Chase Lochmiller is the CEO and co-founder of Crusoe. If you’re a regular listener, Crusoe isn’t new to the pod. This summer, Cody sat down with Chase’s Co-founder and COO, Cully Cavness, during our live event in Austin.
This latest episode was recorded live at the inaugural MCJ Summit in San Francisco at the beautiful Autodesk Gallery. Cody and Chase dive into how Crusoe is building data centers at the intersection of AI and energy. Chase traces his path from MIT soccer captain and mountaineer to climate-focused entrepreneur, and how those experiences shaped Crusoe’s core values of preparation, curiosity, and speed.
He shares the story behind the company’s 1.2-gigawatt Abilene, TX project, its energy-first approach to powering AI infrastructure, and his vision for an era of abundant energy and intelligence. The discussion also explores the future of AI labor, grid integration, and what digital abundance could mean for society at large.
Special thanks to our MCJ Summit attendees and our kind sponsors: Autodesk Foundation, Borusan, Cedar Grove, CSC Leasing, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Obayashi, Palantir, and Safire Partners.
Episode recorded on Oct 15, 2025 (Published on Oct 29, 2025)
In this episode, we cover:
- [01:14] Chase’s early love of math, science, and soccer
- [02:42] Realizing academia moved too slow for his energy
- [04:32] How his entrepreneurial father shaped his path
- [05:05] Climbing Everest and the origins of “Think Like a Mountaineer”
- [09:32] Defining Crusoe as a clean AI infrastructure company
- [10:47] Building vertically integrated “AI factories”
- [16:24] Inside the 1.2 GW Abilene project for OpenAI and Oracle
- [20:52] Crusoe’s energy-first approach to compute build-outs
- [25:36] Using AI demand to accelerate next-gen energy solutions
- [30:24] When AI becomes a power orchestrator
- [33:31] Digital labor and AI’s impact on GDP and society
- [38:41] How Chase hopes Crusoe is remembered in 30 years
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
