Molly Yang is CEO and co-founder of Hgen, a company that develops clean hydrogen to decarbonize heavy industry. Specifically, they are working on alkaline electrolyzer technology to improve efficiency and operate at higher pressure, which they claim will allow them to produce hydrogen with a smaller footprint and lower cost, using a modular, mass-manufacturable design.

Based in Los Angeles, Hgen has raised capital from Founders Fund, Fontanelles Partners, and Seven Seven Six among others. Before starting Hgen, Molly was a senior product manager at Tesla across Tesla's residential energy products, including Powerwall, Solar Panels, EV Home Charging, and Solar Roof. Her co-founder and childhood friend, Colin Ho led actuation and power systems for Starship at SpaceX.

In this episode, Molly and Cody talk all about Hgen's origin story, technology and market. Toward the end of the conversation, she offers her thoughts to other climate tech startup founders and climate tech investors about how to approach a market.

In this episode, we cover:

[3:13] Molly’s background at Tesla and her motivation for starting Hgen
[6:09] Exploring different solutions for hard-to-abate sectors
[8:30] Hgen’s focus on distributed hydrogen production through alkaline electrolysis
[9:24] Comparing alkaline vs. PEM electrolyzers
[14:16] The challenges and advantages of alkaline electrolyzers
[16:10] Targeting markets that use hydrogen today and displacing gray hydrogen
[22:10] Various use cases for hydrogen
[25:06] Hgen’s progress and business model
[27:49] Hgen is hiring!
[28:08] How different investors view hydrogen
[34:25] Molly's advice for entrepreneurs

Episode recorded on July 11, 2024 (Published on Oct 10, 2024)

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