00:00Today on Forbes, meet the MIT professor with 8 climate startups and $2.5 billion in funding.
00:09Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Yat-Ming Chang likes to fish.
00:14And it was through fishing, back in the early 1990s, that he started to notice that the
00:19New England waters were warming.
00:22During a call from his office with a Japanese-style fish print of a striped bass he'd caught
00:26behind him, he said, quote,
00:28We used to catch lobster in Cape Cod.
00:31Now we catch mahi-mahi.
00:32It's really nuts.
00:35That glimpse of the real-world impact of climate change, with tropical and subtropical fish
00:40appearing in waters where they don't belong, was pivotal for Chang, who has used his research
00:45lab to co-found 10 startups.
00:49Eight of them are focused on energy and sustainability, including Form Energy, which has raised nearly
00:55$1 billion for its iron-air battery products, and Sublime Systems, which in April received
01:00$87 million from the Department of Energy to build a commercial plant to make low-carbon
01:06cement.
01:07As the climate crisis has become increasingly urgent, Chang's research and his ability to
01:12spin out real-world applications from it offers hope, and landed him a spot on Forbes' inaugural
01:18sustainability leaders list, released just last week.
01:22Chang holds some 110 patents and has written more than 300 scientific articles in fields
01:28like battery technology and electrochemical production of industrial materials.
01:33Perhaps more important, he has used that research to launch companies to replace current carbon-based
01:38technologies with commercially scalable green and low-carbon alternatives.
01:43To date, his startups have raised more than $2.5 billion to build batteries, decarbonize
01:49cement, and find more environmentally friendly ways to mine the critical minerals that are
01:54key to electrification.
01:56He is not CEO of any of these startups, but he often maintains a role, for example as
02:01chief science officer at both Form Energy and Sublime Systems.
02:06He said, quote,
02:07People worry about, can you do something by 2050, and what if you can't?
02:11Let's not spend time worrying about it.
02:13There's plenty to do.
02:14I'm an optimist.
02:16It's not as if we arrive in 2050 and say, we didn't do it all in time, let's give up.
02:22Chang, who is 66 years old, immigrated from Taiwan with his family when he was six, after
02:27his dad received an engineering degree at Oklahoma State University.
02:31He grew up in New Jersey and Connecticut, where, for a time, his parents ran a store
02:35that sold Asian foods, including homemade egg rolls.
02:39He went to MIT as a college freshman and never left, receiving a doctorate in ceramics in
02:451985 and joining the faculty.
02:48By 1990, at age 32, he had tenure.
02:53While Chang always worked on research related to energy, he was, he notes, a high schooler
02:58during the 1970s energy crisis.
03:01It wasn't until the mid-2000s that he made climate and sustainability his focus.
03:06Today, that's all he does.
03:09He said, quote,
03:10When students come in and say they'd like to research with me, I tell them all I do
03:14is climate.
03:16Chang's research group typically numbers 25, including grad students and postdocs.
03:22He launched his first startup, American Superconductor, which makes high-temperature superconducting
03:27wire for energy and power applications, in 1987.
03:32Known as a superstar in the field of battery research, he's since co-founded four battery
03:36companies, including Form Energy, launched in 2017.
03:41And he's more recently started companies in areas that include cement and engines for
03:45electric aircraft.
03:47All told, he said, he's worked in five different technology areas with the potential for decarbonization
03:52of multiple gigatons of greenhouse gases per year.
03:57Carmichael Roberts, co-founder of Boston-based venture firm Material Impact, which invests
04:02in materials science innovation, said, quote,
04:06Yet is one of MIT's most prolific academic inventors and has been a force in energy
04:10materials for several decades.
04:13He's one of the best in the world at his craft.
04:16Dana Grayson, co-founder of Construct Capital, who has known Chang for years, said, quote,
04:22Yet Ming has created one of the more prolific portfolios of our time.
04:26He has a really big appetite for how impactful things can be.
04:32For full coverage, check out Amy Feldman's piece on Forbes.com.
04:37This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:40Thanks for tuning in.
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