Rob Hanson, CEO of Monolith, describes the proprietary methane pyrolysis technology developed to produce clean hydrogen and carbon black.
Insight
Hanson: Climate tech moats require fundamental science, not just rapid capital
“Like if you can build a company just by pouring, you know, capital on it in one or two years, I mean, you don't have a real moat. Maybe there's, you know, network effects and different things in software, but in climate tech, I mean, your moat comes from funda…”
Assertion Supported
Hanson: Monolith has scaled methane pyrolysis to commercial operations
“And we started in 2012 have raised a lot of equity over the years and have taken technology that was almost there and got it to full commercial scale.”
Opinion
Hanson: Hydrogen industry must replace color labels with lifecycle carbon metrics
“I mean, this stuff is sufficiently complex that we should be able to do good life cycle analyses, include all the upstream portions of it, and come up with You know, kilograms of CO₂ equivalent per kilogram of hydrogen or whatever the end product is. Like, we …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hanson: 100% of Sand Hill Road VCs rejected Monolith in 2012
“We started in twenty-twelve where, and we were in Silicon Valley, and we went to everyone on Sandhill Road, and precisely 100% of them said no.”
Opinion
Hanson: Clean tech multi-plant rollouts cannot realistically be funded on equity alone
“I don't think the idea that you're going to Build, you know, multiple plants every year, repeatably all on equity is, is very real in the longterm.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hanson: Black mulch at Home Depot likely contains Monolith's carbon black
“So if you go to Home Depot and you buy mulch that happens to be colored black, it's likely got monoliths carbon black in it that's making it black.”