Climate CEOs

Discover how Ambient Fuels is building green hydrogen projects for heavy industry — and how CEO Jake Susman blends cleantech VC chops, perfect timing, & startup grit to scale the sector.

My guest today is Jake Susman, Cofounder and CEO of Ambient Fuels.

Ambient Fuels is a pure-play developer of green hydrogen projects, guiding heavy industry through the great green upgrade.

In addition, he is the:

• Executive Advisory Board Member at Activate Capital
• Board member of Urban Resiliency Advisory Board with the Partnership Fund for New York City
• Board Member at SolarKal, the largest commercial solar marketplace in the U.S.
• Board President & Co-Founder at Cleantech Leaders Roundtable

In this episode, we talked about:

• How Ambient Fuel was focused on green hydrogen before the Inflation Reduction Act made it super attractive to be in this sector
• The kinds of sectors that Ambient helps the most – e.g., refining, chemical, and fertilizers
• His prior development firm, Own Energy, and its origin as one of the earliest VC-funded renewable energy project developers, which was later purchased by EDF
• The genesis of his entrepreneurial journey via “el jefe” at AES in Spain
• Why timing can be so important in determining whether a deal gets done, or dies on the vine
• The fact that not all investor capital is created equal and a gross analogy with fast food
• Why premortem analysis exercises can help reduce future startup failure risks
• His commitment to meditation 4x per week and sweating in some kind of physical activity every day
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy it.

And give Jake and Ambient fuels a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our two offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Discover how Atlas Organics turns food & yard waste into profitable compost — leveraging public-private partnerships, strategic investors, & founder grit to scale nationwide.

My guest today is Joseph McMillin, Cofounder and CEO of Atlas Organics.

Atlas Organics is a national leader in organic waste recycling. Their key partner is Generate Capital, a multi-billion-dollar sustainable infrastructure investor.

Joseph is also a member of the Climate Mastermind peer groups we run at Entrepreneurs for Impact with three dozen growth-stage CEOs and investors tackling climate change.

In this episode, we talked about the following:

• His purchase of an old school bus, which he renovated and drove across the country during Covid, with his wife, young son, and four dogs (woah!)
• The importance of his earliest investors – such as Closed Loop and Gratitude Railroad – having confidence that he and his partner would land on the right business model to scale organic waste recycling
• Their evolution from collecting food waste in a truck to doing public-private partnerships to handle cities’ waste and buying existing organic waste processing facilities across the country
• How his projects earn revenue, and which revenue sources are contracted versus the spot market
• The role of city and state mandates and voluntary targets in driving greater organic waste recycling
• How their talent and operational processes have been influenced by books, such as Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm, as well as the interview practices described in topgrading
• His ideal morning routine of exercise, journaling, meditation, and reflection – if he’s able to get up at 4:45 am
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy.

And give Joseph a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our two offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Discover how Alex Roetter is reshaping carbon removal financing with Terraset — combining advanced market commitments, donor-friendly transparency, & climate tech VC experience.

My guest is Alex Roetter, General Partner at Moxxie Ventures, Founder of Terraset, and former Head of Engineering at Twitter.

In addition, he came up with this great idea around which we teamed up together to launch Terraset, an anti-GHG 501(c)(3) for advanced market commitments in the carbon removal industry (CDR).

In this episode, we talked about the following:

• How philanthropy only provides 2% of its donations to tackle climate change, and only 3.8% of that small number goes to carbon dioxide removal (CDR)
• Why advanced market commitments (or AMCs) can help create market validation for CDR companies so they can get their projects financed
• How Terraset is similar and different from the $925M Frontier Fund, which includes partners such as Stripe, Shopify, Alphabet, Meta, and McKinsey
• The ways that Terraset makes it easier for donors to find trusted CDR projects to support, and receive a tax deduction in the U.S.
• The preseed and seed VC funding he provides at Moxxie Ventures, which focused on climate tech, as well as health tech, AI, and more
• Examples of the cool portfolio companies they’ve funded, such as BasiGo, an EV bus company in Nairobi
• Mistakes he has seen CEOs, including himself, make and how to avoid them
• Why environmental and social co-benefits in climate tech financing matter
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy it!

And give Alex a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our two offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Discover fresh tools, mindset shifts, & fundraising insights — from a new climate finance tracker to pitch decks that helped raise millions for carbon tech startups.

In this newsletter-turned-podcast episode from Entrepreneurs for Impact, I cover the following:

• 💵 New “Climate Finance Tracker”
• 🤬 To all the carbon tech haters
• 😮 A new tablet to kill your pen and paper
• 👂 We have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason
• 🚀 We launched a new anti-GHG NGO called Terraset
• 💰 15 money-winning climate tech pitch decks
• 🤔 Are you becoming better or bitter?
• 😵 Beware of “Thinkwashing”

Enjoy! 

Ping me on LinkedIn to let me know what you think about it.

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherwedding

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: https://entrepreneursforimpact.com

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Discover how Howard Fischer went from hedge fund titan to climate impact evangelist — moving capital from spreadsheets to soul to fund game-changing climate solutions.

My guest today is Howard Fischer, the Chief Evangelist at Gratitude Railroad and CEO of Basso Capital Management.

Gratitude Railroad's mission is to support investors in moving capital from traditional finance to impact investments that create deep social and environmental impact, without compromising financial returns.

His bio on the GR website is delightful in its brevity and insight into who he is. And I quote:

“Uphill over downhill; Snow over sand; Read over watch; Trees over skyscrapers; Pizza over steak; Conversation over gossip; Disagree over agree; Instinct over spreadsheets; Relationship over contract.”

In this episode, we talked about:

• His 40 years in hedge funds
• How his rebirth in 2013 while not religious was like a metaphorical move from Gordon Gekko to Dalai Lama
• His financial reckoning during the 2008 financial crisis when his hedge fund went from $3B to $300M
• The risks in wearing the golden handcuffs of fat paychecks from big-brand employers
• How philanthropy is broken and government is not a great problem solver
• Why we have to move more profit-driven capital to the climate sector
• Examples of the climate investments they’ve made at Gratitude Railroad, including a focus on organic waste management
• His theme of “Free the Money” and related investments in Climate First Bank and First Women’s Bank
• Why we can’t ask people to eat their broccoli (sorry, you have to listen to understand what this means)
• Some of his favorite books, such as The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche, and The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy.

And give Howard a shout-out on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Discover how Taj Eldridge is reshaping climate investing — blending alpha returns, social equity, & place-based innovation to power the next wave of green jobs.

My guest today is Taj Ahmad Eldridge.

Taj is the Director of Climate Innovation at Jobs for the Future, and Cofounder of Include Ventures, a fund of funds investor focused on emerging managers at the intersection of “Alpha + Inclusion + Sustainability.”

In addition, Taj is…

• Advisory Panel member @ The Schmidt Family Foundation
• Founding Advisory Board member @ GreenTech Noir
• Board Member @ Homeboy Industries
• Former Director of the Startup Accelerator @ University of California, Riverside
• Former Senior Director for Investment @ the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI)
• And investor in Invictus Growth Partners, SparkCharge, Form Energy, ChargerHelp!, and many more high-impact ventures

In this episode, we talked about:

• Who holds the real power in allocating capital
• The importance of place-based innovation
• How talent is universal, but opportunity is not
• Jobs for the Future’s goals of creating 25,000 new jobs in climate resilience
• The need to reframe climate change as a mission around public health, social equity, and economics
• Two of his portfolio companies led by Black founders and CEOs that are changing federal transportation policy and making EV charging super easy
• How he believes a focus on minority-led ventures creates alpha opportunities
• The need to bring your whole self to work
• Wisdom from the beat poets like Jack Kerouac and one of our favorite books, Dharma Bums
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy it!

And give Taj a shout-out on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Discover how Collaborative Fund backs for-profit & for-good startups — from $200M growth bets to 100 micro-investments fueling the next wave of climate innovation.

My guests in this episode are Sophie Bakalar and Tomás Álvarez Belón from Collaborative Fund.

Collaborative Fund is a 10-year-old VC firm investing at the intersection of for-profit and for-good, with a long-time focus on climate. Today, they’re investing in Series A- and B-stage startups from their $200M Collab SOS Fund. Through their Shared Future initiative, they're also investing $100,000 into 100 startups per year that come through top-notch accelerator programs like YCombinator, Activate, and AirMiners.

In this episode, we talked about the following:

• How they make investment decisions
• Lessons they’ve learned from past investment mistakes
• Tips for startup founders who are new at pitching to investors
• Two of their portfolio companies tackling cell cultured animal fat and smarter EV charging through software that recognizes the bottlenecks of the power grid
• The importance of distinguishing roles and responsibilities among founders
• Personal goals of ever greater simplicity in life
• Recommended sci-fi books to read
• The power of slow mornings
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy!

And give Sophie, Tomás, Collaborative Fund, and Shared Future a shout-out on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Discover how 8 Rivers is building billion-dollar net-zero energy projects & licensing game-changing tech to accelerate the global clean energy transition.

My guest for his episode is Damian Beauchamp, the President and Chief Development Officer of 8 Rivers.

In addition, he is also:

• An advisor to the Carbon XPrize
• A Board member at NET Power

8 Rivers is a platform company developing the sustainable infrastructure of tomorrow by inventing and commercializing large-scale innovations in the race to Net Zero. Founded by a former Wall Street finance executive and a literal rocket scientist, their investors include industry heavyweights Exelon, SK Group, McDermott, and Occidental Low Carbon Ventures.

In this episode, we talked about the following:

• How they’re creating billions of dollars of market-proven value
• How Blue Ocean strategies have served them well
• The validation they’ve received on a net-zero, cost-neutral natural gas power plant in Texas
• Their go-to-market plan of innovation and IP development, followed by licensing the tech to others for maximum scale and climate benefits
• The path to securing big-name corporate partners
• The need to be optimistic and solutions-oriented when it comes to tackling climate change
• Quotes from Calvin Coolidge on the power of persistence
• Why he has a picture of the Grand Canyon as his LinkedIn banner picture
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy!

And give Damian and 8 Rivers a shout-out on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Explore how Cloud to Street uses satellites, balloons, and big data to protect climate-vulnerable communities and unlock smarter flood insurance.

My guest today is Bessie Schwartz, the Co-founder & CEO of Cloud to Street.

Cloud to Street is the leading flood mapping platform designed to protect the world’s most climate-vulnerable communities.

By harnessing global satellites, advanced science, and community intelligence, they monitor worldwide floods in near real-time and remotely analyze local flood exposure at a click of a button.

Their mission is to ensure that all vulnerable governments finally access the high-quality information they need to prepare for and respond to increasing catastrophes.

In addition, she is…

• A Strategist - Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
• An Echoing Green Climate Fellow
• Research partner - Data-Pop Alliance - a global coalition on Big Data and development created by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, MIT Media Lab, and the Overseas Development Institute

In this episode, we talked about the following:

• The relevance of her work to the recent flooding in Pakistan, leaving ⅓ of the country underwater
• How flooding is the #1 climate-related weather impact
• The history of their company 10 years ago in partnership with Google
• The difference between information and motivation to make the right decision
• Their business model of aligning incentives to help insurance companies underwrite more policies that accurately capture flood risk
• The need to invest in climate adaption – which BoA estimates to be a $2T market in a few years – and not just climate mitigation
• How they use 17 satellites, stratospheric balloon imaging, and drones to measure every square foot of the earth every day
• What parametric flood insurance is a breakthrough for climate risk management
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy!

And give Bessie and Cloud to Street a shoutout on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Explore how Electric Hydrogen combines advanced electrolyzer tech, ultra-low-cost green power, and industrial-scale design to slash clean hydrogen costs.

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Electric Hydrogen is a hardtech startup making hydrogen from 100% clean energy to decarbonize industrial sectors by creating a new generation of electrolyzer technologies. They recently raised $198 million from leading climate investors such as Fifth Wall, S2G Ventures Silicon Valley Bank, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Equinor Ventures, Honeywell, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Rio Tinto, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Capricorn Partners, Energy Impact Partners, and Prelude Ventures.  

Raffi Garabedian is the cofounder and CEO of Electric Hydrogen. Previously, he was the former CTO of First Solar, the leading global manufacturer of thin-film solar panels, and the founder and CEO of Touchdown Technologies. He also holds over 20 issued patents and is a big proponent of "doing shit that matters."

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? 
• What makes you unique versus the competition?
• Are you aiming for decentralized or centralized hydrogen production?
• Can your clean hydrogen projects actually drive PPA creation for new renewable energy projects?
• What lessons learned from the solar sector are you bringing to this work in hydrogen?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?

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PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.