Powering the Future Zach Dell - Colossus
Episode 434: Powering the Future Invest Like The Best Episode 434 Hosted by Patrick O'Shaughnessy 07.22.2025 Zach Dell is the co-founder and CEO of Base. We cover how the energy grid is struggling to keep up with the rising demands of AI compute and the electrification of industry, why batteries solve this problem by allowing energy to move through time, and the vertically integrated distribution framework that lets Base deliver batteries at a lower unit cost. 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. Ridgeline. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and
Introduction Patrick My guest today is Zach Dell. Zach is the co-founder and CEO of Base. 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
Explore this link on the map →related reading
- Base Power Company - Not Boring by Packy McCormicknotboring.co
- Report: Base Power Business Breakdown & Founding Story | Contrary Researchresearch.contrary.com
- Roadmap: The AI data center stack - Bessemer Venture Partnersbvp.com
- Decentralizing the Electric Grid | Andreessen Horowitza16z.com
- San Francisco Climate Week 2025: AI x Energy, Gridlocked or Grid Unlocked? - E3ethree.com
- Fast, scalable, clean, and cheap enoughoffgridai.us
- There Is No Power - by Strategist and Architect - TSCStscsw.substack.com
- The Moon Should Be a Computerpalladiummag.com
- Grid Storage: Batteries Will Win – Casey Handmer's blogcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com
- IIIa. Racing to the Trillion-Dollar Cluster - SITUATIONAL AWARENESSsituational-awareness.ai
- The AI Power Crisis — Part 2 - Nuttynuttycld.substack.com
- Danielle Fong 🔆 on X: "i've been going on and on about this, but basically, AI flips electricity on its head. previously, nearly half the cost of electricity to the consumer was allocated towards distributing it where (and when) you want x.com