Aurora Solar Co-Founder Samuel Adeyemo

The United States recently surpassed 100 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, enough to power nearly 20 million homes. 

But to decarbonize the power grid by 2035 and meet growing demand, the Department of Energy estimates that we'll need 1,000 gigawatts of solar capacity, providing 40% of the nation's electricity in just 15 years. 

That means, on average, we'll need to install solar at quadruple the rate we did in 2020.

We can't achieve that growth without creative new ways to install solar in as many places as possible. 

That’s where our guest, Aurora Solar Co-Founder & CRO Samuel Adeyemo, comes in.

Aurora is tackling one of the biggest problems in the rooftop solar industry: "soft costs."

The cost of solar panels has fallen 99 percent since 1980. But the cost of everything else involved in installing those panels — the paperwork, the design, the sales process — is now higher than the hardware itself. 

Aurora makes software designed to tackle them all together.

Over the last decade, Aurora has raised $321 million to help digitize the solar design and installation process. 

We talked with Sam about how he turned a challenging experience with a solar installation in Kenya into a company valued at $2 billion.

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