Alex Blumberg is Co-founder and CEO of DaisyChain Energy, a company building a hardware-enabled software platform that turns commercial buildings into flexible grid assets. Best known as the founder of Gimlet Media and co-creator of Planet Money, Blumberg’s second venture focuses on solving one of the most overlooked problems in climate: the misaligned incentives inside buildings.

In this episode, Blumberg explains why building decarbonization has stalled—not because of smart grid technology, but because of economics. The conversation explores how DaisyChain uses submetering and rate arbitrage to create immediate financial value for building owners, while unlocking the ability to deploy batteries, heat pumps, and other distributed energy resources over time. They also discuss their expansion into hospitals, where power quality issues create major operational risk, and how the same platform can solve both problems. At a system level, Blumberg outlines a future where aggregated building loads become flexible assets that help stabilize the energy grid and reduce peak demand.

We’re proud to have invested in DaisyChain and support their journey towards the modernization of the grid.

In this episode, we cover:

• (0:00) An overview of DaisyChain Energy
• (2:06) Why Alex Blumberg started a climate company after Gimlet
• (6:17) Why buildings are a messy but critical climate problem
• (6:52) How DaisyChain works
• (10:08) The split incentive problem in multifamily buildings
• (13:53) Why decarbonization upgrades don’t pencil financially today
• (15:47) Submetering and turning buildings into mini-utilities
• (19:08) Using financial incentives—not climate—to win customers
• (22:53) Turning buildings into flexible energy grid assets
• (27:15) The power quality problem in hospitals
• (31:00) Increasing net operating income vs protecting revenue
• (34:55) The long-term vision: a flexible, distributed energy grid

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.

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• Cody Simms on LinkedIn
• Visit mcj.vc
• Subscribe to the MCJ Newsletter

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ashvin Dayal is Senior Vice President for Power and Climate at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he oversees the Global Energy Alliance (GEA), a multi-billion-dollar initiative backed by the Rockefeller Foundation, the IKEA Foundation, and the Bezos Earth Fund to expand access to clean, reliable electricity worldwide.

In this episode of Inevitable, Dayal explains why energy access remains one of the defining development challenges of the century, with roughly three billion people still lacking enough electricity to meaningfully power economic activity. The conversation explores how philanthropic capital can unlock private investment in markets that commercial investors often avoid, the rise of distributed solar and mini-grids in places like India and across Africa, and how programs like Mission 300 aim to electrify hundreds of millions of people in the coming decade.

Dayal also shares lessons from a decade of deploying distributed energy systems, the growing role of digital tools and AI in managing complex power systems, and why the Rockefeller Foundation is now exploring nuclear and small modular reactors as part of the future global energy mix.

Episode recorded on March 4, 2026 (Published on March 17, 2026)

In this episode, we cover:

• (0:00) An overview of the Rockefeller Foundation
• (2:31) Ashvin’s background in disaster response and climate resilience
• (8:16) What energy access really means for economic opportunity
• (10:15) The “modern energy minimum” and the 3 billion people below it
• (14:11) The Rockefeller Foundation and the creation of GEA
• (19:06) How philanthropic first-loss capital unlocks clean energy investment
• (24:19) Why distributed solar and mini-grids work for emerging markets
• (27:57) Lessons from Smart Power India and scaling rural electrification
• (36:39) Mission 300 and the effort to electrify Africa
• (42:05) Why Rockefeller is exploring nuclear and SMRs
• (47:09) Rockefeller’s legacy: from Standard Oil to global clean energy

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.

Connect with MCJ:

• Cody Simms on LinkedIn
• Visit mcj.vc
• Subscribe to the MCJ Newsletter

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

William Layden is Co-founder and CEO at Rune, a company building modular, behind-the-meter micro data centers that plug directly into solar and wind plants. These units operate on a fully electric, DC-to-DC architecture—bypassing the traditional grid and unlocking new economics for compute at renewable energy sites.

In this episode of Inevitable, Layden explains how solar clipping and curtailment leave vast amounts of clean power stranded—and how Rune’s “RELIC” units turn that waste into usable compute. The conversation dives into DC architecture, Bitcoin as a beachhead market, and why traditional data centers are ill-suited to an era of distributed energy. Layden also unpacks why modular infrastructure may be the fastest path to deploying AI-scale compute at the edge of the energy transition.

Episode recorded on Jan 27, 2026 (Published on Feb 17, 2026)

In this episode we cover:

• (0:00) Intro
• (3:19) An overview of Rune
• (7:15) How energy flows and gets los in today’s power stack
• (10:50) Clipping: the hidden inefficiency in solar
• (14:17) Curtailment: why the grid rejects clean energy
• (20:47) Starting with Bitcoin before scaling to AI workloads
• (25:50) Which compute loads can run interruptibly
• (27:26) Rune’s business model and value to power producers
• (33:16) Where Rune operates and who’s backing it
• (36:10) Why modular, DC-native design matters for scale

Links:

• William Layden on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-layden
• Rune: https://www.rune.energy/

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.

Connect with MCJ:

• Cody Simms on LinkedIn
• Visit mcj.vc
• Subscribe to the MCJ Newsletter

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant