Mitra Chem: Vivas Kumar
🔋Batteries, ⛓️ Supply Chain Innovation, 🌍 Energy Transition, 🤺 Olympic Fencing, and More⚡
Fellow Climate Warriors, welcome to another episode of Climate Tech Cocktails!
Get ready for some shrewd global insights with Vivas Kumar, CEO of Mitra Chem, here today! Swapping cocktails for hydrogen water, Vivas shares his journey from Singapore & Tesla's supply chain to innovating iron-based cathodes. He and Matt cover Li-ion battery history (Korean War to Walkman!), the intense truth of entrepreneurship (what Stanford doesn't teach!), US funding's role, as well as fencing & travel tales from Tbilisi to South Africa. Drink up and enjoy this deep dive into tech, markets & climate drive!
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We’re grateful to have you with us, fighting the good fight with a cool beverage in hand.
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📝 Show Notes Below👇
🎧 New podcast episode:
"We climate businesses, we need to be immune to these business and funding cycles because the problems that we're solving are multi-generational in nature. Global temperatures do not care about the current interest rate."
- Vivas Kumar, CEO of Mitra Chem
What we drank during the episode:
💧 Hydrogen-infused water & 🥥🌴 Goslings Rum with Coconut Water and Lemon
Enjoy the show!
📻 Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audacy and Substack👉
Interested in sponsoring?
Please reach out to m@climatetechcocktails.com
Companies/Startups mentioned during the show:
🌱 Artyc
💡 Benchmark Mineral Intelligence
🚗 BYD
🏛️ Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
🏢 Sony
🚗 Tesla
🌱 Zitara
People/Places/Things mentioned during the show:
💎 Aluminum
📖 Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism
🔋 Anode
🧑💻 Apoorv Bhargava
📍 Arkansas
🧑💻 Akira Yoshino
🧑💻 Bhu Srinivasan
🧪 Catalyst
🔋 Cathode
📍 China
💎 Cobalt
💎 Copper
📅 D-Day
🧑💻 Dark 'n Stormy
📍 Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
🧑💻 Elon Musk
🧑💻 Fred again..
📍 Garonga Safari Camp, South Africa
🧑💻 Hannah Sieber
🧪 Hydrogen
📜 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022
📍 Iran
📍 Japan
🧑💻 John Goodenough
🪐 Jupiter
🏛️ Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
⚔️ Korean War
📍 Kruger National Park, South Africa
🧑💻 Lee Kuan Yew
💎 Lithium
🔋 Lithium Iron Phosphate battery (LFP)
📍 Malaysia
🌍 Mars
🏛️ MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
✈️ Mayflower
🧑💻 Michael Ovitz
🧑💻 Nelson Mandela
📍 Nevada
💎 Nickel
🧑💻 Shyam Srinivasan
🧑💻 Simon Moores
🧑💻 Skrillex
🧑💻 Stan Whittingham
🏛️ Stanford University / Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB)
🏛️ US Department of Defense (DoD)
📍 Vietnam
⚔️ Vietnam War
🧑💻 Vivas Kumar
🧑💻 Warren Buffett
⚔️ World War II
-TIMESTAMPS-
[00:00] Intro
[03:09] Unconventional Wellness Hacks
[04:48] Global Travels, Olympic Fencing, and Entrepreneurial Balance
[12:13] Lessons from Singapore
[14:40] How U.S. Government Funding Sparks Platform Technologies
[18:58] The 75-Year Journey of Lithium-Ion Batteries
[24:36] Why Affordable Energy Access Is a Global Imperative
[27:42] From Oil & Gas to Tesla
[30:53] Inside Tesla’s Battery Supply Chain Operations
[36:38] From Stanford MBA to Founding Mitra Chem
[38:24] What Business School Won’t Teach You About Founding
[43:40] Why Iron-Rich Batteries Are the Future of EVs
[47:49] The U.S. Lithium Opportunity and Supply Chain Strategy
[50:36] Mitra Chem’s Vision to Power Global Decarbonization
[52:36] Books and Startups That Inspire Climate Action
[57:49] Candid Advice for Aspiring Climate Tech Founders
[58:59] Outro