Ep 101: Brenden Millstein, Co-Founder & CEO of Carbon Lighthouse
Today's guest is Brenden Millstein, Co-Founder & CEO of Carbon Lighthouse. Carbon Lighthouse is a HVAC optimization startup, serving commercial property owners and management firms by using software and remote sensor technology to make buildings more energy efficient and reduce costs. Having raised over $130 million in financing, the company’s mission is to stop climate change by making it easy and profitable for building owners to cut carbon emissions caused by wasted energy. A Berkeley-native who studied Physics at Harvard, Brenden went on to co-found the company with a long-time childhood friend who had taken a similar path. As Brenden shares in interesting detail, the early-years proved to be a sales slog, as they worked to crack the nut on closing commercial property owners. We have a great discussion in this episode about everything building efficiency. What is it? Why does it matter? How does it work? What kind of climate impact it can have and does where Carbon Lighthouse fit in? I really enjoyed our conversation as Brenden's story is a good example of an entrepreneur who is building a very successful company from a capitalist standpoint, but also is having a big planetary impact as well. Enjoy the show! 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.
Inevitable · Jason Jacobs, Brenden Millstein
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Show Notes
In today’s episode, we cover:
- Carbon Lighthouse, its business, vision and clientele
- The genesis of the company
- The opportunity of improving energy efficiency
- The early challenges of driving sales
- Carbon Lighthouse’s non-profit arm
- The substantial role commercial buildings play in emitting GHG
- Misaligned incentives of the many stakeholders involved
- Factors that led to a tipping point in the sales challenge
- What is HVAC optimization
- How Carbon Lighthouse uses software to optimize commercial HVAC systems
- Value and savings delivered to commercial buildings
- Carbon Lighthouse’s customer profile
- How landlord adoption is a continuing obstacle
- Carbon Lighthouse’s financing, operational expenses and costs
- Brenden’s views on utility-level policies to reduce emissions
- Brenden’s thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic and how it relates to climate change
Links to topics discussed in this episode:
- Carbon Lighthouse: https://www.carbonlighthouse.com/
- Carbon Lighthouse Association (non-profit arm): https://www.carbonlighthouse.org/
- “Spaghetti diagram” of energy use: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/index.html
- Green Building Initiative: https://thegbi.org/
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant