Who you are defines how you build.

This is the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series.

Brought to you by Stanford E-Corner.

Hello everyone, my name is Emily Ma and I'd like to welcome you to the Entrepreneur of Thought Leaders series,

presented by the Stanford Technology

Ventures Program, the Entrepreneurship Center in the School of Engineering, and Basis, the

Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students.

I'm super excited to introduce you to Andy Carstner today.

Andy is a senior strategist in space cowboy at X, the Moonshot Factory at Alphabet. Andy has spent the last two decades

driving renewable energy innovation and other climate solutions. In addition to his role at X,

Karsner is the founder and executive chairman of Elemental Labs, an organization that pursues

systems-based solutions to promote a sustainable future and equitably empower communities.

Also, from 2005 to 2008, Andy served as the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,

managing a $2 billion annual federal portfolio devoted to applied science, research, and development. In this role, he helped

to assemble significant bipartisan coalitions to implement and enact the Energy Policy Act,

the Energy Independence and Security Act, and the American Combeats Act, all of which continues

to remain foundational to US energy policy.

So I'm very excited because Andy's my colleague and I get to work with him and today I get

to ask him all sorts of questions that we don't normally talk about at work.

So I'm going to start with the first one, Andy.

I know you journeyed through the world and you collected an exceptionally rich set of experiences from Houston to Hong Kong.

What were you like as a 20-year-old?

...