Ep. 188: Alex Laskey, Co-Founder & Executive Chair of Rewiring America

Today's guest is Alex Laskey, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Rewiring America. Rewiring America's mission is two-fold: 1) demonstrating that rapid electrification of all aspects of the American economy is the key to combating climate change, and 2) designing and promoting practical policies to accomplish it. Before Rewiring America, Alex was the President and Founder of Opower, the global leader in cloud-based software for the utility industry. Under his leadership, Opower grew from a two-person startup to a publicly-traded company whose software is used by more than half of the largest electric and gas utilities in the world. Today, Opower is a division of Oracle and delivers more than 6 TWh of energy savings per year to help homeowners save more than $1B per year on their energy bills. Alex is a Board member of Arcadia and a longtime Director of the Conservation Lands Foundation. In addition, he was a founding Commissioner on the Energy Transitions Commission and a board member of Advanced Energy Economy. I was excited to sit down with Alex and learn more about his climate journey. We discuss Rewiring America, the goals of the non-profit, and why energy grids and renewable power are vital to the clean energy future. Alex also walks me through his time at Opower, the unique idea that utilities can be customers, and Alex's career as a climate entrepreneur. Alex is an excellent guest. Enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests. Episode recorded December 10th, 2021