Zach Dell - Powering the Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.434]

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Colossus

Investing, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2025

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today is Zach Dell. Zach is the co-founder and CEO of Base Power Company. Base is a modern power company building a reliable and affordable home energy service powered by distributed batteries. We explore one of the most underappreciated machines in our world: the electrical grid. Zach walks us through the complex world of electricity infrastructure and explains why the 100-year-old grid is woefully unprepared for the explosion in demand coming from AI, electric vehicles, and industrial electrification. Base's approach involves creating a distributed network of home batteries that provide backup power to customers while serving as grid resources, elegantly solving infrastructure bottlenecks that plague traditional utility-scale projects. We discuss energy as the fundamental enabler of human progress, scaling distributed energy assets, and the vertical integration strategy driving Base's unit economics. Please enjoy my conversation with Zach Dell. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ----- This episode is brought to you by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ramp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ramp.com/invest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. – This episode is brought to you by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ridgeline⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Head to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ridgelineapps.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the platform. – This episode is brought to you by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Arcana⁠⁠⁠. Arcana is the world’s most advanced portfolio intelligence platform, trusted by institutional investors managing trillions in AUM — including market neutral, long-short, long-only, and capital allocators. Arcana enables portfolio managers, risk teams, analysts, and CIOs to drill into exposures and idio, construct optimal portfolios, and decompose performance at incredible granularity. Visit⁠⁠ ⁠arcana.io⁠⁠⁠ to request a demo and learn more. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Introduction and Show Overview (00:05:06) Understanding the Electrical Grid (00:09:10) The History and Evolution of the Grid (00:09:51) Regulation and Deregulation in the Energy Sector (00:18:25) The Importance of Energy in Human Progress (00:28:41) Base's Innovative Energy Solutions (00:38:25) Economic and Operational Insights of Base (00:44:31) Understanding Electricity Market Variability (00:45:01) The Boom and Bust of Battery Economics (00:48:43) Battery Technology and Chemistry (00:50:56) Global Battery Manufacturing Landscape (00:54:06) Capital Markets and Financing Strategies (00:59:56) Vision for the Future of Energy Technology (01:02:30) Personal Journey and Entrepreneurial Insights (01:09:48) Lessons from Influential Leaders (01:16:52) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Done For Zach

Transcript

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0:00.0	Something I speak about frequently on Invest Like the Best is the idea of life's work.
0:04.5	A more fun way to think about it is that I'm looking for maniacs on a mission.
0:08.5	This is the basis for our investment firm, Positive Sum, and it's the reason why I'm so enthusiastic about our presenting sponsor, Ramp.
0:15.0	Not only are the founders, Karim and Eric, life's work-level founders, certainly maniacs on a mission.
0:20.0	They have created a product that is effectively an unlock for founders and finance team to do more of their life's work
0:25.5	by streamlining financial operations, saving everyone their most precious resource time.
0:30.9	Ramp has built a command and control system for corporate cards and expense management.
0:35.1	You can issue cards, manage approvals, make vendor payments of all kinds, and even automate
0:39.4	closing your books all in one place.
0:41.7	Speaking from my own experience using Ramp for my business, the product is wildly intuitive,
0:46.4	simplistic, and makes life so much easier that you'll feel bad for any company who hasn't
0:50.4	yet made the switch.
0:52.5	The Ramp team is relentless, and the product continues to evolve to save you time
0:56.0	that you would never have dreamed of getting back.
0:58.2	To me, there is nothing more interesting
1:00.0	than technologies that reduce friction for other entrepreneurs
1:03.7	to be able to build the thing that they want to.
1:06.2	So much attention has gone to cloud computing,
1:08.8	APIs, and other ways of making life easy for founders,
1:12.5	what RAMP has done and is doing is build yet another set of tools in this category.
1:18.0	To get started, go to ramp.com.
1:20.5	Cards issued by Celtic Bank and Sutton Bank, member FDIC.
	...

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