Enabling Resilient Energy Grids - Thomas Folker of Leap

Impact Hustlers - Entrepreneurs with Social Impact

Thomas Folker is the co-founder and CEO of Leap, a climate tech startup that helps balance the energy grid and begin the transition to renewable energies, all through a single API. With the goal of running an energy grid that is decreasingly carbon-intensive, Leap hopes to pave the way for better and cleaner energy alternatives through their software.

In today’s episode, aside from sharing how energy grids in general and, in particular, Leap work, Thomas also shares how he and his team made the most out of the pandemic. With a team of 80, he sings praises about the beauty of going fully remote and the advantages that came with it, such as being able to hire the perfect people regardless of where they are in the world plus how having a Director of People made a huge impact in their company culture and so much more. This is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Thomas’ key lessons and quotes from this episode were:

• “We are a startup with a mission, a climate tech-driven mission. So, everyone that works at Leap has the drive to do something good for the world, so that's been a real big magnet for us to acquire real talent.” (36:51)
• “For everyone, impact is different, and we are not the small startup anymore where everyone knows exactly what's happening in everyone's private life. So, processes break as well.” (38:47)
• “Technology got us where we are right now, but it can also get us in a situation where we make sure that we are not on a pathway to destruction. Clean energy is the future.” (42:53)

In this episode, we also talked about:

• Electric vs. solar vs. wind (10:53)
• How Leap works (17:24)
• Leap’s business model and how they make money (26:52)
• Lessons Thomas learned during the pandemic (35:27)

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