August 22, 2019

Ep 30: Andrew Beebe, Managing Director at Obvious Ventures

37 minutes

Today’s guest is Andrew Beebe, Managing Director at Obvious Ventures.

Andrew brings to Obvious Ventures a lifelong passion for building companies around sustainable systems and people power.

For over a decade, Andrew has focused on clean technology and clean energy solutions. He started down the clean tech path with Energy Innovations in 2003, which he grew from a business plan to a major solar developer serving customers like Google, Disney, Sony Pictures, and British Telecom.

After selling the company to Suntech in 2008, Andrew served as Chief Commercial Officer at Suntech as well as Vice President of Global Product Strategy. During his tenure, Suntech became the largest solar company in the world. After leaving Suntech, Andrew spent two years as Vice President of Distributed Generation for Nextera Energy, the largest clean energy developer in the US.

Before his clean tech career, Andrew spent a decade building companies in the early days of “Web 1.0.” In 1998 Andrew co-founded Bigstep.com, an e-commerce platform designed to serve the needs of small businesses entering the Internet age. He has been supporting the enterprising ideas of people power ever since.

A graduate from Dartmouth College, Andrew lives in Burlingame, CA with his wife and three children. When he's not helping to build early stage companies, Andrew builds wooden boats and furniture.

Andrew was born in New York City and spent his formative years on an avocado ranch in Ojai, California.

In this episode we discuss:

What Obvious Ventures does and the types of investments they make

How Andrew and Obvious Ventures think about and apply the term “purpose-driven”

Thoughts on investing in companies with science risk

Thoughts on time horizon and how that factors into investment decisions

Thoughts on upside potential and how that factors into investment decisions

How Obvious screens for purpose and impact, as applied to startups they back, members of their investment team, and LPs

Areas of investment they are excited about

Other areas outside of their investment focus Andrew thinks will be impactful in climate fight

Advice for anyone trying to find their lane to help with this problem

Links to the topics discussed in this episode:

Andrew Beebe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewbeebe/

Andrew Beebe Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewbeebe

Obvious Ventures: https://obvious.com/

Beyond Meat: https://www.beyondmeat.com/

Diamond Foundry: https://diamondfoundry.com/

Amply Power: https://www.amplypower.com/

Good Eggs: https://www.goodeggs.com/sfbay/welcome/step/zip

Lillium: https://lilium.com/

Canvas Technology: https://canvas.technology/

Article that Andrew wrote with Diann Eisnor: https://worldpositive.com/a-tale-of-two-cities-2030-edition-c9bceb8ea1e3

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

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