Today’s guest is Rob Hanson, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Monolith Materials, where he leads the development of next-generation technology for producing low cost, low emission hydrogen and carbon black, an important raw material used in the manufacture of rubber and plastic. Prior to Monolith, Rob served as the global director of product management for AREVA Solar, the solar division of the world’s largest nuclear company. He has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford, and has been a guest lecturer at Stanford, UNL, Foothill College and the University of Saskatchewan on topics ranging from thermodynamics to entrepreneurship. Rob also co-founded uforia studios, a 65-employee health and fitness company with locations in San Francisco and Palo Alto.

In today’s episode, we cover:

• Rob’s journey from solar to the chemical sector
• The dirty process of traditionally producing carbon black
• How a generalist background (e.g. blending science and finance) can be positioned to make a big impact as an entrepreneur in the climate technology space
• Scaling the method of cleanly creating carbon black from natural gas
• The genesis of Monolith
• Staggered financing model
• Markets for carbon black
• Importance of establishing a market “beachhead” with product-market fit
• Reception of the clean “story” and value proposition among prospective customers
• Opportunities Rob finds interesting outside Monolith’s focus
• The opportunity and importance of education in addressing Climate Change

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

• Monolith Materials: https://monolithmaterials.com/
• Carbon Black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_black
• Areva: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areva
• Imperative Science Ventures: https://imperative.vc/

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