 The number one thing that we look for in founders that we want to back is that they're in a mad rush. In a mad rush to fix something. And Philip on the stage with me here today is the very definition of what that means. From the very first minute when I met Philip it was very clear that you're in a mad rush to fix climate. So what does that mean? 1.5 in 2023 was the fastest growing company in Europe. You reached a unicorn status in less than two years. If that's not a mad rush then I don't know what really is. So but first things first I'd love to start with you. Can you tell us a little bit more about you? Who are you and what led you to start 1.5? I'm Philip. I'm 40 years old. I'm father of a daughter and the second one is coming. So there's also family life in that rush. I have spent my career since 2005-06 as a startup entrepreneur in energy. I did a lot of things. Some went well, others didn't. I think the most interesting parts of the career that people can relate to is I had the privilege of building Tesla in Germany for the Model S arrival. So very early when electric cars were like a pain and nobody wanted to have them and they were really unsexy. Before Elon and Tesla was really a brand that everybody adored. So that was a really let's say a time that has taught me a lot and another company that also taught me a lot was Zonan. I was one of the managing directors and also a very early shareholder of Zonan which was one of the first battery companies that focused on solar plus batteries. So basically generate your own electricity and then store it and get independent of the grid. We scaled that company in Europe, United States and also in Australia and it was sold at some point to Shell. In this ecosystem I met a lot of great people and they are also now part of our journey at 1.5. Amazing. So for those who don't know 1.5 can you tell us a little bit more about 1.5 specifically? What is it that you do? 1.5 is I think it really started as a session in a basement with three people I really like a lot and whose opinion I value my co-founders. So I asked them to co-found 1.5 and we came up like we have all been frustrated. We worked together before at Tesla at Zonan in different stages of our careers. So we know each other also the battling times when you are stressed and in a rush. So when we were sitting down I said okay like what do we really need in Europe when it comes to clean tech and we did clean tech before and a couple of things that came to mind for us. The first one is we look at a scenario where we say what do we have to do to have an impact on climate. The problem with if you are working in clean tech you're always behind. It's like a battle you cannot really win. Like every year you look at the data and every year you hear the speeches and nothing really happens. That's how you feel and we said okay let's make a plan where we believe that we can make a difference. And we didn't know that we are going to raise a lot of money then. We were aiming for it but the plan was simple. We said okay we need to be fast because 1.5 is the name of the CO2 target of the Paris Climate Accord. So we need to be really fast. We need to have a lot of impact. So what do we do? The first thing that we came to is we said installation of heat pumps, charge points, solar systems are a pain. People still hate it. It's not sexy. It's not convenient. There's not been revolutionized. So we said we need to build a workbench, a global one that can scale really fast. And we said okay if we want to do this we believe the best way of doing it is inviting entrepreneurs to the table who are already electricians installers today who are focusing on these assets. So we said okay if we do that we could potentially scale through lots of markets very fast. Aggregate procurement power, put a new brand on it and have the platform that we need. And the second point is we said okay this would be the right to sit on the table to actually participate in this race. The second point was we wanted to innovate the way how you create such a system. So a one stop shop for all of these systems. This includes logistics software but you also map the processes of every single move of the carpenter, of the electrician, of the roofer, of the plumber and it has not been done before. So that's the second thing. We're back in the basement saying like what do you want to do? And we said if we get the money we'll try to reinvent that because nobody cares about it. Everybody cares about the product, the hardware product or maybe a software layer but nobody really wants to do the mass fulfillment. And there's a lot of cost to be saved. That was the second point and the third point we said if we get those entrepreneurs on the platform and scale like crazy. And then we reinvent the software layer which is basically a CRM and operating system for all of the things that we have to deliver. And let's assume that we make it. We will create problems in the grid. So we know from our expertise that if you scale solar you create problems also. You have peak, you have off peak. If there's no sun, there's no electricity. If there's no wind, there is no electricity. And we always, we've worked at Zonal and VPPs before and we said okay we need to connect all these assets to a platform that truly can change the energy market in a way where consumption follows production. The problem today is that we simply consume whenever we want. And solar and wind are cheap, even free, I would argue at some point if they are written off the generators. But they are not available all the time. So we basically came up with the idea and the concept is a bit older. We've invested time in that before to have a software that matches consumption, electric car, heat pump, AC, they don't consume all the time. They just go over time and connect this with the production on the production side. Like if there's lots of wind you get free electricity essentially in order to create a system that can become sustainable and working because right now there are more problems. And now you already, I mean you believed in us but if we pitch something like this to an investor they will tell you okay go back smoke pot. But this is the company we created and now we have 1,800 employees, 500 million euros in revenue this year. We are profitable, we'll make about 45 million euros in profits this year. We have created that software layer and we have connected also the VPP so we are rushing. You're definitely rushing and one thing that I love about it is whenever you talk about clean energy we sort of think about these leapfrog innovations. What I really loved about 1.5 is that first solar panel was invented in 1880. I mean that's crazy and it's literally taken a century to get it to a point where you can really roll it out to the masses. So it's really the innovation alone is not enough. You need to innovate and then you need to roll it out really quickly in a mad rush that you're doing that. But maybe then about kind of the scaling journey, working with founders I think I'm yet to hear and meet the founder who tells me that hey scaling my company was walking the park. I mean it's never walking the park. That's the bar and then there is the 1.5 bar as you said going from three founders in a garage to 1,500 employees in like two years. That's insane. How do you do that and what have been some of the worst stories along the way? I think the very honest answer to that is it is only possible because we have a team that has failed together before in other companies so we have a broader team of a couple of dozen people. We have worked together before some of these problems. How many of the people have you worked so it's the three founders who've worked together and still large share of the management team? I made a habit out of trying to take great or convince great talent to rejoin. So at Tesla we took about a dozen people from Tesla to Zonin and from Zonin we took more than a dozen people on various layers also back to 1.5 and the same goes for Tesla and for other companies that we are close with. So I think without that muscle memory and the failures of the past it would have been impossible and I think we are profiting from that and I think we are also in a unique position and timing is also key. I mean yes we are working really hard and I think we are probably one of the best teams in Europe for the purpose of what we're doing. However also timing and topic fit totally. So I would say for me this is probably I think it's not going to reappear in my career ever to be in this position and so it adds also a level of responsibility and also appreciation that this probably won't happen again. We are in a perfect spot in a perfect time with the right team and that's the only reason why we came this far and now it's more like a burden because I mean obviously we ask for a lot of money, we have promised a lot to shareholders, we are promising a lot to talent and end to customers especially to customers. The claim to live on wind and sunlight forever for free we are backing that with a performance warranty in Sweden so they will have a zero kilowatt hour bill and in Germany we're also doing something similar so I think right now we are super focused and aware of the responsibility to execute and deliver. Yeah and I also want to talk a little bit more about kind of the market in general and kind of the future of energy and back to what I was mentioning previously there is kind of two schools of thoughts. One school of thoughts says that you know we still need leapfrog innovations to still get to the net zero targets and the other school of thought says that no actually we already have enough innovation. The next step is about incremental improvements let's bring down cost increase efficiency etc etc which school of thought do you belong to? We still need leapfrog innovations or can we get there with what we have invented already today? I think the one problem about climate change is it invites opinion and it invites smart people to think of complex philosophies. We believe at one comma five we can only change what is within our own hands so we would rather and that's also something when we have discussions with developers we have now 150 software developers. The discussion is always like we focus on what we can do also one comma five as a company name is about what can we do what can every individual do that is owning a home is owning a building. So if you start talking about philosophy and start reading Nietzsche I think it's time to it would frustrate me way too much so my school of thought is let's focus on what we can do and let's go step by step to increase the impact that we have. So I would say it will need a lot more than we can give for the 1.5 degree target and also for that tipping point. I also think that human race will only learn when we really feel much more pain it's just the way it is and I think there is enough room for plenty of companies and technologies in that field. But I would focus every founder and maybe also investor to we have we don't have time so let's focus on what we can do right now and that's I think also what you meant with incremental there is a lot of things we can do right now we don't need to discuss about China. We can you know I can make sure that my home is to neutral and I can live so neutral neutral and heating and mobility and in electricity I can save money actually on it so let's do that and that's what we're focusing on. Yeah and of course you're already on your way to make a dent in the world. What do you think are other kind of low hanging fruits that aspiring entrepreneurs in the audience you know if they are thinking about the business to start that could help us navigate the energy transition. What are the other low hanging fruits that someone just needs to take and execute. To be honest if you are if you really want to become an entrepreneur and or if you really want to do that first thing you need to realize there is no low hanging fruit and then then you need to really check in with how hard you really want it. You pay a price for it. The price that the team pays in lifetime that we allocate is brutal. I think slush and also other events they kind of they have a proposition of how it is to be an entrepreneur. I think most entrepreneurs who have been living through that they like to be here slush me as well and because everybody's like wow I want to be like you but to be honest in you pay a price for that and you have opportunity cost. And what makes it worth it for you. I think I'm addicted to self-impact. There are two things. If you if you understand that you can change things and then you get addicted to the idea how far you can go. So you do something and it happens and you do another thing and it also happens. You of course get amazed by the potential and the impact that you have. But the more more interesting thing is to have this as a group feeling. If you elevate great talent around you and they get amazed about this as well. So you can really see how they like she. She product officer. He was a working student at Tesla and driving out cars and driving back cars. He studied journalism. So he came from a completely different place. But to to to elevate the entire team and to share this feeling is for me the the true purpose and also the true connection that makes it worthwhile because that's amazing. And it's also dangerous because it's highly addictive. But it's also fun and makes it absolutely worth it. But still you have to really want it. And if you don't really want it don't do it. And it's like there is a lot of stories out there in the market about kind of Tesla and the culture and also kind of the mad rush culture. How how many things have you borrowed from that culture that you are now in implementing in the one comma five journey. I would say that the Tesla culture that I saw and I mean I'm out now for a couple of years has been a marketing fake to young talent. So you tell people you need to come work for this company and at a very low income because it's cool and you can go anywhere later. And it did work really well. So at Tesla we did this all the time. We hired we didn't hire only students we hired for sales for example. But I think what Tesla didn't do and what I also disconnected me from from the vibe was it didn't elevate people sustainably. And there was also not. It was more like it had the vibe to push you up. But at some point there was no sustainability in the relationships to the leadership teams as well. And that that for me was not a place where I would think that I would spend my professional lifetime. So I think you can learn a lot about Tesla. They are super especially Elon is a hundred percent fundamentalist about what you need to do. If you recognize you need to do something and start ups or founders they know they need to do this. But then they say but I don't have the means for it. So I aim here. You'll fail immediately. So what you can learn from Tesla is just aim exactly at what you need to move. And it might sound ridiculous if you tell it someone at the first time. But never ever ever ever start aiming lower because you might not get the funding whatever. But if you lower the aim you might might end up with a company that doesn't really have an impact. Right. So and that kind of that school of thought to be super clear in your master plan and super clear of what you need to really change. I think that you can learn from Tesla and be brutal about it. And for the record as an investor usually we get the business plan from founders and then you know what you always do is you haircut it by 20 30 percent because you kind of see that analogy that you know these are the targets you know you should shoot for the stars but then realistically we know that that's not going to be possible. And I just wanted to share here that I think you're one of the few founders that beats even your own really really ambitious business plan which is which I think again back to the mad rush. That's the second entrepreneur mistake. Always budget is a is a promise to your shareholder. That's it. And you need to be on a level where you don't need to need to outsell them. Like we had these questions many times from investors they're like okay this is the business plan so what do you think is realistic. So what the fuck are you not taking me you're not taking me seriously. And it's also not the it's not the kind of relationship I want to have with shareholders. The relationship I want to have with shareholders is I will tell you what I think and I will tell you what what my and our problems are and if you if you fuck that up from the beginning again it's a big mistake don't do it your budget. At least there are always problems and external risk but at least you should draft a budget in way that you see it's a shareholder promise and you build trust with your shareholders if you do what you say and so so we will always try we will continue to try to surprise you positively. It's amazing doesn't happen that often that you're surprised on the upside but you somehow keep keep keep managing to do that. Then also going back to the markets a little bit more like day-to-day like what's your biggest frustration I mean I think no one chooses climate change like any person in the room here is obviously against that but somehow we're sleep walking into it and it somehow seems that business regulatory framework is just not adapting fast enough and when you look at the world what just kind of like really frustrates you I mean this makes no sense why are politicians what I'm frustrated with is the lack of innovation on that level because it's only one word is convenience it's it's like like you know in Germany we have a right-wing party called RFD so they say climate change is not real I want that these people still buy my product because it's better it's cheaper and better it's more convenient so I think if you have to start to make the argument if you have to put it's cool for branding to put purpose into it but I think from a product perspective we are not having smartphones because somebody told us it's wise to do it or morally right we never do what's morally right yeah I mean maybe sometimes but so I think it's very simple I mean you need to create a product where every climate change denier will still take it because it's just so much better and have to make it easy exactly so it the convenience of installation the one stop shop but also the proper proposition of the benefit like we are cutting costs so deep and so hard for the customer and yes we love that there are many customers backing us on co2 and the climate change but for lasting impact I have to decouple the benefit from ideology if you if you want to we don't want to discuss ideology we want to have a product that is so powerful that people will simply change because out of its own value it makes sense so in the end of the day we're our own worst enemies that you really only decarbonize your home if it's cheaper than your existing energy especially if you look at other you know if you look at at at non EU US countries I mean they will not have the kind of lay policy support behind this so yes absolutely and we also think that capitalism is a tool in fighting climate change I don't need to agree with principles of capitalism as a human being but I think the the change maker the only change maker I have met in my lifetime is is capitalism they capitalism has the potential to change and accelerate change dramatically and we hope that we are that there's going to be a tipping point on that when when the benefit is hitting in and where people simply will only book these kind of services and that's what we are that that's what we are building on so we want people to simply choose and our product and service and speaking of capitalism like I also know that you've chosen your investors very very carefully like I have heard you say many many times that I want mission-aligned investors I want investors that understand what we're doing why is that important to you if you had if you've been involved in venture capital firms before and you you tend as an entrepreneur to select brand so you're a bit like okay there's a big brand and they tell you that they're super cool and then you invite a shareholder to the table it's a bit like it's such an important relationship especially if it doesn't go well so I've been at the point with teams where we didn't select investors right and the wrong set of investors board members observers people that you spend a lot of time with and that you're also that have some power over you I rather don't do around or you know be limited on scale then inviting the wrong people into the family and because it really once you start discussing non-issues once you have politics in the border and the shareholder side you decrease the probability of success entirely you demotivate top-sea level staff that have exposure to shareholders so we really try to make sure to not do that and and we are very frank if we think shareholders don't understand we tell them as well I mean shareholders investors tell and found us all the time that they have decided not to invest yeah and I think it's it's money is a commodity yeah and talent isn't no it's crazy it's like I've myself as a climate investor that we all understand the need to invest in climate but at the same time there is a talk a little bit of a climate bubble that's that's kind of putting off some more generalist investors do you encounter that as well where some investors say hey I'm not even though there is a solution fantastic track record I'm not gonna invest because there is a bubble and I'm just gonna close my eyes on the bigger problem I would say there is already a bubble in climate tech because the problem is that you have e-commerce venture capitalists that understood that their LPs want to invest in something like that so they follow the taste of the LP without having the experience or the knowledge to actually understand a physical market is much more physical hardware related infrastructure related regulatory related and they just follow that trend and I think that's opportunistic but it's okay and I think it will be hard for them to really make good choices and because it's different different we are profiting now from that trend and I think that's good and obviously yeah and but we I think it's really good because I've been in a company called Zonan when there was no clean-tech money available so I think there is still room to make and I think also there will be venture capital funds that that have that experience already and that create that kind of experience and will facilitate successful companies and there are going to be some that won't which is fine amazing I think that our time is also almost up and I always like to wrap up with a call to action you can choose what that call to action is be to the investors in the room to the founders in the room and everyone in between but if there is one call to action that you can make what would that be I think the most I think the the and it doesn't matter whether you're an investor or entrepreneur manager if you're a human being and you you have you want and have to work for your income you will invest your lifetime and your awake lifetime 80% of your the time that you are awake or maybe 75% or 70 or 90 whatever and into your career and I think and what I think the choice that you all can make is if you think you first of all you need to select a topic that you really love I mean everybody's saying that when we look at climate change I would ask to if you really pretend to care look whether you are generating the biggest impact with your talent because talent is a is a very is a indicator if you pull it that can change the probability of a future scenario so if the top talent is leaving big fossil companies if the top talent is leaving investment companies that are not focusing on what's right if the talent is is leaving even a company like Google or Facebook whatever to dedicate their lifetime and their talent and and and time into this topic the probability of success will increase so I would ask everybody to just double check whether you are investing your lifetime in the most meaningful way wow that's a big call to action we only live 29,000 days give or take at least that's what I read so call to action make it count thank you Philip thank you