The Argument Index
Debate potential by speaker, the highest-scored statement each year, and the companies with the most bearish calls on record. All of it clickable, all of it playable.
People
Average debate potential by speaker
All 198 guests with 5 or more scored statements, ranked. 22 more have fewer than 5, too few for a fair average, and the host is scored on his own page. Sort or filter below.
| # | Person | Avg debate potential | Statements scored |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brett Kugelmass Founder & CEO, Last Energy | 3.14 | 14 |
| 2 | Tom Tillis U.S. Senator, United States Senate | 3 | 18 |
| 3 | Alistair Frew (Alistair Fury) | 3 | 8 |
| 4 | Ryan Orbuch Partner, Lowercarbon Capital | 2.8 | 25 |
| 5 | Yanai Yedvab Co-founder & CEO, Stardust Solutions | 2.75 | 12 |
| 6 | David Roberts Host and Creator, Volts | 2.75 | 16 |
| 7 | Freya Chay (Freya Che) Program Lead, CarbonPlan | 2.73 | 11 |
| 8 | K.R. Sridhar Founder & CEO, Bloom Energy | 2.67 | 15 |
| 9 | Mike Schroepfer Founding Partner, Gigascale Capital | 2.67 | 12 |
| 10 | Hans Smit President & CEO, Ocean Minerals LLC | 2.64 | 11 |
| 11 | Zach Stein Co-founder & CEO, Carbon Collective | 2.64 | 11 |
| 12 | Dr. Emily Grubert | 2.62 | 8 |
| 13 | Dr. Bodhi Cabiyo Director of Interdisciplinary Science, Carbon Direct | 2.61 | 18 |
| 14 | John Koomey Founder and President, Koomey Analytics | 2.58 | 12 |
| 15 | Scott Jacobs Co-Founder & Former CEO, Generate Capital | 2.56 | 9 |
| 16 | Dr. Chris Bataille Global Fellow, Columbia University SIPA | 2.53 | 17 |
| 17 | Dana Guernsey CEO and Co-founder, Voltus | 2.5 | 6 |
| 18 | Michael Stadler Co-founder & CTO, Xendee | 2.5 | 6 |
| 19 | Ben Hertz-Shargel President, New Jersey Board of Public Utilities | 2.5 | 16 |
| 20 | Eric Slesserev Assistant Professor, Yale University | 2.5 | 10 |
| 21 | Mark Cupta | 2.5 | 8 |
| 22 | Ari Lipman | 2.46 | 13 |
| 23 | Bob Sorenson Chief Analyst, Hyperion Research | 2.44 | 16 |
| 24 | Rafi Garabedian Co-Founder and CEO, Electric Hydrogen | 2.43 | 14 |
| 25 | Brian Janous Co-Founder and CCO, Cloverleaf Infrastructure | 2.42 | 48 |
| 26 | Jeremy Eliahu-Ontiveros Managing Director, SemiAnalysis | 2.41 | 22 |
| 27 | Jamie Beard Founder & Executive Director, Project InnerSpace | 2.41 | 17 |
| 28 | Alex Modon Co-Founder and CEO, Unlimited Industries | 2.36 | 11 |
| 29 | Jigar Shah Co-Managing Partner, Multiplier LLC | 2.34 | 41 |
| 30 | Josh Wong Founder & CEO, ThinkLabs AI | 2.33 | 15 |
| 31 | Carrie Von Munch Co-Founder and COO, Pacific Fusion | 2.33 | 12 |
| 32 | Nick Chaset CEO, Octopus Energy US | 2.33 | 9 |
| 33 | Sheldon Kimber Founder and CEO, Intersect Power | 2.33 | 12 |
| 34 | Jenny Chase Solar Specialist, BloombergNEF | 2.33 | 18 |
| 35 | Mike Grunwald Contributing Opinions Writer, The New York Times | 2.32 | 19 |
| 36 | Zach Dell Co-Founder and CEO, Base Power | 2.31 | 13 |
| 37 | Dan Steingart Chair & Professor, Columbia University | 2.31 | 16 |
| 38 | Jake Elder | 2.29 | 7 |
| 39 | Ian Rountree | 2.29 | 14 |
| 40 | Gene Berdichevsky Co-Founder and CEO, Sila Nanotechnologies | 2.29 | 17 |
| 41 | Renee Grogan Co-Founder and Board Director, Impossible Metals | 2.29 | 7 |
| 42 | Ahmad Faruqi Independent Energy Economist | 2.27 | 11 |
| 43 | Julian Dumoulin-Smith Managing Director, Jefferies | 2.25 | 12 |
| 44 | Tony Brough President, Dora Partners | 2.25 | 8 |
| 45 | Jeff Waters CEO, Powin | 2.25 | 16 |
| 46 | Gnevamir Fleece | 2.25 | 12 |
| 47 | Chris Sharp Chief Technology Officer, Digital Realty | 2.24 | 17 |
| 48 | Isha Datar Executive Director, New Harvest | 2.24 | 17 |
| 49 | Doge Chubuk | 2.23 | 13 |
| 50 | James Frith | 2.23 | 13 |
| 51 | Drew Baglino Founder & CEO, Heron Power | 2.2 | 40 |
| 52 | Andy Lubershane Partner & Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners | 2.15 | 169 |
| 53 | Katie Huff | 2.15 | 13 |
| 54 | Akshat Rathi Senior Climate Reporter, Bloomberg News | 2.15 | 13 |
| 55 | Chris Colbert Chairman and CEO, Elementl Power | 2.15 | 20 |
| 56 | Stacey Kauk Chief Science Officer, Isometric | 2.14 | 14 |
| 57 | Dan Visioni Assistant Professor, Cornell University | 2.14 | 22 |
| 58 | Kurt House Co-Founder and CEO, KoBold Metals | 2.14 | 21 |
| 59 | Michael Dunne CEO and Founder, Dunne Insights | 2.12 | 17 |
| 60 | Kate Steele SVP, NRECA International | 2.12 | 17 |
| 61 | Dave Schroeder Managing Partner, Volta Energy Technologies | 2.12 | 26 |
| 62 | Mateo Jaramillo Co-founder and CEO, Form Energy | 2.11 | 18 |
| 63 | Jessica Lovering Postdoctoral Researcher, Uppsala University | 2.11 | 19 |
| 64 | Ramez Naam Founder & Managing Partner, Planetary VC | 2.11 | 9 |
| 65 | Tim Hade Senior Vice President, Voltus | 2.1 | 30 |
| 66 | Doğuş Çubuk | 2.1 | 10 |
| 67 | Thomas Koch-Blank Managing Director, RMI | 2.1 | 10 |
| 68 | Jesse Jenkins Associate Professor, Princeton University | 2.1 | 30 |
| 69 | Eyal Cohen Founder and CEO, Humble Robotics | 2.09 | 11 |
| 70 | Tom Burton Chair, Sustainable Energy Practice, Mintz | 2.09 | 11 |
| 71 | Sam Jaffe VP of Business Development, Mana Battery | 2.09 | 70 |
| 72 | Dr. Ben Lee | 2.08 | 13 |
| 73 | Kurt Kelty | 2.08 | 13 |
| 74 | Matthew Sachs | 2.08 | 13 |
| 75 | Amin Vahdat Chief Technologist for AI & Infrastructure, Google | 2.07 | 15 |
| 76 | Carlos Araque Co-Founder and CEO, Quaise Energy | 2.07 | 14 |
| 77 | Mario Fernandez Former Head, Breakthrough Energy Catalyst | 2.07 | 15 |
| 78 | Garth Sheldon-Coulson Co-Founder & CEO, Panthalassa | 2.06 | 18 |
| 79 | Landon Mossberg Co-Founder and CEO, Peak Energy | 2.06 | 18 |
| 80 | Julio Friedmann | 2.06 | 63 |
| 81 | Colin Grabow Associate Director, Cato Institute | 2.06 | 16 |
| 82 | Dan Rutherford Senior Director of Research, ICCT | 2.06 | 18 |
| 83 | Jayant Mukhopadhyay Senior Aviation Researcher, ICCT | 2.05 | 20 |
| 84 | Seth Frader-Thompson | 2 | 14 |
| 85 | James McGinnis CEO & Co-Founder, David Energy | 2 | 12 |
| 86 | Allison Clements Principal, 804 Advisory | 2 | 7 |
| 87 | Heather O'Neill President & CEO, Advanced Energy United | 2 | 9 |
| 88 | Ben Brown | 2 | 13 |
| 89 | Pierre Lafarge Co-founder & CEO, Sparkfund | 2 | 15 |
| 90 | Charlotte Johnson GM of Generation Flex, Kraken | 2 | 9 |
| 91 | Billy Briscoe CEO, Clean Energy Fund of Texas | 2 | 5 |
| 92 | Amelia DeLuca | 2 | 14 |
| 93 | Ty Yeagerson | 2 | 13 |
| 94 | Seyed Madaeni CEO & Co-Founder, Verse | 2 | 10 |
| 95 | John Larson Partner, Rhodium Group | 2 | 18 |
| 96 | Nick Fulgham Senior Energy and Climate Data Analyst, Ember | 1.94 | 18 |
| 97 | Cassie Bowe Partner, Energy Impact Partners | 1.94 | 17 |
| 98 | TP Huang (TP Wang) Independent Analyst, TP's Substack | 1.93 | 15 |
| 99 | Dr. Daniel Yergin Vice Chairman, S&P Global | 1.93 | 30 |
| 100 | Varun Sivaram Founder & CEO, Emerald AI | 1.92 | 37 |
| 101 | Alyssa Peterson Founder & CEO, SeaAhead | 1.92 | 12 |
| 102 | Peter Reinhardt Co-founder and CEO, Charm Industrial | 1.9 | 10 |
| 103 | Josh Linville VP of Fertilizer, StoneX | 1.89 | 19 |
| 104 | George Hershman CEO, SOLV Energy | 1.89 | 9 |
| 105 | Tyler Norris Head of Market Innovation, Google | 1.89 | 27 |
| 106 | Adam Klauber Chief Sustainability Officer, World Energy | 1.89 | 9 |
| 107 | John Baumgartner Managing Director, Mizuho Securities | 1.89 | 19 |
| 108 | Sanjay Vijendran Co-founder & CTO, TerraSpark | 1.89 | 19 |
| 109 | Rayford Smith Global Head, Power and Energy, Google Cloud | 1.89 | 9 |
| 110 | Anne-Sophie Corbeau Global Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy | 1.89 | 28 |
| 111 | Duncan Campbell VP of Project Development, Scale Microgrids | 1.89 | 9 |
| 112 | Sean McAvoy President & Chief Product Officer, GridBeyond | 1.88 | 16 |
| 113 | Sam Smith-Eppsteiner | 1.88 | 8 |
| 114 | Mary Powell CEO, Sunrun | 1.87 | 15 |
| 115 | Dr. Jen Shafer (Jen Schaefer) | 1.86 | 14 |
| 116 | Pete Johnson CEO and Co-Founder, Koloma | 1.86 | 21 |
| 117 | Astrid Atkinson CEO & Co-Founder, Camus Energy | 1.86 | 14 |
| 118 | Colin Campbell | 1.85 | 13 |
| 119 | Adrian Yao | 1.85 | 13 |
| 120 | Andreas Apley CFO, Reverion | 1.84 | 19 |
| 121 | John O'Donnell Founder & Chief Innovation Officer, Rondo Energy | 1.84 | 19 |
| 122 | Steve Piper Director of Energy Research, S&P Global | 1.83 | 6 |
| 123 | Paul Lambert Co-founder and CEO, Quilt | 1.83 | 12 |
| 124 | Jason Bordoff Founding Director, Center on Global Energy Policy | 1.83 | 6 |
| 125 | Corey Cantor Research Director, ZETA | 1.82 | 22 |
| 126 | Rob Black Cabinet Secretary, New Mexico Economic Development Department | 1.8 | 15 |
| 127 | Laurent Bueneau Power & Utilities Industry Leader, Microsoft | 1.8 | 10 |
| 128 | David Yeh Founder & Partner, Precursor | 1.8 | 15 |
| 129 | Brandon Moffat | 1.8 | 15 |
| 130 | Britta von Ossen Managing Director, CRC-IB | 1.8 | 5 |
| 131 | Kiran Bhatraju | 1.8 | 15 |
| 132 | Richard Wang Co-founder & CEO, Voya Energy | 1.79 | 19 |
| 133 | Stephen Lacey Co-Founder and Executive Editor, Latitude Media | 1.79 | 24 |
| 134 | Tristan Doherty VP of Manufacturing, Commonwealth Fusion Systems | 1.79 | 14 |
| 135 | Dr. Judson Boomhauer Associate Professor of Economics, UC San Diego | 1.79 | 14 |
| 136 | Trevor Houser Partner, Rhodium Group | 1.79 | 14 |
| 137 | Katie MacDonald | 1.78 | 9 |
| 138 | Paul Siegel | 1.77 | 13 |
| 139 | Ernest Scheyder | 1.77 | 13 |
| 140 | Jake DeWitt Co-founder & CEO, Oklo Inc. | 1.77 | 13 |
| 141 | Christian Belady Former VP, Datacenter Advanced Development, Microsoft Mathur, Microsoft | 1.76 | 17 |
| 142 | Scott Moskowitz VP Market Strategy & Public Affairs, Qcells | 1.75 | 12 |
| 143 | Rob Gramlich Founder & President, Grid Strategies | 1.75 | 24 |
| 144 | Ethan Zindler Head of Country and Policy Research, BloombergNEF | 1.75 | 16 |
| 145 | Liza Reed Director for Climate and Energy, Niskanen Center | 1.75 | 16 |
| 146 | Jeff McCauley | 1.75 | 12 |
| 147 | Nan Ransohoff | 1.75 | 16 |
| 148 | Erica Reinhart Executive Director & Co-Founder, Spark Climate Solutions | 1.74 | 19 |
| 149 | Tim Mills President & CEO, ERMCO | 1.73 | 15 |
| 150 | Nick Woolley Co-founder and CEO, ev.energy | 1.73 | 15 |
| 151 | Dr. Melissa Ball Director of Technology, Energy Impact Partners | 1.71 | 14 |
| 152 | Carl Popham Founder, Mobility+Energy Consulting LLC | 1.71 | 7 |
| 153 | Rob Hanson Co-founder & Senior Advisor, Monolith | 1.71 | 7 |
| 154 | Shanu Matthew SVP & Portfolio Manager, Lazard Asset Management | 1.68 | 22 |
| 155 | Rebecca Dell Adjunct Research Scholar, Columbia Business School | 1.68 | 40 |
| 156 | Katie Bayes Director of Research, Crux | 1.67 | 6 |
| 157 | Jamie Daggett | 1.67 | 21 |
| 158 | Lara Pierpoint Managing Director, Trellis Climate | 1.67 | 24 |
| 159 | Dr. Scott Hsu Fusion Partner, Lowercarbon Capital | 1.67 | 15 |
| 160 | Carl Hoyland Co-Founder & CEO, Zanskar | 1.64 | 11 |
| 161 | Yet-Ming Chiang Professor of Materials Science, MIT | 1.64 | 11 |
| 162 | Mallory Thomas Partner, Risk Advisory, Baker Tilly US | 1.64 | 11 |
| 163 | David Groarke Managing Director, Indigo Advisory Group | 1.64 | 14 |
| 164 | Kim Zou Co-founder & CEO, Sightline Climate | 1.64 | 11 |
| 165 | Gia Schneider Co-founder & CCO, Natel Energy | 1.63 | 19 |
| 166 | Nat Bullard Co-founder & CSO, Halcyon | 1.62 | 128 |
| 167 | Bilal Khashid | 1.62 | 8 |
| 168 | Dr. Greg Thiel Managing Director of Technology, Energy Impact Partners | 1.62 | 21 |
| 169 | Ian McGavis | 1.62 | 13 |
| 170 | Dr. Lynn Loo CEO, Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation | 1.62 | 24 |
| 171 | Dr. Heidi Jane Hawkins | 1.62 | 8 |
| 172 | Jesse Rivest Partner, Khosla Ventures | 1.62 | 16 |
| 173 | Leah Ellis | 1.61 | 33 |
| 174 | Scott Nolan Founder & CEO, General Matter | 1.6 | 10 |
| 175 | Saloni Multani Partner, Galvanize Climate Solutions | 1.6 | 15 |
| 176 | Raymond Hawkins Chief Customer Officer, Compass Datacenters | 1.58 | 12 |
| 177 | Neha Palmer CEO and Co-Founder, TeraWatt Infrastructure | 1.57 | 21 |
| 178 | Amanda Lee Co-Founder & COO, Banyan Infrastructure | 1.57 | 7 |
| 179 | Dr. Michael Webber Professor, The University of Texas at Austin | 1.56 | 39 |
| 180 | Liz Specht VP of Science & Strategic Initiatives, FSI | 1.56 | 16 |
| 181 | Tomas de Oliveira Bredariol | 1.54 | 13 |
| 182 | Charles Brooke Program Director, Spark Climate Solutions | 1.54 | 24 |
| 183 | Matt Rogers Co-Founder and CEO, Mill | 1.53 | 17 |
| 184 | Peter Battaglia Senior Director of Research, Google DeepMind | 1.5 | 10 |
| 185 | Scott Engstrom Co-founder & Chief Customer Officer, GridX | 1.5 | 10 |
| 186 | Ahmad Ghahreman Co-Founder and CEO, Cyclic Materials | 1.48 | 27 |
| 187 | Steve Letendre Senior Advisor, Vehicle-Grid Integration Council | 1.45 | 11 |
| 188 | Dr. Roland Horne Professor of Earth Sciences, Stanford University | 1.43 | 14 |
| 189 | Chase Lochmiller Co-Founder & CEO, Crusoe | 1.42 | 12 |
| 190 | Dr. Gabrielle Dreyfus Chief Scientist, IGSD | 1.4 | 10 |
| 191 | Steve Pantano | 1.4 | 10 |
| 192 | Daniel Ackerman Audio Journalist, Marketplace | 1.4 | 5 |
| 193 | Alfred Johnson Co-Founder and CEO, Crux | 1.38 | 32 |
| 194 | Addison Stark | 1.38 | 8 |
| 195 | Stacey Phillips | 1.25 | 8 |
| 196 | Cristobal Undurraga Co-Founder and CEO, Ceibo | 1.2 | 15 |
| 197 | Emily Pontecorvo Founding Staff Writer, Heatmap News | 1.2 | 5 |
| 198 | Eric Davidson Professor Emeritus, UMCES | 1.11 | 9 |
Companies
The most bearish calls
Debate potential is an AI score of how much a statement invites disagreement. Bearish counts tally what was said about a company on the show; they describe the conversation, not the company. Every count opens to the exact tape. full disclaimer →
All 145 companies, funds and products with at least one bearish claim on the record.
Highest debate potential, by year
2026
Rountree: Chaos Industries Has Worse Technology but Superior Commercial Execution
“There's, you know, a much better funded company incubated by ABC called Chaos Industries, which I personally think has worse technology, but they're doing a lot better because they've productized this, they're very good at selling it, they're very good at mark…”
Chinese automakers will likely acquire vulnerable legacy brands like Nissan and Stellantis
“One is Nissan, and the other is Stellantis, the group that owns, you know, Fiat, and Maserati, and Jeep, and Chrysler brands. Those two are the most vulnerable, so what will happen is either they'll joint venture with the Chinese And eventually be taken over b…”
2025
2024
Orbuch: Legacy carbon registries protected brokers by pretending cheap offsets were real
“The original sin with carbon markets was this bad incentive structure encouraged by registries that weren't aligned around the problem to protect the interests of the sellers and brokers of the credits, to make them look like there are enough credits at low en…”
Orbuch: Legacy carbon offset market operated as an aligned house of cards
“Because the registries and the feedback loop with the registries is to just keep issuing credits and make each credit look the same as every other credit, everyone's incentivized the other way because the buyers don't want to go back and say, Wow, all this mon…”
2023
Roberts: The commercial nuclear industry is historically corrupt and incompetent
“What I don't want is the sort of generalized hype around SMRs to translate into just yet another round of a large and historically Corrupt and incompetent industry getting another giant round of subsidies dumped on its head for ultimately nothing, which is wha…”
Hertz-Shargel: Bitcoin mining raises Texas power bills by $1.8B annually
“So collectively, it's 1.8 billion conservatively per year. And that's sort of a run rate, I would say. And that represents around a five percent increase in costs of Texans, of, you know non-Bitcoin mining consumers. And that, that's across all the different s…”
2022
House: Direct air capture to synthetic fuel is a staggering waste of capital
“Absurd, absurd, totally absurd technology that will cost, that is the, that is a staggering waste of human brain cells and capital and resources. And it's, and we should be spending at, we should always be working on the most effective, the best marginal use o…”
Jenkins: Europe can viably eliminate 100% of Russian gas by winter 2022
“Europe's current plan is to cut natural gas use by about two thirds before this winter.
Can they actually go a hundred percent?
Can they cut if they needed to, or if they needed to make a credible threat on the global stage to Putin that we will cut our gas us…”
2021
Rutherford: Boeing passes the buck on aircraft decarbonization compared to Airbus
“There are real merits to those fuels, but if you're a manufacturer to say, you know, we're going to build, we're going to continue to build our planes as they are today, and someone else is going to produce the fuel to make them zero carbon, it's a little bit …”