Justin Lopas on the Business of Base Power and Lessons from SpaceX & Anduril

Intro

I had a conversation with Justin Lopas on building Base Power a few months back, last week they announced $1B in new funding at a $13B valuation. Justin cofounded Base Power with Zach Dell in 2023. I first met him at one of the deeptech dinners I was hosting in Austin back when they were still in stealth (adding to the list of incredible markups for anyone investing in founders from these dinners).

The latest round was led by Addition with participation from friends of the show at A16Z, Trust Ventures, 137 Ventures and others.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction and Background at SpaceX03:31 - SpaceX Culture and Giving Agency to Early-Career Talent05:32 - What to Filter for When Hiring Non-Experienced Talent09:03 - Implementing and Automating AI in Non-Technical Roles10:50 - Defining Base Power: The Vision to Fix the Grid15:05 - Regulated vs. Deregulated Energy Markets in Texas17:32 - How Home Batteries Act as an Energy Hedge21:50 - Battery Storage Capacity and Bypassing the Interconnection Queue22:56 - Smooth Variability in Energy Supply and Demand24:48 - Aligning Incentives and Structural Practical Limits for Home Batteries26:13 - Navigating the Patchwork of US Energy Regulation and Expansion32:07 - The Hardest Challenges and Landed-Cost Optimization34:04 - Treating Every Aspect of a Business as a Factory38:37 - Recruiting Pitch for Base Power40:25 - Embracing Internal Failures to Foster Innovation41:39 - Learning Methods: YouTube, LLMs, and Peer Insights43:44 - Building and Maintaining a Strong Company Culture48:24 - Key Takeaways from Leading Manufacturing at Anduril50:19 - Managing Diverse Subcultures Within a Consistent Mission51:42 - Future Outlook: New Products, AI Support, and Scaling Production

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