must listen with Chase!
Energy first, then compute.
@ChaseLochmiller, co-founder and CEO of @CrusoeAI is building a lot of the data centers that power the age of intelligence. They just closed a round at a $31B valuation, about 8 years into a company that started as two guys burning flared gas in the Bakken oil field to mine Bitcoin.
That wasn’t a pivot, btw. Chase was AI-pilled early.
The bet was: if data and compute are the bottleneck, compute becomes an energy problem. So instead of bringing stranded energy to a market, bring the market to the energy. Bitcoin was the easiest way to turn electrons into money while he waited for AI demand to show up. It showed up on November 30th, 2022.
He’s a learning machine. On track to be a professor, then a quant, then Everest, now running a 2,000+ person vertically integrated business with welders and AI researchers in the same company.
A few things we get into:
•Why Crusoe is an AI supermajor: upstream (power), midstream (data centers), downstream (AI cloud). Exxon famously doesn’t hedge oil because the stack hedges itself. Margins move around the stack; own the whole thing.
•“Most startups die from suicide, not homicide.” We said the exact same thing at HubSpot. If someone else is chasing your opportunity, that’s a compliment.
•Coopetition. He’ll partner with companies he competes with elsewhere. Useful when you’re building infrastructure the entire industry needs.
•The CEO journey isn’t linear. “As soon as I’m sick of hearing myself say something, we’re just scratching the surface.”
•How he scales himself: a domain expert owns each vertical. Energy, data centers, manufacturing, AI cloud. He goes deep enough to get aligned on direction and understand how it connects to the rest of the business. Then he holds them accountable to execute. Alignment first, then trust with accountability.
•Should every CEO hire a coach? Yes. His coach was as much therapist as coach, and it was critical for him and the company. We get into that more.
•People scale linearly, companies scale exponentially (h/t First Round). When you start thinking about letting someone go, that was probably the right time.
•Actively hunt bad news. Good news is nice, but the CEO’s job is to “run into the burning buildings,” find what’s broken, and fix it.
•Selling the Bitcoin business to NYDIG while it was making money. One word: focus.
•The data center backlash. “The industry has a marketing problem. The truth is on our side.”
Timestamps:
0:00 – Cold open
1:10 – Intro
1:35 – Professor, quant, Everest, energy, data centers: is there a throughline?
2:43 – What people get wrong about the CEO journey
3:53 – Live on the infinite growth loop
4:44 – “My biz is becoming dizzyingly complex beneath me”
6:44 – Scaling yourself with domain experts
7:36 – Trust, DRIs, and not being hands off
8:33 – Cross-org execution and the weekly staff meeting
10:11 – “As soon as I’m sick of hearing myself say it”
11:37 – Keeping urgency at 2,000 employees; the Elon tension
13:12 – Books, mentors, and a coach
15:12 – Most startups die from suicide, not homicide
16:50 – Paranoia and coopetition
17:26 – The AI supermajor: upstream, midstream, downstream
19:47 – Propeller, Blue Energy, and energy first
23:24 – Flared gas, Bitcoin, and bringing the market to the energy
24:45 – Wait But Why, Andrew Ng, and compute as an energy problem
28:52 – November 30, 2022
30:19 – Selling the Bitcoin business: focus
32:43 – Polish is learned: public speaking and Shane Metcalfe
34:31 – Should every CEO hire a coach? Yes.
37:54 – Hire slow, fire fast, and reading the mosaic
41:09 – Ali Ghodsi vs. Dev Ittycheria on exec turnover
42:51 – AI researchers and welders: the collective genius
44:15 – The data center backlash and the marketing problem
48:53 – Thick skin and speaking truth to power
51:09 – Everest: the 2014 avalanche and the Khumbu Icefall
55:12 – The Balcony and the summit
57:36 – My takeawaysView quoted post on X
