Living in the Future
Black Bear Energy Founder and CEO Drew Torbin airs it off the windlip on Dale’s, VPG Vail Pass terrain.
Venture Capitalists and Mountain Guides live in the future. To be good at what we do, we have to. Planning for the next adventure is a constant in guiding and requires both a near term and a long-term view to dial in the best experience for our Clients. Whether it’s an 8000 meter peak, a fast ascent of El Cap, or a Ski Tour across the Columbia Icefields, an ambitious future objective requires commitment, planning and progression on the part of Guides and Clients.
VCs do the same thing. While we’re in constant contact with our serial entrepreneurs, assessing our people and results against quarterly objectives, we’re also looking out three to five years across the investment horizon to test if our thesis is intact. History informs our worldview, but to be good at the venture capital business, we have to live in the future and visualize the risks and opportunities that will impact our portfolio companies.
One of our best examples of living in the future is Black Bear Energy. Drew Torbin helped pioneer the rooftop solar business at Prologis, and now he and his team have built an even bigger business serving the solar needs of all the other industrial and commercial REITs.
The future of the built environment is turning the flat rooftop of every industrial and commercial building in the US into a solar plant and combining it with on-site battery storage and LED lighting. In the future, our cars, houses and businesses will all run off this type of distributed generation.
The future won’t happen because of our increased awareness of climate change, our desire to promote sustainability, or a big tax break.
It will happen because the cost of solar, storage and LEDs has been declining 30% per year for a decade and will continue to do so in the future. It will happen because institutional property owners and their tenants don’t want to rely on an antiquated grid to power their operations. It will happen because the tenant’s employees want to plug their cars in at work.
Most importantly, it will happen because Drew and Black Bear have proven to the REITs that they can increase cash flows from rooftop solar without increasing capital costs.
Naval Ravikant says that if you want to live in the future, live in the freest place around because eventually, all of the innovators and creators will show up there. That’s the future where Drew and Black Bear live.