Matt Rogers of Mill Industries on Food Waste, Impactful Product Design, and Innovation

Matt Rogers, co-founder and CEO of Mill Industries, joins today’s episode. 

Mill’s mission is to reduce food waste and its related carbon emissions by offering customers the chicest waste bin ever made. This brilliantly designed, high tech product decomposes and dehydrates food scraps before turning them into animal feed. Mill then picks up those food scraps and distributes the feed to local farms and others. 

It’s a unique and innovative product, but that’s nothing new for Matt Rogers. He started his early career at Apple, designing and building groundbreaking products like the iPod and iPhone. Then, in 2010, Matt co-founded Nest Labs Inc, reinventing the home with the first smart thermostat. By 2014, Nest was acquired by Google. 

When co-founder Harry Tannenbaum reached out to Matt with a new product idea for reducing food waste during the pandemic, Matt was hooked. Mill Industries was launched a few months later, and now it’s already turning heads and garnering interest for its innovative concept. 

Matt gives takeaways from his early days at Apple, shares valuable insights as the founder of Nest, and talks through the origin story of Mill Industries. Whether you’re a future founder, current business leader, or just someone looking to create the next big thing, you’ll leave this episode inspired and informed. 

Listen now on your favorite podcast platform!

More:

• Head over to https://www.mill.com/ to learn more about Mill Industries and its innovative food waste bin. 
• Follow CiC host Conor Gaughan on LinkedIn to stay up to date on new episodes and more. 

Episode Timestamps:

(0:03) - Matt’s cold open 

(0:50) - Intro on Matt Rogers and Mill Industries

(2:43) - Background and childhood

(5:05) - Engineering education

(8:03) - Working at Apple Inc. 

(15:08) - Founding and scaling Nest 

(21:20) - Origin of Mill Industries 

(23:43) - Mill’s product and innovative approach

(34:18) - Growth and behavior change 

(40:27) - Aligning profit with purpose

(42:57) - Decarbonizing the economy 

(46:23) - Finding motivation, optimism 

(48:32) - Conclusion and end credits