Alex Blumberg is Co-founder and CEO of DaisyChain Energy, a company building a hardware-enabled software platform that turns commercial buildings into flexible grid assets. Best known as the founder of Gimlet Media and co-creator of Planet Money, Blumberg’s second venture focuses on solving one of the most overlooked problems in climate: the misaligned incentives inside buildings.
In this episode, Blumberg explains why building decarbonization has stalled—not because of smart grid technology, but because of economics. The conversation explores how DaisyChain uses submetering and rate arbitrage to create immediate financial value for building owners, while unlocking the ability to deploy batteries, heat pumps, and other distributed energy resources over time. They also discuss their expansion into hospitals, where power quality issues create major operational risk, and how the same platform can solve both problems. At a system level, Blumberg outlines a future where aggregated building loads become flexible assets that help stabilize the energy grid and reduce peak demand.
We’re proud to have invested in DaisyChain and support their journey towards the modernization of the grid.
In this episode, we cover:
- (0:00) An overview of DaisyChain Energy
- (2:06) Why Alex Blumberg started a climate company after Gimlet
- (6:17) Why buildings are a messy but critical climate problem
- (6:52) How DaisyChain works
- (10:08) The split incentive problem in multifamily buildings
- (13:53) Why decarbonization upgrades don’t pencil financially today
- (15:47) Submetering and turning buildings into mini-utilities
- (19:08) Using financial incentives—not climate—to win customers
- (22:53) Turning buildings into flexible energy grid assets
- (27:15) The power quality problem in hospitals
- (31:00) Increasing net operating income vs protecting revenue
- (34:55) The long-term vision: a flexible, distributed energy grid
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
