Elixir Mentor Mike Ratliff on Building an Energy Tech Startup
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Jan 17, 2026 Mike Ratliff, a tech veteran with 30 years of experience, is the CTO of an energy tech startup that focuses on grid solutions. He shares his journey from Ruby to Elixir, revealing how BEAM changed his approach to building robust systems. The conversation dives into tackling interconnection issues, the impact of AI on development teams, and the philosophy of creating small, agile teams. Mike emphasizes the importance of telling compelling stories and building solutions that address critical needs, offering insightful advice for both tech founders and engineers.
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From Ruby Pain To BEAM Salvation
- Mike recalled moving from Ruby threading nightmares to discovering MQTT on Erlang which solved their scaling issues.
- He later adopted Elixir for 24/7 grid systems and brought it into multiple companies over a decade.
LLMs Amplify Single-Operator Productivity
- LLMs drastically change how much one person can build and iterate on products.
- Mike says this removes coordination noise and multiplies effectiveness when combined with deep domain experience.
Automating Interconnection Studies At Scale
- Gridvar automates deep power-systems analysis that used to require slow, expensive engineering studies.
- Parallelization and calling fast Rust solvers lets them run hundreds of thousands of scenarios in minutes.