1 rich Libsyn https://www.libsyn.com 90 600 So excited to welcome Kara Rodby, an expert in battery technologies, techno-economic modeling, and startup strategy. She is a Principal and the Director of Strategic Services at Volta Energy Technologies, a&amp;nbsp;specialist VC firm investing in companies building advanced technologies essential to the electrification and decarbonization of the global energy system. She also created Lost the Plot, a seminar series on the state of the climate, born out of a dissillusionment with the &quot;reframing&quot; of the climate conversation towards towards national security, warfare, artificial intelligence, etc. She holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT and was recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 for her work in energy. We talk about her work at Volta, her PhD program and thesis, and Lost the Plot. Specifically, we covered topics such as geopolitics in onshoring battery supply chains, incremental improvements in Li-ion, balancing returns-first VC models with impact-driven personal motivations, the fundamental importance of emissions mitigation (versus adaption/resilience), industry shifts away from hard-tech, and much more. This episode was such a pleasure to record, and particularly thought-provoking thanks to Kara's candor, expertise, and in-depth discussion of the ethical nuances of &quot;climate&quot; work. For more hard truths and probing along these lines, I'd highly suggest her Lost the Plot seminars: https://lost-the-plot.com/speakers.html. Bright IDEAs https://www.ideaneu.com/ <iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/42361980/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/88AA3C/" height="90" width="600" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe> https://assets.libsyn.com/secure/item/42361980