases of low-carbon assets (e.g., our work at Terraset)

• D-SAFE (Development Simple Agreement for Future Equity)

One important distinction.

The best investment depends on the question you’re trying to answer. Annoying, I know.

Catalytic capital

• Goal: Changing tomorrow’s energy system

• Strategy: Back earlier-stage technologies

• Mindset: 0 → 1

• Example: Low-carbon cement wins. (graph above)

Deployment capital

• Goal: Maximize today’s deployment

• Strategy: Invest in mature technologies

• Mindset: 1 → n

• Example: Light duty EVs (graph below)

That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Zen Zone: “Wanting to reform the world without [doing deep self-introspection] is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.” ~ Ramana Maharshi

P.P.S. Climate CEOs podcast: I listened to your requests and answered four important questions about career advice, habits, book recommendations, and two people who had a huge impact on my life. Listen here.

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1.

The decision

“What’s the simplest framework for evaluating new climate tech hires?”

Three words.

1. Humble

2. Hungry

3. Smart (emotionally intelligent)

From Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Ideal Team Player.

Simple. But not easy.

Even top talent may have only 2 out of 3.

That missing trait is often the reason they fail.

2.

Why this matters

Climate tech is hard enough without self-inflicted wounds.

The wrong hire can slow a company faster than a utility requesting “one more study.”

Lencioni offers six personas that show up repeatedly inside fast-growing companies. Learn to spot them before they’re on your payroll.

Accidental Mess-Maker (Humble + Hungry)
Works hard. Means well. But has the self-awareness of a rock.

Lovable Slacker (Humble + Smart)
Great teammate. No urgency. Like a climate pilot entering year four.

Skillful Politician (Hungry + Smart)
Charismatic and ambitious. But somehow every win is “me” and every setback is “we.”

Pawn (Humble only)
Great intentions. Limited action. Like a climate action plan with 147 pages and no budget.

Bulldozer (Hungry only)
Gets things done. But leaves damaged relationships behind. Like announcing a transmission line before talking to the communities it crosses.

Charmer (Smart only)
Great at Climate Week. But thinks conversations alone remove GHGs from the air.

3.

So what?

When interviewing candidates, ask:

Which virtue is missing?

• Skills can be taught.

• Climate expertise can be learned.

• Character traits are much harder to install.

The best climate leaders I’ve met share three traits:

• Low ego

• High drive

• Strong self-awareness

Not the loudest person in the room. Or the most confident.

Not the highest frequent-flyer status. Or the best hoodie.

That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Zen Zone: How can constraints be a good thing? “If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do.” ~ Herman Hesse

P.P.S. Climate CEOs podcast: The Climate Gold Mine Sitting in America's Landfills | Andrew Jones, CEO of Carba

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1.

The decision

Some of our EFI Climate CEO Fellows love leading with vulnerability.

But not all founders agree. Many feel pressure to appear confident, decisive, and unshakable.

Especially when raising capital, managing layoffs, missing milestones, or explaining why the offtaker still hasn’t approved the final docs after six months of back and forth.

The temptation is to project certainty.

To become Captain Planet with six-pack abs, perfect hair, and a term sheet in every pocket.

2.

Why this matters

Now the paradox:

• People admire strength.

• But they connect through shared struggle.

Nobody relates to the founder whose story is:

“I had a vision. Everything went according to plan. Then I became successful.”

That’s not a real story. That’s a PowerPoint for presenting at your old high school.

The best climate CEOs talk openly about challenges. Not to everyone. Not all the time.

• Hardware pivots

• Rough pilots

• Missed fundraising targets

Not because they enjoy oversharing. Because trust grows when people see the human being behind the title.

• Investors fund people.

• Employees follow people.

• Customers buy from people.

And we generally trust other people more than perfectly optimized LinkedIn profiles.

3.

So what?

The next time you’re speaking with your team, investors, or customers, consider sharing:

• A mistake you made

• A lesson you’re still learning

• A challenge you’re actively working through

Climate tech already has enough heroic narratives. We need more honest ones.

“Here’s what we’re learning.”

…not…

“Everything is going just as planned.”

Sometimes candor, not perfection, wins the deal and builds the best partnerships.

That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Zen Zone: The life of leisure does not equate to a life of joy. ~ Julie Zhuo

P.P.S. Climate CEOs podcast: Cradle to Cradle, AI, and the Future of Climate Tech | William McDonough

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1.

The decision

An EFI Climate CEO Fellow recently asked:

“How do I hire top 5% talent without falling victim to their smooth storytelling?”

One answer: Topgrading.

Instead of many unstructured and uncoordinated interviews, it reviews a candidate’s entire career history, job by job, manager by manager, reference by reference.

The process can take 2–4 hours for a final candidate. (gasp)

That’s a lot of work.

But so is replacing the wrong VP six months later.

2.

Why this matters

Most hiring failures don’t happen because someone lacked technical skills.

They happen because CEOs never uncover the pattern.

For example, execs who don’t want to get their callous-free hands dirty in startup land.

Topgrading looks for recurring behaviors:

• What were you hired to do? (expectations and scope)

• What accomplishments are you most proud of? (quantifiable results)

• What were some low points or challenges? (uncovers mistakes or failures)

• Who was your boss, and what was it like working with them? (relationship with authority)

• What will your boss say are your strengths and areas for improvement? (more honesty due to TORC, Threat of Reference Check)

• Why did you leave that job? (push/pull motivation)

In climate tech, we spend months on 100-page legal docs for permitting, offtake, and finance.

Then, sometimes, hire talent based on snazzy LinkedIn profiles, feel-good conversations, curated referrals, and a firm handshake.

3.

So what?

Before your next executive hire, spend more time evaluating patterns than polish.

Topgrading isn’t fast.

But neither is replacing the wrong leader during a funding round, project deployment, or factory scale-up.

👉 Full guide:

The EFI Primer: Topgrading Interview Process in 4 Steps

That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. Zen Zone: If the outcome you’re chasing doesn’t work out, will you be satisfied with the work you’re doing along the way?

P.P.S. Climate CEOs podcast: Mass Manufacturing Nuclear to Reach 3 c/kwh | Aalo Atomics

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The decision

One of our EFI Climate CEO Fellows recently asked:

“For this potential M&A deal, how do we ensure the slides and spreadsheet become reality versus another case study about why mergers often fail?”

Why this matters

Most acquisitions don’t fail because the deal thesis was wrong.

They fail because integration breaks exactly what made the company valuable.

• The top chemical engineer leaves.

• The utility customer who trusted the founder stops returning calls.

• The EV startup that moved in days now needs approval from a committee with an acronym no one remembers.

And competitors whisper, “Thanks for getting greedy. I’m going to eat your lunch now.”

Market share has a funny habit of moving toward the least distracted team.

So what?

Before approving a deal, ask four questions:

1. Which customers might leave?

2. Which team members might leave?

3. Which sources of value have an identified owner, budget, timeline, and incentives to drive behavior change?

4. Which parts of this company should not be integrated?

Often, CEOs spend more time negotiating the purchase price than planning the first 100 days after closing.

That’s backward.

The deal creates the possibility of value. Execution determines whether it ever shows up.

Or…

The press release gets written once. Integration gets written every day for the next two years.

👉 Full guide:

14 Reasons Mergers Fail (and How to Mitigate Risks Before Closing)

If this clarified a decision you’re facing…

Send it to a friend who’d also benefit.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding

Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

—

P.S. The Zen Zone: “Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world.” ~ MLK Jr.

P.P.S. Climate CEOs podcast: The $60M Bet on Battery-Powered Stoves | Sam Calisch, CEO of Copper

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The decision

How much information do you need before deciding?

In climate tech, I’ve seen utilities, corporates, and investors spend months evaluating an opportunity.

Then a new stakeholder arrives and asks for “more validation.”

Sometimes that’s prudent.

Sometimes the institution has quietly changed its appetite for risk, and nobody wants to say so directly.

Why this matters

CEOs never have perfect information.

Every major decision happens before certainty arrives: Raising capital, hiring executives, launching pilots, entering markets.

The request for more data is often not about analysis quality.

It’s fear of being wrong. Or lack of conviction.

Meanwhile, competitors move, runway burns, teams marinate, and opportunities disappear.

So what?

Tell your team: “We may be wrong. But we’re deciding.”

One useful question: “What specific information would change our decision?”

If nobody can answer clearly, you probably don’t have an information problem. You have a courage problem.

Most climate tech companies don’t fail because they moved too quickly.

They fail because they waited for certainty that never came.

If this clarified a decision you’re facing…

Pass it on to one CEO who’d benefit from it.

—

Chris Wedding: Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

P.S. — The Zen Zone: When plans don’t go our way, instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” consider trying, “What is this making possible?”

P.P.S. — Climate CEOs podcast: Why Good Companies Go Bad: Hidden Governance Risks with Eric Ries

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Today’s topics:

1. Watchlist: 15 climate startups tackling data centers, materials, and adaptation

2. Mindset: Balancing extreme patience with extreme decisiveness

3. Playbook: 4 strategic insights from BIPOC climate CEOs

1.

Are you watching these 15 climate tech startups?

Thanks to my friends at Trellis (fka Greenbiz), who picked these 15 out of 105 ventures based on five criteria — originality, traction, impact, team, and hair style.

Data Center Solutions

1. WAVR Technologies – Creates atmospheric water

2. Airloom Energy – Next-gen wind power

3. etalytics – AI energy optimization

4. Aikido Technologies – Floating offshore infrastructure

5. Magnefy – Transformer fault detection

(And yes, I was kidding about the “hairstyle” criterion. But there may be a correlation.)

Climate Adaptation

1. Helix Earth – Efficient HVAC dehumidification

2. California Cultured – Cell-cultured cacao production

3. Nucleic Sensing Systems – Autonomous aquatic biosurveillance

4. Beehive – AI climate risk platform

5. Sensegrass – AI soil data insights

Materials Innovation

1. Elementium Materials – Next-gen battery electrolytes

2. Aepnus Technology – Recycles industrial waste

3. Smart Plastic Technologies – Biodegradable plastic additives

4. REEgen – Microbial mineral recovery

5. EnKoat – Smart thermal coatings

So what?

• Looking for your next deal, pilot, or employer? Start here.

• Reminder: The line between “deep tech breakthrough” and “awesome science experiment” is revenue.

2.

Climate CEOs need extreme patience and extreme decisiveness.

This quote is from Mohnish Pabrai, an Indian-born American investor.

Based on lessons and friendship with Warren Buffett, he’s generated 11% to 26% annualized returns since 1999.

But his investment advice is relevant to us in climate tech, too. Speed matters. But endurance wins.

So what?

• Are you patient enough to see your hardware, infrastructure, or software solution through to success over 10+ years?

• Are you decisive enough to kill a failing pilot, stop analyzing, and take massive, immediate action?

(Sorry, creating version 35 of your financial model is not massive action.)

3.

BIPOC founders in climate share these four pieces of advice.

Key takeaways from our recent webinar on this important topic are below.

Thanks to EFI Climate CEO Fellows for sharing: Phil Croskey (MD Energy Advisors), ​Doug Speight (AxNano), and ​Randy Allen (Still Bright).

1. Use pattern matching to your advantage: Filter out misaligned investors and explain why your non-traditional background is a strategic asset.

2. Rely on operational excellence: Use strong execution to build trust when early “friends and family” funding isn’t an option.

3. Integrate community impact: Treating local communities as partners provides tangible business benefits (e.g., smoother permitting).

4. Be a magnet for talent: Show up authentically, as diverse leadership naturally attracts top-tier, underrepresented candidates.

So what?

One last nuggest from our panelists:

• How can we reframe pressure as privilege, where the burden of representation become an opportunity to make decisions that structurally benefit others?

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding: Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

P.S. The Zen Zone: The answers we want might be found in the silence we avoid.

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Built from work with 300+ climate CEOs and 25 years of meditation.

Read by 40,000+ climate operators and investors annually.

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Today’s topics:

1. Deal Details: 10 climate companies & $941M raised.

2. AI Tips: 3 climate CEO share lessons.

3. Bad KPIs: Local optimization & global dysfunction.

1.

10 climate companies. $941M raised.

I focused on >$10M rounds, so I definitely missed some great ones!

Tag other climate tech fundraises in the comments below.

Carbon Removal & Solutions

Living Carbon = $513M

• Reforestation on degraded land

• $500M project investment + $13M Direct Equity

• CEO: Maddie Hall

• Investors: Octopus Energy Generation

Magrathea = $24M

• Carbon-neutral magnesium metal

• Series A

• CEO: Alex Grant

• Investors: Resource Technology Capital, Balerion Space Ventures

Grid & Energy Infrastructure

GridCARE = $64M

• Electrical grid reliability

• Series A

• CEO: Amit Narayan

• Investors: Sutter Hill Ventures, John Doerr, Emerson Collective

Terraform Industries = $37M

• Electricity to synthetic natural gas

• Seed

• CEO: Casey Handmer

• Investors: Climate Capital, Trajectory Ventures

Texture = $12M

• “Universal remote control and translator” for the clean energy grid

• Series A

• CEO: Sanjiv Sanghavi

• Investors: VoLo Earth Ventures, Equal Ventures

Space & Deep Tech

Panthalassa = $140M

• Deep-sea data centers

• Series B

• CEO: Garth Sheldon-Coulson

• Investors: Peter Thiel, John Doerr

Star Catcher = $65M

• Space-based power grid

• Series A

• CEO: Andrew Rush

• Investors: B Capital, Shield Capital

Industry & Critical Minerals

Boston Metal = $75M

• Low-carbon steel

• Growth / Equity Round (Follow-on)

• CEO: Tadeu Carneiro

• Investors: Tata Steel Limited, existing (Prelude Ventures)

DISA Technologies, Inc. = $33M

• Eco-friendly mineral processing technology

• Equity Funding Round

• CEO: Greyson Buckingham

• Investors: Galvanize, BHP Ventures

Transportation

Aboard = $13M

• Electric RV

• Pre-Series A

• CEO: Jiangtao Lyu

• Investors: Ondine Capital 活水資本, Llama Ventures

So what?

• You have permission to be bolder: Investors are smitten with hard tech infrastructure and science fiction-turned-reality.

• The unsexy is sexy: Build for industires that never show up in Wired magazine.

2.

Three AI tips from our EFI Climate CEO Fellow screenshare session.

• Train the robot on your brand once. Upload your slide template, so AI stops freelancing with weird fonts and off-brand colors like an overcaffeinated summer intern.

• Use AI for spreadsheet sorcery. If your formula needs seven tabs, two lookup functions, and a small miracle, let AI write it instead of pretending you enjoy Excel gymnastics.

• Search conversations, not just the CRM. Your team’s real customer intelligence is hiding in call transcripts, permitting discussions, pilot feedback, and commercial negotiations. Humans are busy, and CRM hygiene is mostly aspirational.

So what?

• AI won’t take your job. An expert in AI will. Don’t be a luddite.

• AI isn’t a strategy; it’s an operational buffer. Automate administrative friction so your team can focus 100% on your company’s actual bottleneck.

3.

Local optimization creates global dysfunction.

Departments optimize for themselves, not the whole company.

That makes sense. We’re a tribal species.

But it’s a problem.

Bad metric: Engineering tickets closed. Sales maximizes bookings.

Better metric: Time-to-revenue. Revenue/employee. PowerPoint/press release ratio.

So what?

• Avoid “silo thinking.” Learn more in this business parable: Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars by Patrick Lencioni.

• Read my book summary of The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, a favorite of our EFI CEOs.

I’m only half kidding on the PPT/PR metric.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding: Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

P.S. The Zen Zone: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” - C.S. Lewis

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Which is best for climate tech CEOs: Founder Mode or Manager Mode?

Ever feel like your team is waiting for you to clear a bottleneck, while you’re waiting for them to take ownership?

You’re likely caught between two modes.

Most CEOs unconsciously switch between the two dozens of times a week.

The friction starts when the CEO thinks they’re in one mode while the team assumes the opposite.

Founder Mode:

Ignore the org chart, move fast, stay in the weeds, and remain closest to the customer.

(Risk: Accidentally becoming the "VP of Slack replies.")

Manager Mode:

Scale through systems, build repeatable processes, and design the company so it doesn’t rely on daily CEO heroics.

(Risk: Creeping bureaucracy.)

Neither mode is wrong.

The Tradeoffs

Founder Mode = speed.

And also:

• Chaos

• Unclear accountability

• Learned helplessness

Aka: “All decisions paused because the founder was at Climate Week. Again.”

Manager Mode = scale.

And also:

• Bureaucracy

• Slow decisions

• Risk aversion

Aka: “The permitting process was somehow faster than our internal decision-making.”

The goal is not to permanently live in one mode.

Early-stage companies need Founder Mode during existential moments: Major offtake agreement negotiations, fundraising crunches, product pivots, or near-death cash situations.

But if you never exit Founder Mode, the company cannot compound without you.

The Action Plan: Name the Mode

Make the mode explicit.

Say it out loud:

• “We are in Founder Mode for the next 30 days.”

• “This is now a Manager Mode process.”

Then define:

• Who decides

• Who gives input

• What can be overridden

• What requires process

Most organizational confusion is not bad people.

It’s unclear operating modes.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding: CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor

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Every climate tech founder wants velocity.

But speed without direction is a fast track to burning cash on hardware that nobody actually wants.

Enter the Double Diamond framework.

A product strategy framework I use in my Duke University classes to avoid building expensive things nobody wants.

Question

How do we balance expansive thinking without wasting time?

In climate tech, founders often fall in love with their technology (the “Solution Space”).

But validating the customer’s deepest pain point first is wiser (the “Problem Space”).

I learned the hard way.

Example:

• Needing a reliable HVAC contractor…versus…

• Pitching a 40-slide deck on heat pump thermodynamics

Tradeoffs

You can’t have absolute certainty and infinite speed at the same time.

The Double Diamond balances these tensions:

• Rigorous Discovery vs. Capital Runway: Spend six months researching Sustainable Aviation Fuel feedstock constraints without a clear thesis, and you burn venture runway. Skip the work, and you risk building a multimillion-dollar pilot plant with no guaranteed supply.

• Brainstorming vs. Focus: Letting engineers test five battery chemistries can spark breakthroughs. It can also delay deployment windows, frustrate financiers, and make your CFO question their life choices.

Actions

Use the Double Diamond framework to separate problem discovery from solution design.

Structure two phases of divergent and convergent thinking.

First Diamond (Problem Space):

1. Discover — Talk to [30] potential customers before talking about your product: grid operators, developers, or utilities. Collect patterns, frustrations, delays, and costly workarounds.

2. Define — Converge on the single pain point worth solving. If everything is important, nothing is.

Second Diamond (Solution Space):

3. Develop — Generate [15] ways to solve that bottleneck. Push for range before narrowing too early. Otherwise, your roadmap becomes a group therapy session for engineers. Remember: commercial product, not science fair project. Your CTO and CFO both sleep better.

4. Deliver — Ruthlessly filter down to the single most scalable, cost-effective MVP. This is where you kill your darlings, like the complex features your CTO spent all night coding that customers will never click on.

Finally:

• Don’t skip steps. Follow the order. Don’t get bass-ackwards. (Yes, I’m from the South.)

• Create time boundaries for each step. Climate change isn’t waiting around for our endless brainstorming sessions.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding: CEO Coach, Founder, Board Member, Investor

P.S. Join our webinar tomorrow.

• “BIPOC Founders in Climate Tech: Capital, Credibility, and Community.”

• Three EFI CEOs share their candid insights: Doug Speight (AxNano), Phil Croskey (MD Energy Advisors), Randy Allen (Still Bright).

• 5/20, Wednesday, 12:00-1:00 ET

• Register: https://luma.com/7y6jsl4o

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In the high-stakes world of climate tech, the “urgency of now” is a constant roar.

The 600-pound grizzly that might eat you.

But if you’re always reacting, you’re no longer hunting. You’re the prey.

Permitting delays. Corporate negotiations. Interconnection queues. Customer pilots. Fundraising drama. Policy insanity.

But if you’re always reacting, you aren’t leading. You’re just a bottleneck with millions in paper wealth.

Here is how to reclaim the strategic high ground.

1. Question

Are you working on the business, or just being steamrolled by it?

Did your last breakthrough happen after the 11th meeting of the day?

Or during a solo hike, quiet morning, or shower, away from emails, pings, and cortisol?

Does that sound like a relaxed founder ignoring her duties?

Or one who understands Naval Ravikant’s line?

Hunt like a lion. Don’t graze like a cow.

2. Tradeoffs

• Urgency vs. Strategy: Dopamine hits of solving immediate operational fires. Or the slower, heavier work for long-term value creation. (See the Eisenhower Matrix.)

• Accessibility vs. Authority: Being available whenever your direct reports need you. Or letting them build domain expertise while you focus on step-change decisions.

• Presence vs. Perspective: A day in the woods to think feels like a “luxury.” But in infrastructure markets with 10-year timelines, strategic clarity compounds faster than founder responsiveness.

3. Actions

• Adopt Total Focus Tuesdays: Block the morning for deep work; keep the afternoon for essential external calls only. Zero internal meetings. No Slack. Protect your thinking time as fiercely as your cap table.

• Try Future-Back Fridays: Spend your final hour looking at the world in 2031. Work backward to see which of this week's "fires" were actually just smoke.

• Run a Bottleneck Audit: Identify the one decision that requires your unique battle wounds. Delegate the rest. If your engineering, project finance, or policy teams cannot move without the CEO in the weeds, your mission will fail.

Bottom Line:

Climate urgency can distort prioritization.

The bottleneck is often not capital. It is executive attention.

Urgency and importance are often negatively correlated.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris Wedding: CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Professor

For climate CEOs
Private peer group to test strategy, capital, and leadership with 45 VC-backed CEOs
→ See if it’s a fit

For operators & investors
Weekly decisions on what’s actually working in climate tech
→ See how climate CEOs think

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1. Stop pretending: solar + batteries does not equal 24/7 Power

Industrial customers don’t buy sunshine. They buy uptime.

Bruce Anderson, a 40-year solar veteran and founder of 247Solar (modular solar thermal + storage for 24/7 power and industrial heat):

Don’t claim 24/7 if you can’t handle intermittency.

• Solar PV + batteries is not baseload. If it fails after sunset, buyers will see through it.

Keep the magic narrow. Buy the rest off the shelf.

• If you reinvent everything, you die slowly and expensively.

Pick a beachhead, not a buffet.

• Start with customers who feel the pain most and need exactly what you built, not everyone with an energy bill.

Customers buy risk reduction, not elegance.

• Reliability, fallback options, modularity, and financing beat clever tech. Even if you went to MIT.

Headcount is not a flex.

• More people can mean more burn, not more progress. Save the bragging for revenue and staying alive.

—

⚡ So what?

If you’re building in energy, this Climate CEOs podcast episode is 40 years of scar tissue in 42 minutes.

…Speaking of hardtech in energy…

2. 95 industrial decarbonization startups you should study.

We have a problem. And a mispriced opportunity inside it.

Impact Mismatch:

• 25-30% = GHG emissions from industry

• 10-15% = Climate VC dollars going to industrial solutions

Industrial decarbonization is underfunded because it's hard.

But difficulty is a moat if you can survive long enough to prove it.

Here’s why.

The Friction:

• Heavy CapEx: High barrier to entry and investor wariness.

• Legacy Drag: Decades-long replacement cycles of “brownfield” infrastructure.

• Technical Risk: Hardware scaling is non-linear and unforgiving.

The Edge:

• Defensibility: Hard tech is the ultimate AI hedge.

• Funding Mix: Add more debt, grants, vendor financing, and offtaker prepay.

• Order-of-Magnitude Advantage: Solve for 5x gains, not 5% increments.

• The Offtake Option: Reframe financial and career risk as a low-cost corporate hedge against future regulatory and supply-chain volatility.

—

⚡ So what?

Get inspired by these 95 startups innovating for industry below.

Shout-outs to Dexmat, Nth Cycle, Cemvita, and Vaulted — four companies in EFI’s climate CEO peer group orbit. And to Alessa Berg for curating the 95 ventures.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris

Founder: EFI’s confidential CEO peer group for VC and PE-backed climate CEOs Host: Climate CEOs podcast

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How women entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in climate tech rise up

2–3% of capital goes to female founders.

Yet they outperform on capital efficiency and speed: Faster path to unicorn status. High revenue per dollar invested. Disporportionate percentage of statups exits.

Investors are systematically under-allocating to higher-performing founders.

Last week, I hosted a candid discussion with six of our EFI Climate CEO Fellows and Mentors.

They shared insights based on serious credentials:

• Built and sold a private-equity-backed company

• Evolved from a PhD scientist to a VC-backed CEO with a $1.1B offtake

• Led an organization representing 250,000 professionals

• Raised $100M to grow their venture

—

1. Pre-Sell Your Authority

Action: Build a digital presence so the room is sold before you arrive.

• Use podcasts and LinkedIn to ensure your expertise is a known fact rather than a first impression.

2. Claim the Lead Immediately

Action: Set the power dynamic in the first 60 seconds.

• State your role and credentials upfront to shut down any assumptions that you’re a junior staffer.

3. Harness Silence

Action: Stop diluting your conviction to make others feel safe.

• When faced with a slight, ask “Why would you say that?” and let them sweat in the quiet until they answer.

4. Radical Investor Diligence

Action: Reference-check an investor’s “losers,” not just their winners.

• Contact founders of failed portfolio companies to reveal how that VC behaves when the ship is sinking.

5. Audit Board Chemistry

Action: Treat board seats like co-founders. Long-term. Aligned. Filling gaps.

• Introduce prospective VCs to current members before signing to ensure interpersonal dynamics won’t create future drag.

6. Shift from Expert to Architect

Action: Delegate technical deep-dives to veteran hires.

• Stop proving your expertise and start managing the vision. Scale by hiring specialists to fill functional gaps, freeing you to move from product expert to strategic architect.

7. Operationalize Your Allies

Action: Pre-brief a “wingman” to shut down interruptions.

• Don’t fight bias alone. Assign a specific board member or “the grey-haired male CFO” to step in if dynamics shift.

—

Get more insights here.

—

⚡ So what?

The bias reflected in that 2% funding stat is a tax on a CEO's bandwidth. The EFI leaders I spoke with treat this friction like any other technical bottleneck: they automate it.

By building brand in advance, sharing the "expert" load with veteran hires, and pre-briefing allies to absorb the "bias" load, they’ve built a system to bypass the noise and stay focused on the scale.

Shout out to these panelists for their insights:

• Abby Hopper - Former CEO, SEIA (solar industry)

• ​Kameale Terry - CEO, ChargerHelp! (EV charging)

• ​Lauren Salz - CEO, Sealed (heat pumps)

• ​Liz Dennett - CEO, Endolith (critical minerals)

• ​Megan O’Connor - CEO, Nth Cycle (critical minerals)

• ​Susan Hunt Stevens - Former CEO, WeSpire (exited); CEO, Tessi (disaster recovery)

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris

Founder: EFI’s confidential CEO peer group for VC and PE-backed climate CEOs Host: Climate CEOs podcast

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1. The $8B utility blind spot.

Climate startup Overstory has a solution.

Better vegetation management for fewer power outages and wildfires.

More satellites. Fewer helicopters. Lower liability.

And $68M of investor capital says they’re right.

In my Climate CEOs podcast, CEO Fiona Spruill gave these lessons for climate operators.

Kill optionality.

• If your ideal customer still reads like “utilities, infrastructure, municipalities, asset owners, and any humans with a head,” you’re not focused. You’re scared.

• Go deep on one customer with one acute pain.

• Build the wedge so narrow that people think you’re missing the market.

Sell value, not virtue.

• Customers do not wake up hoping to fund your mission. They wake up hoping not to get fired.

• Tie your pitch to avoiding outages, lowering fire risk, or reducing operating costs.

• Forget “climate impact.” Think: “Here’s why this saves your ass this quarter.”

Stop fetishizing AI.

• Don’t sell acronyms and models. Sell the decision advantage they create.

Curate your cap table.

• Treat investor selection like partner selection, not a fundraising trophy hunt.

Get on the damn balcony.

• Create weekly space to rise above the grind, get the big picture, and write down the 2–3 outcomes that actually matter. Not tasks.

• If you don’t, the company quietly becomes a machine for reacting to other people’s urgency.

⚡ So what?

The red pen:

• Rewrite your homepage without “AI,” “climate,” or “impact.”

• If it still converts, you have a business. If not, you have a story.

2. You need a sabbatical from climate.

You might say in outrage: “Take a break? No way. The climate challenge is existential.”

But martyrdom is a terrible scaling strategy.

High performance requires a different kind of maintenance.

These four sabbatical models could give leaders the clarity and recharge to build better climate businesses for longer.

(1) Circuit Breaker: Restore energy and perspective.

• Marathon > sprint. Return with better judgment and less emotional reactivity.

(2) Stress Test: Expose organizational gaps.

• Systems > Self. Identify exactly where the company is too dependent on the CEO.

(3) High Ground: Create space for higher-level thinking.

• Vision > operations. Create the next game-changing product or service.

(4) Exit Ramp: Prepare the company for the next stage.

• Scale > control. Go beyond founder-centric execution to empower the team.

⚡ So what?

Audit and action:

• Block two half-days this week. Cut Slack and email.

• Write down what you’d kill if you started over.

Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.

~ Chris

Founder: EFI’s confidential CEO peer group for VC and PE-backed climate CEOs Host: Climate CEOs podcast

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