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Michael Baker Is Teaching Batteries to Wait for the Right Five Minutes
A grid battery can make a fifth of its annual revenue in a single five-minute interval. Michael Baker built Tyba around the quiet, difficult art of being ready when that interval arrives.
Kamal Shah Is Teaching Jobsite Photos to Speak Up Before the Truck Leaves
For three decades, the Oakland engineer has chased a stubborn problem: the gap between work completed in the field and proof that reaches the office. SiteCaptureAI is his latest attempt to close it while crews are still on site.
Cliff Pollard Put the Missing Middle on the Menu
He started with ten cattle, borrowed coolers and a promise to pay. A decade later, the Oakland founder is still betting that the difficult part of better meat is the part worth owning.
Charles Denby Put the Brewery’s Smallest Worker in Charge
A yeast geneticist followed a homebrewing annoyance into a new kind of ingredients company. His real breakthrough was learning that a clever organism still has to answer to the brewer holding the glass.