Inevitable Ep 7: Dan Yates, Co-Founder & former CEO of Opower
In this episode, I interview Dan Yates, the Co-Founder and former CEO of Opower, an energy software company he took public and ultimately sold to Oracle for $532 million. I was eager to speak with Dan, as he started Opower from a place of concern about the planet. It was clearly a financial win, but I had so many questions. Was it a win in terms of fulfilling the initial mission? How does he feel now about climate change vs when he started Opower in 2007? How is he evaluating what kinds of projects he takes on moving forward? What advice does he have for other people trying to figure out the same thing?
Dan is a consummate professional and clearly a great leader. I also found him to be quite humble and introspective. His perspective was quite helpful to me as I am figuring out my next moves as it relates to helping with climate change, and I hope you find it helpful as well.
I hope you enjoy the show!
You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and provide suggestions for future guests or topics you'd like to see covered on the show.
Links for topics discussed in this episode:
- Jason Diamond’s Collapse: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised/dp/0143117009
- Map from EIA.gov consumption categories: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36412&src=%E2%80%B9%20Consumption%20%20%20%20%20%20Residential%20Energy%20Consumption%20Survey%20(RECS)-b1
- Robert Cialdini Understanding and Motivating Energy Conservation via Social Norms: http://media.cbsm.com/comments/168079/09+PE+Cialdini+Hewlett+Foundation.pdf
- Opower: https://ux.opower.com/
- Oracle Opower acquisition: https://www.oracle.com/corporate/acquisitions/opower/
- Dandelion Geothermal: https://dandelionenergy.com/
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant