Entrepreneurs for Impact (EFI) Podcast: Transcripts
#95:
VC-backed SaaS for Hourly GHG Emissions Tracking of Carbon-Free Power — Lincoln Payton, CEO of Cleartrace
Chris Wedding:
Lincoln Payton, CEO at Cleartrace, welcome to the show, man.
Lincoln Payton:
Chris, great to be with you today.
Chris Wedding:
Let's pick up almost where we left off before hitting record, which is, hey, Cleartrace is not just serving a couple of guys in a truck. You have real household names in real estate and renewables and finance that are both customers and tare financiers. So, let's hook our listeners to keep listening to this delightful accent. Who in the world are these household names that I'm referencing?
Lincoln Payton:
Well, look, I think it fits into those two buckets, which is investors and partners and clients as well. So, on the investor side, very proud to have Brookfield Renewable, JP Morgan, EDF, the French-owned utility, Tenaska, one of the largest private generating companies in the US, and Exelon in our capital stack as well as some very sector expert venture capital backing as well, coming out of the captive for NextEra and a Boston Clean Energy Fund. So, what I like about that, Chris, is it gives some validation straight away. We've explained what we're doing, why we're doing it, and both the technology, the objective, and add into that the marketability in terms of total addressable market is ringing true with some pretty smart players.
04:27
Take the second component of that, which is the client side, we are certainly working with all of those players, JP Morgan, Brookfield Renewable. We're also working with their affiliate, Brookfield Properties, which is a separate operation and very significant and professional in the real estate space. I think we'll get a chance to chat about some of the things we're doing there.
The other client that we have in the public domain broadly right now is Iron Mountain, the large public data center player where we are reading on a 24/7 granular basis all of their energy and carbon footprint in North America across their data center operations.
So, thank you for the very pertinent question because it's a new and a nascent market and a new technology, but I think that does give a validation that there are some pretty smart people and some serious players that are looking at this and investing in it and using it and backing it for the future.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, and I think some listeners may know those names, some may not, but ballpark, we're talking about tens or hundreds of billions of dollars of real assets. Either buildings or power generation, conventional and renewables that say, “Look, we have a problem here,” except that most folks don't know what the problem is and you all are a solution. So, let's go to what is this problem that we should know about, but only a small percentage of asset owners or clean energy buyers really understand fully.
Lincoln Payton:
Let's step it back and I like to think of this in three phases of ESG, and particularly in the environmental and carbon energy space. Phase one was perhaps a couple of decades ago when people started sitting up and saying, “This is something that needs to be managed.” Well, there's stuff and consequence here and differences. Phase two is the latter part of that where we are today in my mind which is, okay, we've got the issue, let's try and make some measurements, some estimation, some relativity around that. And let's also go to a system whereby people that are producing carbon, let's validate this offset concept.
Let's validate the fact that if you produce carbon somehow, you can recognize anything green that is good, good principle at that time, an evolving state of mind. And allow people to say, “Well, okay, I'm 100% green,” or, “I'm 100% neutral,” all these wonderful, vague vocabulary words that we hear every minute of every day at the moment and that's good. That's a good evolution and a step on the way. Where are we beginning phase three?
Phase three is, yeah, there's an issue. We need transparency, we need accountability, we need accuracy, and we need data that we can rely on. With that reliability, we can interpret it, we can compare, and we can genuinely take action to fix things. So, that's the three phases and I think we're moving into phase three right now. The problem or the question that we're very specifically answering is, what is your carbon footprint? No vague, no talk for an hour about benchmarks and where you were three years ago.
Tell me as an organization, what is your energy profile? What is your carbon footprint directly from it and what are you going to do about it? What are you targeting? It's that surgically precise data that is auditable, verifiable, that will allow transparency and accountability around renewable energy use, impact, emissions, and then targeting. That's what we're about and our high quality, blockchain-based digital platform allows entities, including those very high profile billion-dollar names that we mentioned at the beginning, to measure and take action around that and put their hand on their heart.
08:38
Last point I'll make is, even today you see headlines about greenwashing, people being forced to take labels off articles and pull back statements. I like to say, we are the anti-greenwashing serum.
Chris Wedding:
That's a great tagline. Well, that clearly is a big problem for sure, greenwashing. Back to the problem, I think there are probably hundreds of well-intentioned corporations that say things like, “Either we're carbon neutral or we offset all of our power with renewable energy or we’re 100% renewable powered and so forth.” When they say that, they're probably thinking about, “Oh, well, how many megawatt hours do we use per year? Let's buy equivalent amount per year.”
But as you all know, in your marrow, on average across the year, across all geographies is super different than by the hour, by five minutes, by certain geographies which changes the fuel mix, both where it's consumed and where it's produced. So, talk to us about how serious that mathematical error, that accounting error is in terms of carbon, let's say.
Lincoln Payton:
Absolutely, and it's very significant. I'll give you some data on that in a second. The first thing that Cleartrace does is collect the data around your generation, your flow of power, and your consumption, real time IoT revenue grade meter data untouched by human hand. With that data, you get the full carbon on an hour by hour, and that's what goes to your question, location by location, source by source, whether it's the grid, your own onsite gen, or PPAs, or VPPAs. All of that is carbon coefficiented by the hour, provable, immutable, accessible. That gives you the picture of where you stand today.
Now, what a lot of people are doing who don't have that information, but they have monthly utility statements or annual totals of megawatt hours, as you just mentioned, is they're then saying at the end of the year, “Okay, I go buy some wrecks, some offsets that equal the total volume of power, and I'm 100% green.” Not true. True, indeed, from a GHG protocols point of view and progress and good. I'm not negating it or knocking it, but it's a step in that phase one, two, three progression that we just talked about, it's a really good phase two.
When we want to go to phase three is recognizing that temporal and regional management of your energy is relevant. Perhaps the leader in the carbon free energy 24 by 7, as it's often known, meaning hour by hour, location and time relevance is you can't burn grid energy in New York City at peak when you have fundamentally brown peakers producing that energy. Then go later in the year and buy unrelated offsets from a Texas wind farm in the middle of the night that makes very little difference to the grid. Then say, “One for one, I'm green, the same number of megawatt hours.” You cannot do that.
Google, who are the leaders in this Carbon-free Energy 24/7 Compact, which is one of the associations moving these things forward, did an analysis of their own energy usages in 2019. Whilst being able to say on a megawatt hour equivalency basis, they're 100% renewable and carbon free because of the dislocation between offsets temporarily and regionally, they were in fact only 61% matched.
12:55
Now, that shows you a massive delta. We're not talking about rounding errors here. So, the approach for Cleartrace is to first of all, measure the full picture of an entity's energy and consequent carbon profile on a granular detailed hour by hour basis. Then with that, analyze what is the best way to get to the target you're looking to go to. That doesn't have to be 100% carbon free energy today, but it means knowing where you are and then sensibly being able to manage your supply, your consumption, and being able to make statements and targets about it.
Not worrying, frankly, that you're greenwashing, that you're going to be attacked for making statements that are misleading. That is something that's resonating a lot with senior management in frankly, many of these corporations who are charged with making statements and getting a little uncomfortable about making those statements on anything less than the highest quality data.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. I think you mentioned either just now or pre-record, I'm missing which one, but RECS, Renewable Energy Certificates, that's a pretty common instrument to offset green versus conventional power. That name is not sufficient anymore, I believe, or so I'm told by the experts. Talk to us about maybe, is there a new name? What should the new name be? How should these two instruments of accounting be constructed and thought of differently?
Lincoln Payton:
Well, so RECs, Renewable Energy Credits, basically, is the separation of the renewable value of producing carbon-free energy. Think of it like stripping the coupon from a bond in a financial services equivalency and that's a very established, very mature, very liquid market today and established. Again, I don't want to negate that or pour cold water on the fire of the RECs. Very good system for moving us to a certain position.
But where I think we can do better as the technology like Cleartrace, which is very granular, digital blockchain based, so it's self-auditing, self-immutable, you can access individual hourly units with permission, where we can do better as the technology gets better is we can say, well, what is the value of a REC in real terms to offsetting actual energy usage in a particular location at a particular time? Let's be honest and fair about that. What is the best that can be done in terms of helping the carbon footprint of the planet is clearly energy usage control reduction. Secondly is using green energy in the time at the location you are consuming energy so that you can prove your building, your factory, your data center is operating on carbon-free energy hour by hour at the location it is.
The big problem in reporting, even with modern technology evolution is Scope 3. It's big and it's vague, but everybody's Scope 3 is somebody else's Scope 1 and 2. If you can measure Scope 1 and 2 yourself surgically precisely and get it to an acceptable green percentage level, Scope 3 becomes less of a challenge. That's what we're seeing acutely from the sustainability officers, the CFOs, the management of large corporations.
Chris Wedding:
You mentioned Scope three. Where is that in, if I can call it, you-all's roadmap? I sense the focus is more on two right now, but help us out with whether it's you-all or whether it's others providing that accounting and offset in the marketplace. Scope 3 is hard, as you say. Often the corporate who cares about their overall GHG emissions does not literally control, of course, the Scope 3 emissions. So, how do they do that?
17:18
I don't know, pricing in terms to motivate their supply chain, but even that's tricky. I think for the benefit of listeners, groups like CDP and others have tried to quantify. All right, we'll take all the large corporates in the world, what percentage of their overall GHGs are Scope 3? The answer that I recall is something like 75, maybe even 90% sometimes. You think, “Wow, we're not capturing that yet.” Again, super hard to do. So, just say more about how you all or the market is evolving to accurately measure and carbon free as a verb, carbon free the Scope 3 emissions.
Lincoln Payton:
Yeah, so first of all, Cleartrace, we are today focused on Scope 1 and 2, surgically precise. So, what you are controlling, you can now put your hand on your heart and report very, very clearly, transparently, target around it. And also, because in Scope 2, there is your power utilization, this is with the electrification of the world, the largest component and the fastest growing component period. So, very focused on that and very focused on having confidence in the data to report and to take actions around it. So, that's the first point.
Scope 3, a lot of people still looking and frankly concerned about the vagueness of Scope 3, collecting the data and reporting on it. So, we're seeing quite a lot of people focusing on Scope 1 and 2 and waiting on Scope 3. We are working with a couple of those names that I've mentioned and some others on basically applying our capabilities to supply chain and to client bases so that a corporate entity can say, “Well, okay, I'm going to control my Scope 1 and Scope 2 very precisely and be confident reporting on it and managing it.” At the same time, I'm going to require my clients who are going to form part of my Scope 3 to basically do the same thing, which is show me what their Scope 1 and 2 is and rate them on that basis. That I think is what's coming up in terms of adding high quality data to Scope 3.
You’ve seen it, Chris, we've touched on it other occasions, the SEC coming out with guidelines. Okay, the guidelines are still being discussed, that's because it's not so easy. We hope that the guidelines will be requiring high quality data. Let's not have low quality data, but that's going to be tough to do for Scope 3 today. So, a little bit the position and our mantra is let's have really high-quality data, transparent, that replaces all the old vagueness. If we do that in Scope 1 and Scope 2 and keep working on Scope 3 application, I think we solve a significant part of the problem.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, well said. I'm going to invite you to metaphorically step in or over this vat of quicksand. Okay. So, you mentioned the SEC, this proposed rule about requiring GHG disclosure for listed companies. The proposed rule, I believe, does say, “Look, you should cover all scopes. Certainly, if your Scope 3 is super material, especially financially material, you need to do that.” There is some doubt about what's going to be the outcome after all of the comment period and/or the lawsuits. And if what's happened in the Supreme Court with, does the EPA have certain powers or not? I don't know. This is the quick stand, you can walk around it or walk into it, I'm not sure which one. Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about how significant this proposed rule will actually be when it's all said and done?
21:22
Lincoln Payton:
Yeah. First of all, thank you for the warning. I think unequivocally, you should be optimistic and I'll qualify that now. I think you should be optimistic because it's another step in the right direction. The simple fact that the SEC is considering this, talking about it, doing the work sends another message. When we look at our business model, Chris, there’s two big factors in why people want our capability. One of them is reputational. One of them is regulatory.
So, right now, no question, the reputational, the good citizen factor is the dominant factor, certainly in North America, where shareholders, bondholders, employees, clients care about entities, reporting, setting targets, being and appearing responsible. They care, it has a value, so that reputational issue is very important. Most of those clients that I've mentioned and those big investors, that's what they're focused on. They're looking at being at the front of the digital high-quality data to support the statements they're making because they care about those counterparts.
Now, Europe is ahead, but coming up fast in the US is the regulatory side of things. Now, you can only do that, in all honesty, if you have high quality data. You can't set regulations and ultimately taxes and hurdles if you don't have good quality data. So, it's been a little bit of a chicken and an egg and it's why, frankly, the current REC system, and we come back to that, the RECs and any other name you want to call them, because there's granular, hourly, there's different offset instruments. But the concept of offsets has been propagated and is acceptable because it's all that's been available. That is changing with the data and technical capability that entities like Cleartrace can bring.
So, I think what is coming soon is that regulatory pressure, and we see it in a couple of states already. In the real estate market, in New York City, there is a law on the books, it’s called Local Law 97. We are lucky enough to have had some very nice press coverage around some of the buildings that we've gone public with. Beautiful building in the new Hudson Yards development in Manhattan, One Manhattan West, which is owned and developed by Brookfield Properties. We are proving that building to be 100% carbon-free energy every individual hour of each day.
Why is that relevant? It's relevant because Local Law 97, which is passed in New York City and comes into force end of 24, so coming very soon, requires fines if you cannot very transparently as a significant real estate owner or operator, prove that your carbon footprint per square foot is below a certain level. The only way tangibly you can get there is by buying green energy that is load matched, tracked from generation in the same grid sector and the same hour as your load. Cleartrace is able to prove that for Brookfield Properties, hence it will solve a regulatory problem there.
I use that as an example because Boston has the same regulation, BERDO is the abbreviation. Couple of other states have similar regulations about to come. So, the real estate sector in the US is the harbinger of the regulatory side of things that is coming fast. So, even if the SEC rules get pushed back, watered down, diluted, the simple fact that it's being discussed, along with some of these other regulatory pressures that are coming up, shows you that the reputational side is enough to make people work, but the regulatory side is coming fast.
25:39
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm glad you took the bait. I think you made it through the quicksand. Yeah, I'm thinking of a visual, which is, just hang with me for a second. So, our oldest is 16, as we've discussed prior, and learning to drive and as he leaves our neighborhood, there are many deer. We're in the woods in North Carolina.
I've had to remind him, “Hey, look, you see one deer across the street, don't just keep going because guess what? They often travel in packs and the next one that you don't see can hit the car. And oh, I hope you're okay, but also, it'll F up the car as well.” So, it's like the SEC, this GHG disclosure rule, it's the first deer, but guess what? If you don't watch out, at some point more deer are coming from the forest. Don't hit them.
Lincoln Payton:
Absolutely. Look, it's a great analogy. It's coming. And also, we just have to at the end of the day look at Europe. Europe is ahead of the Americas in this respect. They have more stringent regulation. They have more stringent regulation coming. I think it's unavoidable. If you really want to have a new world, let's look forward concept to float for future conversations, carbon is going to be a currency in the cost of capital in the US. If you're not measuring it and you're not managing it proactively, your business ROI is going to be questioned, period.
I've got a long history around the cost of capital in other sectors and that's a forecast for me. Carbon is coming to a theater near you soon, and it will cost you money if you don't manage it.
Chris Wedding:
And just some fun facts to support that, the World Bank tracks this carbon dashboard, I think they call it. So, there are currently 64 different carbon pricing or regulatory schemes around the world, now representing almost 23% of all GHG emissions globally. Is that a hot mess? Yeah, 64 different mechanisms, super confusing. Is the pricing all over the map? Heck yeah. A dollar to $150.
We’ve crossed the tipping point. Lots of multinationals that are figuring out how to play in those markets, one of those 64 different markets, they don't want to create lots of different products and services with different carbon impacts. Let's streamline this stuff. Anyway, it's coming for sure.
I wrote down the IRA. So, for those folks in the US, this Inflation Reduction Act, a big deal, $370 billion or so, a lot of it on climate solutions. Is there a direct one-to-one benefit for you guys, Lincoln, or is it more indirect?
Lincoln Payton:
Look, I think it's predominantly indirect, but it's significantly indirect. First of all, there's the overall direction the wind is blowing, which everything we were just talking about in terms of the deer crossing the street, it's coming. So, this is another clear established fact that the whole world of carbon measurement, carbon quantification, and carbon management is coming. And so, it's unavoidable. Look at the massive money across many different sectors that is making that impact.
Secondly, there are some very specific indirect significant money in tax rebates for green hydrogen. Many of your listeners are familiar with hydrogen and its different colors, basically depending on how it's made, how the energy used to make the hydrogen is derived and what its carbon footprint is. To get those tax refunds for green hydrogen, you need to be able to prove that the power you've used to produce the hydrogen was green.
29:44
Okay, Cleartrace, source tracks hour by hour, specifically reporting audibly and clearly where your energy came from to produce those hydrogen molecules. So, these are the kind of conversations that we're starting more and more as a consequence, or accelerating as a consequence of the Act.
Another one, a lot of money into electric vehicles, both the vehicles and the infrastructure around it. Big misnomer that shows the education continuum continues to move. Electric vehicles are green. No, they're not. They're only green if you fill them with green energy. If you fill them with coal power or gas power, not the same equation at all. Let's get past the romance and measure this stuff.
So, when you go to the gas pump or the electric vehicle charging station, wouldn’t you like to know if you’re filling your car with 60% green power or 100% green power or what the carbon footprint of what you're filling your vehicle with is? So, all of these elements require the detailed granular measurement that Cleartrace is focused on.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, right on. On that piece around electric vehicles and what is powering the grid is therefore powering your car, that's a great point. I'd also say too that I've looked into this through the DOE. They have this, alternative fuels, I think, data center where listeners who are interested can go put in a zip code and it'll say, “Oh, well, guess what? If you're driving a conventional ICE vehicle, internal combustion engine, based on this many thousands of miles driven per year, here's your carbon footprint versus national averages versus hybrid versus pure electric.”
Generally, the good news is even if it's a dirtier grid, you're still at a lower carbon footprint than just sticking gas in the vehicle. But yeah, pretty interesting to see how that changes.
Lincoln Payton:
Right, and I fully agree with you. I'm not pouring cold water again on the EV sector. What I'm saying is, how cool would it be when you want to charge your vehicle that you go to an app and it shows you the charging stations? And the charging stations that have bought green energy from a solar farm nearby or hydro or charge their batteries with wind when the wind was blowing, you can fill your car with 100% carbon-free energy rather than just grabbing it off the grid and taking 60% brown at that time.
The analogy I use in terms of energy is, you go back maybe 30 years, maybe longer even, and you took a pint of milk off the shelf in the supermarket. You looked on the carton and it said, “Milk.” The day you look at it and it says, “4% potassium, daily fat, 3%,” there's a lot more information, that's what's coming to the energy world and the carbon world.
Chris Wedding:
For sure and if either yourself or your wife is super focused on the health of your children, maybe there are all sorts of other flavors and types of milk that cost three times as much--
Lincoln Payton:
Absolutely right.
33:01
Chris Wedding:
…in and out of your refrigerator. I heard from a friend. Yeah, I think bringing up the EV and what fuels it, partly I want to make sure listeners don't think, “Oh, well, if I'm on a dirty grid, I'm just not going to go EV.” Go EV, get smarter on the source of the power through Cleartrace and then eventually the grids get cleaner and shazam, green powered.
Lincoln Payton:
Absolutely. It's about transparency and relative the best. We want the best.
Chris Wedding:
For sure. You mentioned earlier some of the motivations for your customers using Cleartrace’s services and a lot of that is around reputation and brand and such. I was mentioning this actually in my ESG investing course at Duke where thankfully you'll be coming to share stories from the trenches, I believe next week. What I was highlighting is this chart that shows the percentage of value coming from intangible assets for, I think, the S&P 500 since like 1975 or so.
As you probably know, the percentage attributed to intangible versus tangible continues to grow. Well, guess what? That certainly sings true for the motivation behind many of your customers wanting to not get caught, like again, a deer in headlights around a negative headline. That problem you thought you were offsetting, sorry, you weren't really covered.
Lincoln Payton:
Absolutely. First of all, you're a master of the metaphor. Your kids are very lucky. They must have a great vocabulary range, but seriously, yes, absolutely. When we were chatting just now before starting the podcast, Chris, absolutely true that there's an element of getting ahead of the game here as well.
Do you wait until a regulation is passed or do you wait until you have a greenwashing problem and you have to manage it as a public or a high-profile corporation with a brand? Or do you get a digital platform that gives you total confidence, comfort in your information and your ability to then make statements around it and manage? If that means today you're managing under GHG protocols or you're managing under just building the information and not being particularly public about it, okay, but what we're seeing is people getting organized.
Part of a digital journey in their corporations, many of them anyway, they're trying to digitize a lot of information, so this is one stream of it. But get ready, have the platform that gives you the information, the single source of truth around your energy and carbon footprint, and then prepare to manage it.
While we're throwing a few big, big concept pictures out there, there's an element of, there isn't enough renewable energy to go round today. If more people start realizing it and wanting it, particularly locationally and temporarily, there isn't enough at green energy to go around. Get organized sooner because although there's billions of dollars coming from the act, but from other sources as well, connecting that to the grid, getting it up and running, it's going to take time. It's going to be challenging. So, I spend a lot of time advising large corporations and there's an argument that says, get ahead of the game here because there's a squeeze coming.
36:41
Chris Wedding:
There's a beautiful word for what you're describing, which is hedge. Hedge against future risks, which we know the probability of those risks occurring continues to go higher. Let's switch Lincoln to the last part of our podcast, which goes from cool business changing the world to, hey, this is a person talking to a person with people listening. So, the first question is, what advice might you give your younger self, Lincoln, to be, pick your adjective, faster, more effective, et cetera?
Lincoln Payton:
Yeah, great question and very relevant for me, Chris, because I have three sons in the workplace now, I'm very happy to say. So, not quite the first driving lesson of yours there, but I've been through that, let me promise you. You know what I would say is really invest in contacts and people. If I look back, I've got many great friends, business friends and acquaintances, and it's phenomenal how helpful and positive that is.
I look back and I wish, because like ships passing in the night, I've had great interactions with different people, very interesting all over the world for many years. I wish I'd taken the extra effort and probably quite a lot of effort, but maybe less so today with the different media systems for keeping in touch. I wish I'd maintained, invested in many more of those relationships so that at this later stage of my career, they were active, live, I knew where people were. That would be my advice, which is really invest in people that you come across. First of all, you feel a quality people as human beings, but professionally, ideally as well, because it has an unbelievable benefit down the years. That's something that I do mention to my three sons in the workplace now.
Chris Wedding:
Nice. Well, I hope they listen to you better than mine listen.
Lincoln Payton:
I was going to say that would be a first, Chris, if they listened to me, but at least I've told them.
Chris Wedding:
Right. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think it is easier today, professionally to manage those relationships, but even personally, right?
Lincoln Payton:
Yes.
Chris Wedding:
I was telling some good friends recently, they know that I love spreadsheets and I said, “I've realized I need to treat my personal relationships as well as the kind of way I'm systematized around maintaining business relationships on my personal side.” So, I now have a spreadsheet. Here are my people. When's the last time I talked to them? Am I behind schedule maintaining that relationship? Anyway, good times. How about habits, routines and such that keep you healthy, focused and sane, Lincoln?
Lincoln Payton:
Yeah. Look, you've got very practical questions here. I like to work out. Working out has always been for me. I played sports when I was younger and then when you start working, it gets harder to actually be part of a team or regularly meet others. So, I like to work out, bike ride, run, go in the gym. For me, it's kind of a meditation process. I'm switched off from what I'm doing. That usually means I go slower than I should do, but mentally it's free time. I sort my life out while I'm bike riding or running or lifting weights.
40:26
The exercise makes me feel good, but more than anything else, it's that time every day that enables me to think about things that might be driving me nuts or brainstorm on opportunities. So, that's really been my mental health mantra and from an organizational point of view, I'm a list guy. I regularly write my things I got to do, prioritize them, put lines through a lot of them, hopefully every day, not as many as I'd like, and keep trying to shift those priorities up and down and add new ones in as my brainstorming workout sessions allow me.
Chris Wedding:
Nice. As folks listen to a busy CEO fitting, say exercise in, what time of day do you do that normally?
Lincoln Payton:
I usually try to do it early afternoon. I do that because that's the time I start to flag. I get tired. And so, you get up in the morning and it's a new day and the sun's coming up and it's go, go, go. Then usually things take their own momentum and you're busy. The risk is if you have time for a sandwich or something at lunchtime, even on the Zoom, then you start getting tired 2.30, 3:00-ish. And so, that's when I will try and do something to really kickstart the old metabolism and the brain cells and that brainstorming self-period.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. I like that. I think often for me, it's a walk in the woods, usually on a business call, not always. In the afternoons, I'm looking behind the screen here at a 30-year-old Schwinn Airdyne stationary bike. Incredible resistance because it's not quite up to today's standards, but you hop on for 10 minutes in the afternoon a couple of times, that heart is pumping lots of blood to your brain.
Lincoln Payton:
I'm going to give you a confession here. We had the same bicycle in our house.
Chris Wedding:
Nice.
Lincoln Payton:
Okay, but unfortunately it broke and we had to replace it with a newer, more digital one. So, when I come down to Duke, I might steal your bicycle.
Chris Wedding:
Good luck, it weighs as much as my car, I think. All right, let's go one more and I know you got a plane to catch here in a few minutes. Any recommendations for books, podcasts, tools that you think would benefit other entrepreneur, investor listeners?
Lincoln Payton:
I guess I'll give you one that's half of the course, normal business type book, but I love it and I'll give you one that's maybe different. So, the business book is The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. It's been out there a long while, but first of all, it's a very easy read. I've read it before and I read it again recently and it's very appropriate because it's not the technical stuff of finding a good hire for a particular spot. It's the things that humanly are difficult that take a lot of time and a lot of finesse and a lot of angst, if you like.
43:29
Then the other one, which I like, especially building a small business, it's so much about team and people and getting chemistry right and getting everybody moving together is The Boys in the Boat, which is by Daniel James Brown, which is about the US Olympic rowing crew for the 1936 Olympics.
Again, it's been out there probably 10 years that book, and I just read it again very recently and I loved it. It's very uplifting. It shows you the downs and it shows you the ups, and it shows you sometimes the chemistry just needs to be moved around to drop into place and work well. So, those are my two suggestions for you.
Chris Wedding:
Excellent. On the first one, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, there's a quote that for a while puzzled me and then just amuses me, which is, if you're going to eat shit, don't nibble. I thought, “Wait a second, what's going on? Okay. Yeah. Do hard stuff quickly. Just like don't dance around it.” Anyway, that one sticks out.
Well, Lincoln, before you catch the Uber or whatnot, any final call to action, anybody in particular you want to hear from to come rally to support the Cleartrace cause?
Lincoln Payton:
Look, the message is very simple, Chris. I've done a lot of other things in my previous finance career, and I'm doing this because I believe transparency and accountability is the future for sensible evolution to a renewable world. So, we would love to hear from major corporations that are interested in that level of quality data around their energy footprint that they can rely upon and take action on to move the world in the direction that we think it needs to sensibly and transparently be moving.
Chris Wedding:
Perfect. On that note, we'll call it a day. Lincoln, we're rooting for you-all’s success at Cleartrace.
Lincoln Payton:
Really great to talk to you as always. I look forward to seeing you down at Duke soon and you take care of yourself.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, sounds great. Cheers, buddy.
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