Climate

Solar panels are just about everywhere. There's a good chance one of your neighbors has them on their roof, as does the big box store down the street. As you drive there, you might see a field of them posted up alongside the road. With that kind of ubiquity, you'd be forgiven if you thought

Philipp Man was burned out. He had founded a watch trading company with his flatmate, Ludwig Wurlitzer, but the grind was wearing him down. “We did that for ten years,” Man said. “It's very difficult to keep yourself motivated when you know the whole reason for your operation is to sell

The U.S. is facing a shortage of electricians, with unfilled jobs in the field expected to grow by 11% per year over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But because prospective electricians in the U.S. typically need to log 8,000 hours before they can get their license, th

As calls for urgent climate action persist, technologies to help remove the heat-trapping greenhouse gases from the atmosphere are also emerging globally. In Africa, Octavia Carbon, a Direct Air Capture (DAC) startup, is leading the efforts. Octavia, founded in Kenya two years ago, builds DAC mach

As hurricanes batter the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, many people’s livelihoods are on hold and they’re struggling to make ends meet. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) just decided that anyone affected by a natural disaster can get a break on broadband and mo

It was the banana that did it. Brian O'Kelley, who had recently sold his previous startup, ad platform AppNexus, to AT&T for a reported $1.6 billion, was watching a lecture through MIT during COVID as part of a yearlong course on supply chain management. “There was this one slide in a le

Startup employees often go on to found interesting ventures, basing their new work on the experience gained from their time building a company from scratch. But not all of those experiences are positive, and sometimes, a less-than-satisfactory exit can do more to fuel a founder’s fervor than

Earlier this year, KoBold Metals found what might be one of the largest high-grade copper deposits of all time, with the potential to produce hundreds of thousands of metric tons per year, the company's CEO said. Now, just eight months later, KoBold is close to raising over half a billion doll

Over the last several years, fusion power has gone from the butt of jokes — always a decade away! — to an increasingly tangible and tantalizing technology that has drawn investors off the sidelines. The technology may be challenging to master and expensive to build today, but fusion promises t

Nearly every founder has the same concern: how can they ensure their startup has enough cash to deliver on its promise. For most, that means wooing venture capitalists early and often, trading equity in the company and board seats for cash to keep the lights on. For Teague Egan, it also means cour

During COVID-19, Wiley Webb embarked on a year-long trip with his wife to try to figure out the most pressing issues in the food system. He talked to people at more than 70 farms and consistently heard that they wanted more buyers. Large buyers told Webb they wanted to find these farm suppliers but

For the past few years, direct air capture has been seen as a potential silver bullet to the climate crisis. But now a startup originally from the snowy wastes of Iceland is taking a new approach: removing carbon from seawater.  The industry standard for removing carbon with direct air capture me

Funding for green hydrogen startups — particularly at the growth stage — has dipped. Hydrogen plants and fueling stations across the U.S. have shut down. And automakers and governments seem to be on the battery electric vehicle (BEV) buzz. And yet, BMW recently announced plans to work with Toy

The data centers that train the large language models behind AI consume unimaginable amounts of energy, and the stakes are high for big tech companies to ensure they have enough power to run those plants. That’s why Microsoft is now throwing its weight behind nuclear power. The tech giant on