An Entrepreneurial Journey to Solve Climate Change | Bill Gross | Energy Seminar

Bill Gross is a pioneering renewable energy entrepreneur who has created seven billion-dollar-plus exits. Starting with creating a company called Solar Devices in high school, Bill has created more than 150 companies with more than 50 IPOs and acquisitions over the last 30 years.

Bill is the creator of one of the first, and now longest-running technology incubators – Idealab – which he founded in 1996 and still runs as the world’s leading startup studio.

Bill is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship, climate change, renewable energy, and more at TED, DLD, Davos, and college campuses around the world, including Caltech, where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, and where he serves on the board of trustees.

Three of Bill’s most impactful recent energy companies include Energy Vault for low-cost energy storage, Carbon Capture, for low-cost direct air capture of CO2, and Heliogen, pioneering ultra-high temperature solar concentration to both replace fossil fuels and create green fuels from the sun.

Bill is committed to showing that while climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time, using technological innovation to address it can make it one of the biggest economic opportunities at the same time.

[mariojohnson]

I never get tired of hearing Mr. Gross speak on how we can fight climate change, looking forward to seeing these technologies scale.

[markgemmell]

Fantastic talk. Inspiring, ambitious, and grounded. Perhaps the best of this energy x series. Excellent work Bill and Stanford team.

[michaczechowicz]

My jaw dropped so low, it could be used in Energy Vault. There is hope for humanity if people like this live among us. Wow.

[martinmusgrave]

A seriously fantastic presentation with so many learning opportunities on so many fronts: entrepreneurship, business development, commercialisation, the energy market, renewable energy, and the so many more. Thank you for sharing this. I will be studying it in great detail. Looking forward to more from Mr. Gross as Idealab hits 25 years of creativity and market disruption!

[Lilmiket]

This guy is a critical mastermind. He literally laid down a viable and realistic plan to save our planet our species and our way of life in a nutshell. Imagine what someone like Elon musk could do with this info. Jeff Bezos should have chased this instead of space.

[johndelong]

If you dont know your destination, how do you know if you are making progress?

[colinmegson]

"...a thousand of them [1/6th square mile units] in North America and I can make energy for all of North America..."

Is this 1/6th of a square mile unit the 5 MW size? 1000 x 5MW units would generate 44 TWh per year. But North America uses nearly 100X that in electricity alone (4, 222 TWh). Then there's the other 22, 000 TWh of energy use. In total that's 600X more than the 44 TWh 1000 of the 1/6th square mile units would supply - 600, 000 towers.

Or is a 1/6th square mile unit 600 x 5 MW (3 GW each)?

Something needs clarifying

[marcofossa]

I would have more questions for Bill.. Hopefully I will have to possibility to meet him somewhere, in person or on line... One question is related to aiming accuracy in radiants of his feed back tracking system (compared to astronomic ones)... another question is related to mirror cleaning.. small (more) mirrors need in principle more efforts for cleaning... Thanks for anticipating his answers here. Best regards, Marco Fossa

[neoclectic]

What size of rock did you select? Why not rock dust instead? Are you more interested in heating the rock material or the air around the rocks?

[drhorsey]

Currently the SPAC is priced at roughly $10 per share for ~330m market capitalisation. Someone remind me to come back in 10 years time to see market cap above 10b.

[TheKimNeeper]

Perhaps one of the most important videos on YouTube, and after more than 3 months there's 2, 230 views and 11 comments, well, 12 now... No one seems to cares that we are burning up our home, with no obvious solution to our addiction of burning dead dinos.

[johnbyrne]

Yes, take this wonderful concept away from the US and develop it in a country that's begging for innovation. The US oil companies and others will want to crush this any way they can.