Hopefully by now you’ve read our comprehensive look at Elon Musk’s “climate tech mafia” — a coterie of founders and executives running clean energy and decarbonization companies who jumpstarted their careers at Tesla and SpaceX. But, to quote another hardware executive, we have one more thing.
The backbone of this story was responses to a questionnaire we sent the executives and founders on our list, and we got more great responses than we were able to put in the story, so we wanted to share some of the most insightful and surprising answers they gave us here.
Is there a direct connection between your work at Tesla/SpaceX and what you're working on today?
Mateo Jaramillo
Founder and CEO, Form Energy
Formerly: VP Products & Programs, Tesla Energy
“During my time at Tesla, I realized there was a lot of opportunity for energy storage beyond lithium-ion that had never really been commercialized. What I heard over and over again from utility executives while building up the lithium-ion business was that there was a need for something offering much longer duration. Absent that kind of storage, you’re going to build two grids — a renewable grid and a thermal-based grid for reliability — and neither one becomes particularly cost-efficient. So that was the space I went on to go explore.”
Philipp Schröder
Founder and CEO, 1KOMMA5°
Formerly: Country director for Germany and Austria, Tesla
“Total electrification as a precondition for clean energy abundance was a core realization during my time at Tesla. Electrification merges mobility, heating, cooling, and regular consumption into one mega energy stack. That realization also led to our Masterplan for founding 1KOMMA5°.”
What is one thing you learned from working for Elon Musk that you take with you into your company today?
Justin Lopas
COO and cofounder, Base Power
Formerly: Lead engineer for Starship manufacturing, SpaceX
“You can get way more done in a day and can move way faster than you think. This does not mean necessarily more hours (although solving any hard problem requires that too), but instead being thoughtful about sequencing work, not accepting delays from suppliers or external counterparties without solid rationale, parallel pathing, accelerating critical learnings to early in the project, etc.”
Cole Ashman
Founder and CEO, PILA
Formerly: Product and applications engineer, Tesla Powerwall
“Question every requirement. It was something that permeated Tesla engineering culture — start from the best possible way to do something and solve for that, instead of letting perceived constraints define what you build.”
How did being part of Tesla/SpaceX help you start your company?
Jonathan Criss
Founder and CEO, Vital Lyfe
Formerly: Manager, Starlink development engineering
“At SpaceX, you were expected to own the full outcome, not just your piece of it. I could not go to Elon and say the program slipped because the bathrooms overflowed. He would call me dumb and ask why I did not fix the bathrooms. That mindset forces you to think through every possible failure mode and take responsibility for the overall result. It is basically like running a mini business inside the larger business that is SpaceX.”
Landon Mossburg
Founder and CEO, Peak Energy
Formerly: Director of software engineering and operations, Tesla
“Tesla instills a culture of resourcefulness and extreme cash conservatism when building out operational systems. Being part of that environment teaches you how to design highly effective, creative solutions without wasting capital, allowing us to hit our deployment milestones while remaining exceptionally lean and disciplined with our funding.”
Is there a previous colleague from Tesla or SpaceX who influenced you the most? Who and how?
Arch Rao
Founder and CEO, Span
Formerly: Head of products, application, and sales engineering, Tesla Energy
“J.B. Straubel is easily one of the smartest yet incredibly humble engineers and leaders I’ve had the opportunity to work with. He has deep domain knowledge and a keen sense of how to build a high-performance team. To this day, I connect with him to talk about technical ideas and for mentorship.”
Kunal Girotra
Founder and CEO, Lunar Energy
Formerly: Senior director and head of Tesla Energy
“J.B. [Straubel] and Drew [Baglino] were both influential in how they helped solve complex problems within the company while dealing with constant pressure on cash and company survival — [the] company wasn’t the insanity of stock price that it is right now. The formative periods of Tesla were the ones that defined the company, and both of them led from the front.”
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