The Entrepreneurs for Impact Podcast: Transcripts
#149:
From Uber Exec and Taylor Swift Support to Solar CEO with a State Governor as Cofounder — Laura Zapata, CEO of Clearloop
PODCAST INTRODUCTION
Chris Wedding:
My guest today is Laura Zapata, Co-founder and CEO of Clearloop. Clearloop creates carbon solutions for organizations of all sizes, from global corporations to small businesses and educational institutions to decarbonize the economy, expand access to clean energy, and accelerate the development of new solar projects in American communities where the greatest economic and environmental benefits can be achieved. Wink, wink, we're talking about the South, you all. So, Laura and Clearloop based in Nashville. I am from Kentucky. I live now in North Carolina. Anyway, God bless the South.
00:56
Clearloop works in partnership with utility-scale solar developer Silicon Ranch, which acquired Clearloop in 2021. In addition, Laura is the former Head of Global Communications for Uber Eats, Press Secretary for Hillary Clinton's presidential race in Ohio, and communications lead for other congressional offices.
In this episode, we talked about, this is important, pay attention here, how to get Taylor Swift to partner with Clearloop. Now, I'm half serious, half joking. Laura references how Ms. Swift was a supporter of, I believe, the prior Senate race she worked on in Tennessee. I thought, look, let's just change the whole podcast topic to figuring out how to get Ms. Swift to partner with Clearloop for more renewables in the South. So, if any of you listening are besties, my 12-year-old would freak to hear me say this in public, with Taylor, you should reach out to Laura. Anyway, big opportunities there, world-changing stuff, Taylor, come on.
We also covered what Laura learned by working at Uber in a move fast and break things environment, how having the former governor of Tennessee as a co-founder is a thing. Again, a first for our podcast to have a governor as a co-founder. How she moved from being an entrepreneur with Uber Eats, or I guess Uber and then Uber Eats was the product spin out, to becoming an entrepreneur with a voice. The importance of being optimistic. What we all need to do to improve climate tech's communication strategy to broaden the tent. By the way, pop quiz, how many degrees Fahrenheit is 1.5 degrees Celsius? Hmm.
Why working with renewables in the South can have more impact given the carbon intensity of the power grid down here. How Clearloop's model of carbon offsets for corporates changes how renewable energy power plants can be financed. The need to build a life and not just a career and along the way, the joy of farmers markets and pictures of our bounty on Saturday mornings. Lots, lots more there.
Hope you enjoy it and please give Laura and Clearloop a shout out on LinkedIn, Slack or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people. And yes, tiny little P.S. here, if you happen to be or be a dear friend of a growth stage, climate tech CEO, founder, investor, and are looking for, let's say, your own personal advisory board perhaps, a try because maybe you feel alone in the process of doing something super, super hard, but guess what? You cannot have all the answers. No one does except that you're maybe expected to have all the answers.
04:15
There are communities such as the one we run at Entrepreneurs for Impact with 35 other growth-stage climate tech CEOs and investors across North America who say, “Look, no need to figure this stuff out on our own. Let's share best practices, tips, tools, networks on capital raising and talent and strategy, policy, et cetera. And let's do it in fun locations like Boulder or Asheville in in-person retreats, as well as one-on-one coaching strategy calls.”
Anyway, come check it out if you want to learn more entrepreneursforimpact.com or come find me on LinkedIn. All right, peace out.
PODCAST INTERVIEW
Chris Wedding:
Laura Zapata, CEO and Co-founder of Clearloop, welcome to the podcast.
Laura Zapata:
Thank you so much for having me, Chris.
Chris Wedding:
We smiled before pressing record because I see nice shiny buildings behind you, knowing you're in Tennessee, easy to guess that is Nashville. Your comment is, “We might get some woo-hoo's from Bachelorette parties during the pod.” I really hope we do. It'd be the first time we ever had those on the pod.
Laura Zapata:
We try to keep it interesting around here. There's also lots of early 2000s, Britney Spears and others that the sounds make their way up over here. So, it keeps it interesting in Nashville.
Chris Wedding:
Nice. Well, the other maybe more interesting part or I guess a spot we'll start is that you are the only startup, certainly in our space that has a former state governor as a co-founder. Let's just start there. How do you get a governor as a co-founder, Laura?
Laura Zapata:
I guess I never thought about it that way. The three of us that started Clearloop were really coming at this from a very different background. All three of us were in a campaign. The former governor of the State of Tennessee, Phil Bredesen was running for Senate in 2018, so that's how I came back home. I had spent a lot of time outside of Tennessee after I graduated from high school and a lot of time in the coasts. Then my desire to come back home was really prompted by this idea that I could be part of this change that was happening in Tennessee and we couldn't see a new senator elected and so that's how we met.
Then at the end of that campaign, we were not successful. Though we did have Taylor Swift's endorsement, which was a really, really big deal at the time and today even more so. The idea was just basically, the former governor had been a serial entrepreneur prior to his political life and during and after. He had an idea and he said, “Look, I'm not going to do this thing today, but I have this idea and I would love to see if it's a business. I'm happy to fund you all for six months and see if this idea could turn into a business.” And so, he approached Bob Corney, who's my co-founder, who was the campaign manager, and me, I was the communications director and said, “You all see if this works.” Here we are almost five years later and we have a fully functioning business.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, I would say that and then some. I thought by starting with governor as co-founder, we hit our limit with name dropping, et cetera, but you topped me. You topped yourself, I suppose. Wait, does that mean Ms. Swift has been able to promote you all in some way or you just know you have her love?
Laura Zapata:
No, we had her love as somebody who was running for office. I don't know that we've earned her radar I'm sure she's busy selling out lots of awesome tours. We have not gotten on her radar again, but I think it was just one of those fun facts. Also, as a millennial myself, as a 1989 baby myself, I was very pleased to continue to tell anybody who will listen that we had that endorsement back then.
Chris Wedding:
Well, as a founder myself, I feel like we should just change the entire trajectory of the podcast and just brainstorm live on how to get Taylor Swift involved in Clearloop. What do you think? Is that cool?
Laura Zapata:
There we go, yes. I'm happy to have that conversation. If anybody knows, I'm happy to have the conversation.
04:01
Chris Wedding:
I mean, I'm pretty sure she's a listener to Entrepreneurs for Impact, because who's not really?
Laura Zapata:
That's right. I mean, this is what we needed. This was the last missing piece that we had.
Chris Wedding:
And if you can't laugh at yourself, dot, dot, dot. All right, that's pretty cool. Let's go in a different direction, also about your path to get here. So, working for Uber in some pretty, senior corporate communications roles. What did you learn there, either on the communication side or the startup side that you feel brought you to or you maybe bring to growing Clearloop?
Laura Zapata:
Yeah, so my experiences at Uber, I was there twice. I started early in the rights business when the public affairs, the communications team was really growing and this idea that you’d have to make sure that you had the buy-in of more people in the cities where technology was actually touching them, that was really important.
If you remember all the way back to 2014, it was disruption and breaking things was the name of the game in tech and moving fast and breaking things. What Uber very quickly realized is that, yes, we were using technology, but it was also affecting people's cities in the way that they moved and that had greater consequences. And so, you needed to be able to communicate this idea and the vision of what Uber could be when it came to minimizing drinking and driving and giving people alternative forms of income. That storytelling was really important for that part in history of Uber. That was the history and the part that I was part of, which was really fascinating and something that was near and dear to me. How do you share concepts that feel really esoteric and simplify them so that they feel accessible to people? People need to feel part of the story.
06:12
Then the other part that I learned when I came back to Uber in 2017, it was, I was heading up the Uber Eats communications side of things and Uber Eats at the time, finally, it was spinning out into a real product and a real business that they were investing in. And so, it was my opportunity to see a business within a business and see that growth of that type of a brand-new business vertical. See the people who are making decisions and be at the table and realize for myself that I also could be a decision maker. That I had it in me to solve problems and to be an entrepreneur. Maybe I had never really thought of myself in that way, but it gave me a chance to see myself as somebody who also had something to say, something to contribute. Come up with my own problem solving for a big problem. I just hadn't figured out what that problem was that I needed to go work on.
Chris Wedding:
I love it. So, while at Uber, you can be an intrapreneur of sorts, learning you had something to say, not quite sure the problem to solve, that's awesome. I think a lot of listeners, they haven't taken the plunge. This isn't their third startup or whatever else, but boy, they're tempted. But it's got to be the right moment, by the way, never a good moment. Opportunity, by the way, always a better one, always a worse one. Yeah, that's helpful. Entrepreneurship to entrepreneurship.
Okay, so you have communications all over your background. Great. Also, not the most common path to start and lead a company. Also great, different perspectives. I want to tie that to a quote I heard last week during Climate Week at a Nasdaq event and I had to look it up because I had just met my new friend, Farhoud Meybodi. Farhoud, if you're listening, apologies for butchering your name here. He is a documentary filmmaker and a new film coming out called Earthbound, really inspiring. I've seen the pilot about a Kenyan female entrepreneur converting waste into waste of value.
What he said on stage was, the era of the climate scientist is over and the era of the climate storyteller or also salesperson is upon us. So, pretty provocative. My background's science. I don't work necessarily as a scientist today, but pretty provocative. You're smiling pretty big when you hear that.
Laura Zapata:
Yeah.
Chris Wedding:
What do you hear in that statement?
Laura Zapata:
Well, I think it's very relatable and when it comes to climate, we really do need all hands and all brains on deck. The science is very clear. There's lots and lots of research and scientists who've been banging on our doors, telling us that we need to do something about greenhouse gases.
The UN did an excellent report where it shows you a nice bar graph that says, this is exactly how we solve climate change. They give you the recipe. And so, it's now also time to broaden the tent as it were and try to get more of these creative thinkers who are thinking about, okay, how do we tell the story to get more people to be part of this, to buy in, to make it actionable and make it relatable? That is what at least I like to tell myself when I'm having conversations like this and pause and say, why do I even belong in this conversation?
Well, five years in, I feel like I've earned my stripes, but early on it was really trying to figure out, what is it that I'm contributing? I think my contribution is really, how do we make an optimistic, solvable business that is about climate? That is growing as a result of climate change, but it is optimistic and tone and also relatable. That makes people understand that we can't have these esoteric conversations about Celsius because most people, especially in the US, don't think in Celsius, don't think in metric tons of carbon. And so, simple things like changing the way that we talk about our carbon footprint in pounds. Everybody knows how much they weigh and so thinking about your carbon footprint in relation to your weight in pounds, you understand that.
Trying to really make it about, how do we get people to think about the opportunity to clean up the grid? Everybody relates to that. There are solar projects, you can do more of that. We don't think about how we make electricity today. You turn on the lights, you expect them to turn on. There is an impact on our environment and so how do we make it so that that impact is not as pronounced when it comes to greenhouse gases so that we can start cleaning up the grid?
11:48
Then there's also intrinsic value in Clearloop that is very American, feeling like no matter where you're born, no matter where you live, you should be able to turn on your lights and do the exact same activity and not have disparate effects on the environment or the surroundings. The fact that today you turn on the lights in California versus Kentucky or Tennessee, and you're having a different impact on the environment just because of where you live, that kind of stuff, just making it really easy for everybody to understand.
You don't have to be a climate scientist and know how many metric tons of greenhouse gases we have out in the atmosphere to understand that there's something that we can do about it. That something's not right and we can work to change it. I hope that that's answering your question, but just trying to get to the, how do we communicate this stuff and make it more accessible for people? So that the science doesn't scare those of us who weren't very good at science growing up, we also feel like we can do something about it.
Chris Wedding:
It's well said and it reminds me of another moment from Climate Week last week was at this Leaders for Purpose event and actually a former podcast guest, Michael Lee at Octopus Energy was saying, a statement he likes to deliver to his friends in Houston is, “If it costs more than $10 to fill up your gas tank, you're paying too much.” At first, you're like, “Wait, how's that possible? I mean, surely it costs 80 or 100 bucks unless you drive an EV.” It begs the question. I think that simple framing into, it isn't so much about climate for all of us, for many of us that's a big driver, but look, what's in it for me, individuals, the dollars and cents and so forth?
Okay, we've teased folks. Obviously, they have hopefully read the notes, what Clearloop does, big picture, but what is Clearloop all one word? What's the pitch, Laura?
14:02
Laura Zapata:
Clearloop is a carbon solutions platform. What that means is really, we are focused on helping companies of all sizes, big and small to tackle their carbon footprint by focusing their dollars on deploying more solar projects in the US. The way we do that is we focus on carbon, where are the most carbon intense grids, and instead of using their dollars to maybe plant a tree, we're using their dollars to go build a solar project that will be connected to the grid for the next 40 years. Then they get the credit for the carbon that they helped avoid as a result of that project turning on.
If you think about, like I said, the tree idea, they have a carbon footprint. These companies or organizations, they need to do something about it. They can go directly and try to lower their carbon footprint, but there's this remnant. What do you do with that? Here's a way for them to invest in brand new infrastructure in the US and build these projects in parts of the country that are otherwise getting left behind.
Chris Wedding:
Maybe a more direct question. How do you make money, Laura?
Laura Zapata:
Basically, the way that we do this is, we're trying to build more solar projects and so we take a fee from companies because we need to decarbonize the grid. In our thesis of the cases, one, to carbon footprints, transportation, power sector. We have the technology to clean up the power sector, so let’s do more of that. Let's deploy more capital. Let's build more of these projects and so here's the opportunities.
Basically, we are selling the environmental attributes or carbon from these projects to corporate, university buyers. They then give us the fee. We take a portion, the majority of the portion of that fee, we go use it to go have the capital to build the solar projects. Like money down in a house, we have the money down to go build a project. Then we are taking a fee from the carbon, but also, we're selling electricity back to the grid as brown power and we're getting paid for that electricity that then comes back. So, it's sort of two revenue streams.
When you think about it is the corporate buyer that's buying the environmental attribute, they're helping us go build these projects. Then we're selling the electricity on the backend to local power companies, to utilities at really cheap rates. So, hopefully the incentives are aligned, but it allows us to have two different ways of bringing in revenue and making Clearloop a good business.
Chris Wedding:
You all were acquired by Silicon Ranch, correct?
Laura Zapata:
Yes.
Chris Wedding:
I think I understand, but maybe just explain for our listeners, why did that make sense for them to acquire you all?
16:59
Laura Zapata:
So, when we started Clearloop at the beginning of 2019, the whole world was very focused. It was separate. Renewables and carbon solutions were very separate and so when we started Clearloop, we thought, okay, we're very much square in the carbon world because electricity is the by-product of what we're doing. What companies are really after and what we're really after is the carbon that you can create from building these projects. But as we started growing and getting more demand, we realized we really could benefit from having one development partner that can go build the infrastructure.
The infrastructure is hard. Anybody who's tried it in hardware or infrastructure, it takes time and effort and lots and lots of money. So, if we could focus on leveraging that expertise from Silicon Ranch because they're an independent power producer, they've done solar projects in the traditional way that they're funded and I can get into that. If your listeners are very sophisticated so we can get into the nitty-gritty of that, but they do power purchase agreements and so they go build these massive utility scale projects.
What we are bringing to the table for them is that, we are also opening this opportunity to companies of all sizes. You don't have to be a bankable Fortune 50 company to come and help build a new project, which is unlike the majority of developers today. You're signing a PPA and you're matching your electricity consumption to the projects and so that's how the transaction happens. What we're saying with Clearloop is, it's about carbon. You want the environmental attribute. Let's go build in the places where we can get the most carbon out of the grid.
The way we do that is, we're innovating on the capital stack and so we have money down to go build the project as opposed to a long-term power purchase agreement, which is usually the instrument that most companies use to go finance a solar project. But then once we have a project go, the same stuff is true. You need to get your interconnection and your land developed and all that stuff and so leveraging the expertise of a parent company who can do that at scale helps us scale a lot faster too.
Chris Wedding:
So, Laura, you were talking about the capital stack and maybe why Silicon Ranch's involvement makes that easier. Maybe the angle was why Clearloop changes the capital stack, but just dig one or two levels deeper in the capital stack here.
Laura Zapata:
The majority of projects today for renewables in the United States are happening and funded by power purchase agreements. That's the instrument that has helped to really kick off renewables in the US. A power purchase agreement in the simplest terms is basically, you have somebody who is a bankable party who's willing to say, “That if you go build this project, I'm going to pay for the power at X rate for X amount of time.” And so, what I like to say, it's your rich uncle saying, “Hey, I'm going to back you up,” and then you go to the bank with your rich uncle and they're good for the money. The bank says, “Okay, great. Here you go, developer X, and you can go build the project.” Then you get the revenues from the generation of the power, but you're not making anything on the front end, you’re trying to finance the construction of these projects.
That's the majority of how we build solar and wind projects in the United States today. It's worked really, really well, particularly for these big industrial and commercial customers, the big tech companies that have big data centers and they're trying to match their generation. They're using massive amounts of electricity to power their data centers and so you're matching the renewable energy to their data center consumption.
It doesn't work however, if you're not a rich uncle, if you're not a big tech company. The majority of companies, the majority of their carbon footprint doesn't come from scope two or their electricity consumption. It comes from scope three. It's their value chain. It's all the people sending you stuff or your employees’ going places. Everything else that happens outside of your four walls is what makes up the carbon footprint of most companies, of most industries. And so, what do you do to effect that?
22:36
What we're saying is basically, if you don't have a rich uncle, but you have a bunch of different companies, the rest of us, the rest of the organizations that are out there, and you can sort of like crowdfunding, take dollar by dollar and take small footprint by footprint and gather, amass that money to a sizable enough down payment to then go take to the bank and say, “Okay, will you finance the construction of these projects?” Because we've sold all of the environmental attributes from this project, so we're stripping all the environmental attributes, selling those off before construction even begins. Because if it were not for that environmental attribute purchase, this project would not be built. We do sell that off and then we can finance the rest of the project.
What we're doing is essentially just selling electrons, electricity, brown power, back to the utility. What I was saying earlier, getting the incentives aligned, utilities now have an opportunity. They don't have to worry about building the project. All they have to do is buy the cheapest possible power and it happens to be clean. It happens to be carbon-free. They don't get to take any of the attributes because you can't double count, but what we know to be true is this is producing carbon-free electricity that now will be in their grids and they'll be serving their ratepayers with.
So, if we can compare it as basically the capital stack that has existed, it's still the same portions of it. It's just like when you bring the money to the table and what you're selling, you're bifurcating electrons from environmental attributes, you then can do a lot more creative things when it comes to building projects in parts of the country where a PPA has not traditionally worked well, because you can afford to pay maybe lower rates to the utilities.
When I'm talking about going into the hardest places and going to the places where there’s the most carbon intense grids, here's the opportunity to say, okay, if you innovate on the capital stack, you can go into new geographies and you can do more in places where they haven't traditionally been able to penetrate, even though there's plenty of sun and plenty of land.
Chris Wedding:
And just to be very specific, in case folks haven't picked this up yet, you're in Tennessee, I'm in North Carolina. I'm from Kentucky, and so we know about the carbon intensity generally of our grids in the South. Okay. So, educate me here for a second, Laura. I mean, I totally get separating green attributes, you're going to monetize those with the corporates, taking care of maybe scope three emissions, let's say, and electrons that's going to the grid where the buyer doesn't really care about whether it's solar or not solar. But I think I hear you said that when you, quote unquote, strip off the green attributes, you are selling brown power to the grid. I guess I've never heard it phrased that way. I'm just curious. I know there's brown, fossil fuel derived power. I know there's green, wind, solar, et cetera. Is there neutral, like colorless? Is there colorless power you can sell, Laura?
Laura Zapata:
Yeah, I guess so.
Chris Wedding:
I'm hearing you're calling it brown.
Laura Zapata:
I know. Maybe I've been stuck in the greenhouse gas accounting world for too long and want to make sure that we're very clear that none of the attributes go with it. Once it's an electron, you don't know where it's coming from. So, the reality of the thing is, it's electricity just the same as you would use it for anything else, but yes, it doesn't have a carbon footprint associated or it doesn't have emissions associated with it like a fossil fuel-based electron would. But for carbon accounting world, people, and because we're in this world of selling environmental attributes, we want to make sure that we're very clear that there's a clear line of demarcation when it comes to the products that we ultimately sell.
27:19
Chris Wedding:
Well, I love how transparent you’re being. Hey, listen folks, there are no green attributes with this power, but in Chris Wedding's world, I am believing there is green and neutral and brown. You're putting back on the grid neutral, no attributes, but no positive, no negative…
Laura Zapata:
Yeah, and the environment doesn't care. Our earth doesn't care what our greenhouse gas accounting rules are. The reality of the thing is, we need to retrofit as much as possible and start cleaning up in an accelerated fashion. The UN, like I said, they have this recipe book and renewables is right up there. Here's our opportunity to stop burning fossil fuels, stop digging in the hole deeper. Let's replace as much as possible and grow as we electrify everything. So, the environment, whether or not we sell it as brown power or neutral power, it doesn't really matter. It's not polluting our earth the way that fossil fuels are.
Chris Wedding:
Look, let me ask you this. I think to the listeners, they're thinking, “Look, man, Laura and the own governor and partner just started this in 2019, get bought by Silicon Ranch. Man, they're just cruising. What an easy startup journey this must have been.” Of course, I'm being facetious.
Laura Zapata:
Yeah.
Chris Wedding:
What were some of the hardest parts, Laura? What did you all learn to get around those walls?
Laura Zapata:
It's still very hard. Like before the podcast we were talking about, we're hiring for three different positions right now. I still pinch myself thinking we can hire three people and we can afford to hire three people. It’s a big deal that folks want to come join and build this with us. So, I still feel like we're very much in building mode.
The acquisition was this idea that, okay, we don't have to go build our own development and construction shop and that's going to be really, really important. But also, it was an acquisition for us to then go build inside of Silicon Ranch and that comes with its own challenges of trying to grow inside of another company that's also fast growing, that does things a certain way. It reminds me a little bit of the Uber, Uber Eats scenario in some ways. So, the most challenging thing has been trying to look really ahead through all the puts and takes of all the like day-to-day challenges and remind ourselves the ultimate reason why we're doing this. The most exciting thing has been seeing the buy-in.
30:10
We recently announced Microsoft as one of our customers, we announced Vanderbilt as one of our customers this year, Rivian as well. These are really sophisticated companies that have a big platform and have climate dollars to spend in really meaningful ways. And the fact that they're putting their money with us to help deploy more of these projects is a really big deal. So, sometimes it's challenging to look up and realize that what you were hoping would happen six months ago, a year ago, whatever, is actually happening, and now we have to scale.
Chris Wedding:
Well, kudos on those kind of household names choosing you all as a partner. Maybe a related question, as you look back, hindsight it's 2020, all that jazz, what would you have done more quickly?
Laura Zapata:
That's a good question. I would have pivoted more quickly when COVID happened. Obviously, we were very focused on flight shaming because we started in 2019 and so, our focus was really thinking about like, who's out there that needs a solution right away until they figure out sustainable aviation fuel and other ways to decarbonize the airline? I thought this was a good opportunity. I mean, none of us realized what the impact would be on the world and the economy. So, we were really, really laser focused on certain verticals that we thought would be no brainers and I wish we had pivoted more quickly or been more open to seeing other companies out there that also needed solutions.
Chris Wedding:
Do you think there were data points that you could have seen or were seeing, but didn't put them all together? Was it lack of enough data? Was it you had in your brains like, “No, our goal is right over there, let's keep going to that goal,”? What do you think was the cause for stay in the course versus pivoting?
Laura Zapata:
I think it was, we finally were catching their attention as the world started shutting down, it was there. And so, it was just like when you try a bunch of different things and you see the one thing working and you want to stick with it. I don't think we knew the massive proportions of what was about to happen to the world.
So, it was missing the enormity of what was going on, but also feeling comforted by the fact that we were getting a response from the people that we had been working on for so long. I wish we had been a little bit more open to things, to maybe doing things slightly different. But hey, we're still around, so we did pivot enough. We became shameless over COVID and just reached out to anybody who would take a Zoom meeting with us and that helped us just keep it moving.
Chris Wedding:
If I heard you properly, you went from flight shaming to being shameless and taking whatever call could lead to this.
Laura Zapata:
Yes, 100%.
Chris Wedding:
Okay. Let's stay with this thread. We're going to switch from Clearloop to Laura in this part of the pod. So, Laura, as you look back, and if you could talk to your younger self, what might be some advice you would give her on how to be more effective, happier on this path? I'll say this path pretty broadly, not just Clearloop in this case.
Laura Zapata:
For a long time I was really focused on just building a career and you would put all your personal stuff on hold or check the boxes and move on to focusing on the job. I realized through a lot of big setbacks, we didn't talk about this, but I was really involved in politics and that's why I quit Uber.
34:35
The first time it was because I went into the presidential campaign in 2016 and that was really rough losing that campaign and being part of that. Feeling like you were so close and you had done all the right things and then it didn't happen. Doing all the right things, meaning you put yourself out there and you do the stuff and expect people to receive you in a certain way and it didn't happen. Then soon after that, I went back to Uber and Uber in 2017, even though I was focused on Uber Eats, it was all a very tumultuous and very public time at Uber with all the different executive leadership changes and all the stuff that folks have written books about and done a miniseries about. Then in 2018, losing again.
It was such a stringing of setbacks for somebody who was so focused on just building and whenever you build, you're always building to go higher, not necessarily to build back and have it all come crumbling down what you thought you were building towards. I wish that I had been a little bit more comfortable with the fact that I could also pay attention to my own personal life while I was trying to build something because at the end of the day, that's what you have to hold on to. Yeah, it was a lot of heartbreak and redoing things and figuring that out again that led to that maybe epiphany now. But I guess I have the scars to show for an interesting life over the past few years.
Chris Wedding:
Look, when you put it together like you just did, yeah, that sounds like a lot, Laura. A lot of stress. I mean, look, they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger or really pissed off or smart or something, one of those three things.
Laura Zapata:
Yeah, something.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, that's a lot of hard learned lessons for sure, which maybe makes some of the roller coaster of growing a fast-growing company. It's like, “Well, I mean, I've seen stress and that's not quite as stressful as I've been around before.” Right?
Laura Zapata:
Yeah, exactly. It just makes you a little bit more roll with the punches, but it's jarring too. I mean, in a thing that you've built yourself, it is a lot more personal. And so, you want to be a lot more thoughtful and careful about how you're building the team and all that stuff that I think I've really taken to heart. But at the end of the day, knowing that you may think you're building a beautiful house, but in fact you're building some sort of bridge to get to the next thing and it looks very different from what you originally thought it would look like.
37:42
Chris Wedding:
I mean, I can imagine those experiences also give you a lot of sympathy or empathy with the team that's taken this leap to grow with you and the team. That you know if things don't work out, obviously they're going to, I'm knocking on wood, that there are repercussions in this high risk, high reward. It's less high risk maybe given where you are versus whatever, three years ago for sure.
How about similar but different, tell us some habits or routines that keep you healthy, sane and focused as a CEO.
Laura Zapata:
One of the things that I found after my first campaign loss that was very helpful to me was, and this is going to sound so lame, but it is helpful to me, I joined a yoga studio since then.
Chris Wedding:
So lame.
Laura Zapata:
So lame, I know. It's like eat, pray, love or something. No, but the reality of the thing is, especially in the morning, just having either that -- I found something in Nashville that has done the same thing, so during the last campaign, I actually did it before I burnt myself out. At the beginning of the campaign, I joined this yoga studio that if I can just have those 45 minutes even a couple of times a week, it really helps center me in a different way and just gets my heart pumping and moving.
Then, finding other things. Part of the reason I really enjoy living back home in Tennessee is that, there's other life happening here that people are not just focused on work and so there's activities. There's football games and concerts and things that of course they exist in the big cities. When I lived in DC and San Francisco just didn't feel very accessible because work was life and all the people around you do that. So, maybe that's a plug for the South or for a different style of life where you see that people around you are also worried about the day-to-day stuff and not just how to win this thing or decode something or get this bug out of the way. It's really, other life is happening and I enjoyed surrounding myself with that.
Chris Wedding:
I mean, I think what I'm hearing is that life is like a feature, not a bug.
Laura Zapata:
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Chris Wedding:
What is one of these joys of normal life?
Laura Zapata:
We were saying that life is the feature, not the bug and so little things they bring me so much joy. Going to the grocery store and having things accessible to me. I just get a kick out of going to a farmer's market or Kroger and that kind of stuff, that kind of simplicity of life and other things happening around me that's what it's supposed to be about.
41:24
Chris Wedding:
I love it. So, tell me this, do you ever take photos? Like when you get back from the farmer's market, you lay all the goods out on the bar and take photos of it? Because I know somebody who does that.
Laura Zapata:
Oh, really? I have not seen that, but we do have somebody on the team who has decided to have a vegetable garden. Her last name is Fairbanks and so we call her Farmer Fairbanks because she's bringing some goods to the rest of the team. I got some nice jalapenos yesterday and some onions and other things that she brought from her, quote unquote, farm.
Chris Wedding:
Well, I think the reason I often take pictures of the bounty from farmers market is that I'm usually a pretty failed farmer and so I’m like, oh, my God, how to grow food? It's so nice to eat food.
Laura Zapata:
I know. I can barely keep up with a plant, so I'm glad somebody else on the team is trying it and being successful at it.
Chris Wedding:
Hear, hear! Well, Laura, it's been great to chat. My little alarm is saying, “Hey, you got to get across town to your daughter's cross country meet, it’s further than you thought, dude.” Listen, so rooting for your all success, especially having grown up just a couple hours from where you're based right now and I hope so many folks now know about what Clearloop is doing to mainstream low-cost renewables.
Laura Zapata:
Yes, and thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm so glad that we got to chat. I really enjoyed it. I enjoy being able to pause and think a little bit more, maybe reflect, but also to encourage folks to take a look at us, we have some jobs opening. If you haven't thought about doing the plunge into climate, maybe this is your chance to join other people that were not into the hard sciences before, but have surrounded themselves. But lots of great minds and research to make sure we have something actionable on climate change. So, thank you for the opportunity.
Chris Wedding:
And maybe they can come work in downtown Nashville and hear Britney Spears songs.
Laura Zapata:
Exactly, what better way and if anybody has any ideas of how to reach Taylor Swift, they should also give us a ring. We're happy to take all ideas. No thing is a bad idea.
Chris Wedding:
Best call to action ever, Laura. Hey, good stuff. Talk soon.
Laura Zapata:
Thank you.
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