Supercool
Supercool spotlights climate innovations that have moved beyond the lab and into the market. Hosted by climate-tech founder and author Josh Dorfman, Supercool features CEOs, founders, and operators building businesses that are decarbonizing energy, transportation, food, materials, and buildings. Each episode explores the strategies, execution, and business models behind companies that cut carbon, grow profits, and redefine modern life.
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No Fossil Fuels Are Home in a Jetson Future
<p>We have electric cars, artificial intelligence, and rockets that land themselves. So why are millions of American homes still using last century’s technology and burning fossil fuels to stay warm?</p><p>Stephen Lake wants to bring our homes into the 21st century.</p><p>His company, Jetson, is making home electrification more affordable by eliminating everything from the trip to the home improvement store to hiring a contractor, selling directly to homeowners and owning every step of the process.</p><p>Jetson’s high-performance heat pumps replace conventional furnaces and air conditioners with cleaner, more efficient technology that...
From Sofas to Swim Spas: Secondhand Goods Get the Buy-New Experience
<p>From Sofas to Swim Spas: Secondhand Goods Get the Buy-New Experience</p><p>Buying a used Peloton, sofa, or swim spa can save you thousands of dollars. But when it comes to large, expensive products, the inconvenience and risk of purchasing secondhand often outweigh the savings.</p><p>Commonplace founder and CEO Ari Kimmelfeld has built a business to eliminate those obstacles, creating a three-sided marketplace connecting buyers, sellers, and a network of trained drivers who handle inspection, transportation, and installation.</p><p>For sellers, listing a product is remarkably easy. For buyers, Commonplace offers premium secondhand goods at...
Reprised | Crime Fighters & Therapists: How Urban Trees Improve City Life
<p>While saving the Amazon grabs headlines, the trees right outside your front door shape your life in important ways. The more trees in your city neighborhood, the less crime, the fewer prescriptions for antidepressants, and the lower rates of asthma, childhood leukemia, and other immune diseases. These leafy giants affect everything from healthier newborns to longer life expectancy to higher property values. Geoffrey Donovan, an urban forester and economist with the U.S. Forest Service, joins the show. His groundbreaking research over the two decades is reshaping how urban planners and policymakers think about the essential public health and e...
Reprised | Trust Scales: Veo Is the Micromobility Partner Cities Love
<p>In an industry that moved fast and defied cities, Veo chose a different path: partnership over disruption. Co-founder and CEO Candice Xie is building one of the only profitable micromobility companies in America by leading with discipline, transparency, and respect for the people shaping urban life. While competitors flooded streets and flamed out, Veo continues to earn trust — winning 90% of city RFPs and operating in over 50 markets nationwide. Candice joins Josh Dorfman to unpack how Veo’s strategy of asking for permission, designing durable hardware, and prioritizing community needs became its true growth engine. This is a masterclass in scal...
Reprised | Right on Schedule: Zum Gives America’s School Buses a 21st Century Upgrade
<p>Every day, 27 million kids ride 500,000 school buses—the largest transit system in America. And yet, this 80-year-old relic is stuck in the past: buses are late, routes are inefficient, and parents have no clue where the bus is or when it’s coming. Ritu Narayan, founder and CEO of Zum, decided to fix it. All of it.</p><p><br></p><p>With real-time tracking, smarter routes, and electric buses, Zum has modernized student transportation for 4,000 schools, including the school districts of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston. In Oakland, Zum introduced the nation’s first fully electric school...
Reprised | Clean Energy Meets Its Match: Crux Accelerates Deal Flow
<p>There are trillions of dollars of clean energy projects ready to be built—and trillions more in capital waiting to fund them. But the system connecting the two is too slow, fragmented, and expensive.</p><p>That gap is what Alfred Johnson set out to close. A former Treasury official who helped steer markets through the 2008 financial crisis and later served under Janet Yellen, Johnson co-founded Crux to build the financial software layer the energy transition was missing.</p><p>Crux connects developers, manufacturers, and investors across a marketplace for clean energy finance. In just two years, it’s clos...
The Planet Needs Better Products, Not Better People
<p>People aren’t looking for a mission. They’re looking for products that improve their lives.</p><p>In this Supercool episode, host Josh Dorfman takes us back to China 30 years ago, when a billion people rode bicycles but nobody wanted one. Everybody wanted a car. He realized China would have a billion of them—and wondered where all the oil would come from.</p><p>Three decades later, China is still getting its cars. But the cars are changing. During the first half of 2026, almost half of all vehicles sold there were electric or plug-in hybrid. Two-thirds of its fu...
Boats That Fly: 5x More Efficient Across Four Continents
<p>How do you make boating an extremely efficient form of transportation?</p><p>You lift the boat out of the water.</p><p>Vessev’s electric hydrofoils use underwater wings to raise almost the entire boat above the surface, dramatically reducing drag. The result is a new class of commercial passenger vessel that’s three to five times as efficient as a conventional boat, cheaper to operate, and feels like flying.</p><p>The opportunity goes beyond electrifying today’s boats. Cities around the world are crowded with cars and trains while the waterways they were built around remain largel...
They Called Him Nature Boy. Now 45 Climate Tech CEOs Call Him for Advice.
<p>Climate tech CEOs are running a long, consequential, high-stakes race. Where do they go when they hit unfamiliar terrain?<br>Chris Wedding created Entrepreneurs for Impact so they could turn to each other.</p><p>Through Entrepreneurs for Impact, he brings together 45 CEOs of investor-backed climate companies to candidly share what’s working, what’s broken, and what they’ve already learned the hard way.</p><p>Chris brings an unusual combination of experience to the room: a PhD in environmental science, a background in private equity and finance, more than 15 years teaching climate tech, investing, energy finance, and strate...
Artifacts from the Future: Reimagining Sustainable Interiors with David Bergman
<p>We think of a building as something permanent. Its interior is anything but.</p><p>A lease comes up. A new tenant moves in and renovates the space. The building may last for 100 years, but its interiors will be updated again and again. Old materials get ripped out and thrown away. New materials take their place.</p><p>David Bergman has spent decades working to change how the industry approaches sustainable interior design. He teaches Sustainable Systems at Parsons and directs the world’s only degree program dedicated specifically to sustainable interior design at the New York School of In...
