Tsung Xu
@tsungxu
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Exploring startup ideas integrating battery tech and novel materials, repeat founder
Sydney → SF → Austin
Joined February 2012
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Just published my new energy transition article:
☀️💨🔋 What has made the rise of solar, wind and batteries so remarkable?
Which emerging industries can benefit?
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Share of new global electricity capacity:
💨💧🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖 '02
💨💧💧🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖
💨💧🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖 '06
💨💨💧💧🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖
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☀️☀️💨💨💧🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖 '14
☀️☀️☀️💨💨💧🦖🦖🦖🦖
☀️☀️☀️💨💨💧🦖🦖🦖🦖 '18
☀️☀️☀️☀️💨💨💨💧🦖🦖 '20
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New performance materials are coming.
Many are biomanufactured and some are scaling very fast. Their superior properties have enormous potential to improve a vast range of products.
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*Narrative violation ahead*
Think of the fastest growing ten year old companies ever at scale. Which come to mind? Probably a tech company. Maybe Google, Facebook or Amazon.
Nope. It's the leading lithium-ion battery manufacturer.
#battery
#catl
#energytransition
#cleantech
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@stephsmithio
Some of the fastest growing companies today are actually making physical things.
E.g. Tesla and CATL (largest lithium-ion battery maker).
Both have comparable revenues to tech giants at same age, are faster growing, and more profitable than Amazon.
Surprisingly, we find them in energy tech. Tesla and the leading battery giant, CATL, have the best cases.
Let’s start with CATL.
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For using clean, cheap electrons to build the future, I think electrochemistry and synbio will be huge.
I knew a little about electrochem startups and trends, but almost nothing about synbio. So I immersed myself at the
@BuiltWithBio
conference last week.
Some takeaways:
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Excited to finally announce I will be collaborating with two venture funds as a venture partner!
If you know of startups seeking to raise and working on new materials, energy tech or supply chains, DM me 📥
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@Noahpinion
So we do the same with CATL's tech here.
And we understand *why* production is cheap in China, and do more of that here.
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Now Tesla, the largest post-2000 co by market cap. As shown below, it is still in hypergrowth mode.
Sans Tesla, how long would EV adoption and battery tech have been delayed?
I think at least a few years.
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Amyris may be the first synbio company to have cracked product market fit by selling direct to consumers.
Let’s look at why this matters and how this fighter of a company got here.
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New article!
The last golden age of new materials was so long ago, we rarely think about materials as a driver of technological progress. I make the case that this is changing.
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We are already in an era where companies enabled by software (but also other technologies) will be the biggest in the world.
Tesla, SpaceX, CATL and BYD are the early successes.
Software is no longer king, but it has and will continue to have a seat at the table.
what I’ll say about the 2010s tech products is that Uber, Airbnb, DoorDash, etc ended up embarrassingly small companies. they rewrote their respective industries but didn’t manage to capture a lot of value. winner take all effect never materialized
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Legend
☀️ Sól
💨 Wind
💧 Hydro
🦖 Burning dead prehistoric plants and some T-Rexs
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🎙 I'm starting a podcast 🎙
Materially Better is a series of conversations about high performance materials and the ways they are being integrated into novel products.
Get notified when the first three episodes drop next week:
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I believe “electron native” tech will win in more industries than most expect.
Right now, there are very few fossil-powered industries outside of electric vehicles in which it is already clear that electrons will win.
Until I learned about
#FleetZero
.
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Was told that my materials articles are required reading for PhDs and postdocs in a materials research lab 🤯
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Capacity is fine, but has ☀️ and 💨 started to replace electricity from 🦖 fuels?
Yes, as shown here.
This is great news. But the growth in lithium-ion batteries is even better…
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Chart shows the growth rates for solar and wind generated electricity. Global data.
Say growth slows down a lot and assume we triple electricity usage by 2050.
We still reach 100% renewables by 2050.
What's a compelling reason that this can't happen? I've not heard one yet.
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I invested over 5 months into writing and distributing my energy transition article. It felt like a self-directed course with a product to launch at the end.
Since February it has opened doors, led to 700+ retweets of my content and 5 job offers.
Here’s how it happened.
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@Noahpinion
Tesla's US manufacturing footprint is one of the underrated recent achievements of US industry.
We need hundreds of startups trying to build the next dozen Teslas across many product categories. Making millions of units of each product.
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Exponential growth bias. We struggle to grasp technologies that grow non-linearly.
For 44 years, solar PV has almost doubled in capacity every two years, on average. That’s more than a two million fold increase.
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The more people I talk to at the frontier of performance biomaterials, the more optimistic I am about the future.
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Tesla and CATL are leaders in accelerating the shift to clean energy. They are also two of the handful of generational companies started this century.
As the transition picks up pace, more climate startups will join them.
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I'm not sure we've ever had a decade with this many technologies that STACKING progress towards a better, brighter future.
☀️Solar
🔋Batteries
🚘EVs and other mobility
🧬Synbio: foods, chemicals, performance materials
⚡️Electrolyzers
🚀Reusable rockets
👀Real world AI
🤖Robotics
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Come join an AMA where I will talk about performance biomaterials and a new materials paradigm.
On the Amyris subreddit, next Thursday 11am central.
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Plummeting costs have sent lithium-ion batteries tumbling down the learning curve.
So quickly that the battery pack in a new Tesla Model 3 would have cost more than $200K in 1992.
This fall is why batteries are now reaching a tipping point…
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Because in the 2010s, solar hit a tipping point.
First, it became as cheap as building new coal/gas plants. In the last few years, it has become as cheap or cheaper than existing fossil plants.
Share of new global electricity capacity:
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Surprisingly, we find them in energy tech. Tesla and the leading battery giant, CATL, have the best cases.
Let’s start with CATL.
*Narrative violation ahead*
Think of the fastest growing ten year old companies ever at scale. Which come to mind? Probably a tech company. Maybe Google, Facebook or Amazon.
Nope. It's the leading lithium-ion battery manufacturer.
#battery
#catl
#energytransition
#cleantech
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Performance focused biomaterials like spider silk protein are scaling up at historic speeds, yet are not being talked about.
Since 2008, spider silk protein production has almost doubled every six months‼️
Spiber’s 20 mg in three months in 2008 and today’s pilot-scale plant:
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Several biases make us underestimate the rise of ☀️💨🔋.
Start with recency bias. No one had lived through the Spanish Flu, which made us collectively underprepared for COVID.
Most of us never lived through an energy transition, like oil or electricity.
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I looked a little into Zymergen including their March 2021 S1 and a couple of helpful articles.
I think better biomanufactured materials as a vision has a lot of potential. But here are some thoughts on why Zymergen has been a cautionary tale so far:
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When cost reductions are non-linear, they are just as hard to grasp.
For every doubling of solar photovoltaic capacity, prices have tumbled 24%. The “learning curve” below shows this.
Notice how costs fell faster since 2010. Why?
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2010s: using software as THE enabling technology
2020s: using software as one of MANY enabling technologies
This is how the next trillion dollar industries will be built, and sustainably too.
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My year in review. Includes progress made (a lot), learnings had (also a lot) and what's next for 2023.
Happy new year and lfg!
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Electricity from solar and wind is very cheap, and getting cheaper, as shown below.
To access these cheap prices, a power-hungry startup needs to co-locate next to a solar or wind farm.
The startup also needs to make the economics work with intermittency.
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Thanks to falling battery costs, electric vehicles are becoming cost competitive.
And that means sales are soaring for both the vehicle and battery manufacturers.
Same for grid storage too — more on that in my article.
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More founders need to know it's never too late. I just turned 36 and I'm just getting started.
"The mean age at founding for the 1-in-1,000 fastest growing new ventures is 45.0. The findings are similar when considering high-technology sectors"
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Startups are using electrochemical approaches in a number of areas.
Capturing CO2 from the air.
Turning CO2 into chemicals, fuels or adding to concrete.
Turning carbon monoxide (or other chemicals) into plastics or fuels.
More examples are in the article.
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Thanks for everyone who checked out my article. Didn't expect such a good response!
DMs are open to talk about the future of performance materials 🚀
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If you have a vision for the future, share it.
If someone has a similar vision, you have a potential collaborator.
If you're paranoid about others "stealing" your vision, use that as drive to work harder towards it.
No downsides to sharing.
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Materials innovation at scale is happening for the first time in many decades. It’s an exciting time to build.
Thanks for reading!
Full article:
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First 10 years for nylon stockings:
1935 first produced at Dupont
1937 first experimental pair made
1939 4000 pairs sell out in 3 hours (!)
1940 4M pairs sell in 2 days (!!)
1945 supply shortage led to "Nylon Riots"
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First three episodes are LIVE!
Listen to
@maxmxndt
on the revolution of matter,
@melikcdemirel
on squid-inspired self-healing materials, and Antonio Castro Neto, the "graphene godfather".
Spotify:
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Well worth a read. Batteries and synbio are leading the way to more decentralized production of atoms.
The Decentralization of Atoms is Underrated
Stephen Malina (
@an1lam
) and I wrote about how technologies that decentralize atoms in energy, transportation, and biology can increase access, lower costs, and avoid chokepoints that can cause failures.
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This decade will be an incredible time to build. Thanks for reading!
Here’s the full article:
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Incredible things are quickly normalized by exponential growth.
This battery storage site would have been by far the world’s largest five years ago. Today it’s just a big storage project.
That happens when an industry grows at ~60% CAGR for nine years.
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Read more in my article:
Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any questions.
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My Reddit AMA on performance biomaterials is live in less than 10 minutes!
There may also be some talk about synbio generally, the history of polymers, energy transitions and s-curves.
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@duncan__c
@friedberg
Yeah, this is crazy. More than 3x.
Receipts:
In 2020
Australia rooftop $1219/KW
Australia utility-scale $1061/KW
California rooftop $4236/KW ❗️❗️
Other US states rooftop $3520/KW ❗️
USA utility-scale $1101/KW
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A key enabler in oil’s rise was the internal combustion engine.
Cars rapidly replaced horses in industrializing cities. This change was fast even by today’s standards and ignited oil’s rise.
Later, discoveries of oil-derived plastics fueled further demand.
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@Noahpinion
So much to be optimistic about
@Noahpinion
.
Falling costs of solar, wind and batteries are accelerating the shift to electron native industries.
New electrochemistry and synbio solutions will reshape economies and the US is well positioned.
As electrons get cheaper, electrochemical technologies look increasingly appealing.
These approaches use electricity (instead of heat, pressure, etc) to produce chemicals, fuels and more.
What are some examples?
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@loganb
@Noahpinion
how can we overcome regulatory hurdles? Tesla had the first Model Ys off the Giga Austin line within 18 months. TSMC’s Arizona plant is ahead of schedule.
How can these be the norm rather than the exception?
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@Noahpinion
Thanks for sharing
@Noahpinion
!
I'll have more to share about performance biomaterials (and other materials) soon.
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The traction on my energy transition article and tweets has blown away my expectations.
In the last 28 days, my tweets have had almost 1 million impressions and 623 retweets. $0 spent.
Let’s take a closer look.
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I'm back writing on
@SubstackInc
!
Substack's network effects and podcast features made this a no-brainer now I've launched a podcast.
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@JesseJenkins
@TheProblem
This is a visual version of the 57% CAGR in battery EV sales.
@zak_ev
includes plug-ins in his numbers. The chart below does not.
Less than 500K of the 4.6M EVs sold globally in 2021 were in the US, far behind China and the EU. We've got work to do!
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High prices and/or shortages of natural resources have unlocked some generational technologies:
British firewood in 1600s → first coal market → steam engine
US coal oil for kerosene in 1850s → first oil market
World shortage of rubber 1910s → first industrial fermentation
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Solar photovoltaics, wind turbines and batteries are manufactured.
As deployment rises, costs fall and performance improves. Proven across decades of sustained scale up.
This makes the rise of ☀️💨🔋 more akin to semiconductors than to fossil fuels.
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1500 downloads in 5 days. Thanks listeners for trying out a new podcast!
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You can now subscribe to inbox updates from my blog.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing a two part series on materials. Both parts will be FAR shorter than my energy transition article.
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This chart shows the rocketing growth for CATL in the past year. Per
@AdamasIntel
, they’ve tripled the batteries they’ve sold to carmakers in 2021, and this shows in their revenue growth.
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New podcast episode drop!
@RhinoScience
from
@humblebeebio
on their biopolymer's unusual properties, plant vs microbial biofactories, and using rapid and distributed R&D.
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Previous energy transitions really took off when they enabled people to do brand new things.
So far, ☀️💨🔋 have mostly helped us to do old things, but better.
Produce clean electricity, but cheaper. Store it, but at scale. Make cars, but electric.
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As electrons get cheaper, electrochemical technologies look increasingly appealing.
These approaches use electricity (instead of heat, pressure, etc) to produce chemicals, fuels and more.
What are some examples?
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Micro-scale color without dyes from and a super light piece of aerogel. Thanks to
@calebmeredth
and
@jamesgiammona
respectively, they are now on my desk.
Next to them is this bacterial cellulose experiment that did not go so well.
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If I had been told a year ago that a battery maker would be just as large and growing several times faster than Google or Facebook, I would have not believed it.
Yet here we are.
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@NatBullard
And this is why fossils are inflationary once the initial best wells are dug, like Titusville and later Texas.
Vs renewables which are deflationary because of Wright's Law.
One enables geopolitical instability, the other is an antidote.
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Several exciting developments happened this week. Some were unexpected.
I will share updates soon🎙️
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Think of companies founded since 2000.
Which are the fastest growing?
The largest by market cap?
Are they pure software companies?
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Credits:
Inspired by
@VaclavSmil
@GregNemet
Richard Rhodes
@ramez
@MaxCRoser
@JigarShahDC
@jjacobs22
@Noahpinion
@Bill_Gross
@DKThomp
and many more.
Thanks to
@BrianTHeligman
@duncan__c
@JacobLBrown
@ShanuMathew93
and others for reviewing sections of the article.
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Software does not always win.
None of the three most impactful companies started so far this century build software alone.
Not Tesla. Not SpaceX. Not CATL.
Not the biomanufacturing or other battery tech startups that will be the biggest companies of this decade.
456X for seed investors in Figma
They raised $332M in equity and are selling for ~$20B.
Possible they only spent ~$200M of equity capital to get to the $20B outcome.
By contrast Lyft gobbled $7.3B of capital and is worth $5.1B.
Software wins.
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One brand new thing is materials. This energy transition, likely unlocks breakthroughs in new materials as the others did.
Coal → wrought iron and steel
Oil → plastics
Electricity → aluminum
☀️💨🔋 → ??
I talk about a couple of contenders in the article.
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It’s gonna take a while to unlearn the primacy of software and AI. Unfortunate second order effect of SV’s outsized success.
But we will need to in order to truly innovate in meatspace.
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Great podcast interviews are rich long-form insight mines.
Most guests on relatively niche subjects would not have had a platform to share thoughts publicly, and certainly not in depth or in a relaxed setting.
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Firstly
@collabfund
.
I had great conversations with both
@cshapiro
and
@sophiebakalar
in the last few weeks. Their recent $200M SOS Fund invests in Series A and B startups and has a strong materials thesis.
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We are clearly underestimating the types and size of companies that can be built in the world of atoms.
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Extremely high value and short summary of approaches to biomanufacturing by
@aryelipman
.
Wish I had seen this earlier!
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Why is the Bay Area seemingly THE hub for every synbio vertical *except* biomaterials 🤔
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Building new and better products is the fastest way to accelerate the adoption of any new technology.
Come at me
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Can ☀️💨🔋 keep scaling while falling in cost? Yes, albeit a little more slowly.
1) Solar and battery supply chains are pouring $billions into new capacity in China, Europe and the US.
2) Companies commercializing new solar and battery tech will keep driving down costs.
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Quick note on the role of ☀️💨🔋 in the policy response to Russia.
They will help improve energy security, but not overnight.
See this thread by
@ramez
on more immediate energy policy ideas.
Thread of threads on how the US and Europe can advance energy policy to weaken Putin and reduce his leverage over Europe and the US. First, here's the US policy response we could have now. (1/n)
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@JohnLBauer
@Noahpinion
He literally gave away the IP for the OG roadster hoping legacy auto would build upon it. They ofc did not.
A decade later and legacy oems are further behind, while China has caught up and is accelerating.
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@AlecStapp
@ryxcommar
I don’t think this is the bigger problem with data science in big tech. At Uber Eats, leadership was very good at using DS to inform decisions.
The bigger problem was that data can only tell you so much and will drive decisions to local optima.
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The dematerialization of energy sources over time:
Phase 1)
Age of Combustion. From solids to gases via liquids.
Wood
Coal
Oil
Gas
Phase 2)
Age of Electrons. From gases to photons via gravity, neutrons and wind.
Coal
Hydro
Gas
Nuclear fission
Wind
Solar
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Mycelium is another biomaterial that’s rapidly scaling production.
2007:
@ebenbayer
made pound-scale biscuit-sized pieces.
2021: Ecovative produced 45 tons that year.
2024: New AirMycelium farm aims for 13,000 tons of mycelium bacon capacity.
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🔋 and 💨 make ☀️ power less intermittent.
Grid batteries time-shift solar into peak evening hours. Over ⅓ of US solar projects queued for grid connection are paired with batteries.
On land, it is often more windy at night. Offshore winds gust in the evenings.
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When a vision becomes more compelling than reality, it replaces and upends reality.
Tesla and SpaceX are the best examples today.
But every generational company execute so well on a compelling vision that this happens.
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☀️💨🔋 mutually reinforce each other’s growth.
Earlier energy transitions also scaled with mutually reinforcing technologies.
Let’s take a quick look at the example of oil.
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In my upcoming post, I also present similar charts for Tesla and XPeng. Both of these electric vehicle makers are equally as impressive as CATL in their growth rates for the size, scale and age they are today.
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James Dyson is the closest to Steve Jobs today in his philosophy and approach to building great products.
The story of Dyson is fucking wild.
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Canva has executed extremely well.
But On Shoes was founded only 2 years earlier, did more than $1B in trailing 12 month revenue, with about half the number of Canva’s employees, entered a crowded market and did not have any major tech breakthroughs in their shoes.
canva just low key blowing past $1b+ in revenue. this is what true exponential growth looks like. crazy impressive
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