From Dotcom Bust to Clean Energy Visionary

Michael Liebreich is the founder and former CEO of New Energy Finance, a research and analysis firm that was acquired by Bloomberg in 2009. It’s become one of the premier organizations focused on clean energy investment and deployment trends.

Michael is one of the savviest and most vocal energy experts out there. His talks, articles and twitter threads are closely watched in industry circles. He has a knack for explaining things clearly and provocatively.

And as it turns out, he has a pretty wild story. We’re going to hear about how he went from McKinsey cheese consultant to olympic skier to a debt-laden founder who lost almost everything in the first internet bubble.

“You're not expecting 10 years out of Harvard Business School...you're unemployed and you're unemployable. Your Rolodex is gone, because everybody that you know has also lost their job,” reflects Michael.

In spite of his dotcom bust, Michael later created a highly-influential research company focused on wind, solar, biofuels, hydrogen and other cutting-edge energy sectors. It made him an early visionary on the global energy transition.

“I saw all of these problems in the fossil and in the incumbent energy system, and I had had enough exposure to technology and venture capital to understand that there were alternatives. And I had the very great fortune in my pre-business school career of being forced to calculate experience curves,” he explains.

“And I decided ‘I'm just going to follow my gut. There's something big here.’ And I started with another unemployed friend. We started New Energy Finance just started collecting data about energy.”

We’ll talk with Michael about the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial career. And we’ll examine the economic and technology trends that convinced him of the transformative impact of clean energy.

Resources:

• A 2011 Financial Times profile of Michael Liebreich after he sold New Energy Finance
• Michael Liebreich BNEF analysis on the road to deep decarbonization
• Michael’s new company: Liebreich Associates