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@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT Great question, long personal answer. After the dotcom bubble my career was bolloxed. I had worked to build lots of great businesses (many still around and successful today). At one point I was worth $30m on paper. But I lost 99% of it and ended up unemployed and unemployable. 1/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT I couldn't get a job. Companies were deluged with resumes from dotcom refugees, and they raised the drawbridges. A first in engineering from Cambridge, Harvard MBA Baker Scholar, Olympic team, 10 good years at Deloitte, McKinsey & AP - and recruiters wouldn't answer my calls! 2/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT I had been in venture capital with Groupe Arnault, but only for a couple of years. No VC would consider employing me either. And I had lost the self-confidence to start something myself. It was a very dark time. I was angry at the world and at myself, at risk of depression. 3/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT Every day I spent as long as I could bear looking for a job. Well-meaning friends told me to take a junior role, anything. They did not understand that companies do not offer jobs to overqualified failures. What should I do, leave stuff off my resume? Lie? 4/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT The rest of my time I found myself reading, thinking and talking about energy. Everyone was talking about the 'hydrogen economy'. Jeremy Rifkin was hyping it, though it seemed fanciful to me. He has a horrible record as a futurist. 5/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT But everywhere I looked it was clear something had to change. The global energy system was a pyramid, balanced on its point. The 2nd Gulf War - energy. Air pollution - energy. Depletion (remember Peak Oil?) - energy. Climate change - energy. Continent-wide power cuts - energy. 6/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT No one was talking about solutions, except for the bloody 'hydrogen revolution'. I went back to my roots as an engineer, talked to my old profs, read everything about renewable energy, nuclear, fuel cells etc, etc And looked at them as a potential entrepreneur or investor. 7/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT And then the breakthrough! I learned that you can stick natural gas into a SOFC fuel cell! Forget hydrogen, everyone I know has gas in their homes and offices. That means a vast market for micro CHP, right? No more discarding heart power stations, then burning gas for heat. 8/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT What a vast potential market, if we can move from 35% efficient (at the time) gas-fired power stations to 85% efficient distributed CHP. And none of my clever friends had a clue. Not the bankers. Not the VCs. Not the Harvard MBAs. Not the McKinsey alums. Amazing! 9/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT I spent some time thinking of starting a micro-CHP business, but the technology was not ready for prime time. No SOFCs were certified for connection to the gas mains. And anyway, my skills were clearly better suited to an information business. So I founded New Energy Finance! 10/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT Scroll forward to 2013. I've built and sold NEF, done very nicely. I've met my wife (through NEF). Had three kids. Bought a big run-down pad in Notting Hill. My life is back on track! By now, fuel cells are on the market. You tell me: could I have decided not to put one in? 11/11
