Lynn Jurich
Lynn Jurich
Lynn Jurich is the co-founder and CEO of Sunrun, a residential solar company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Jurich holds an MBA and BS from Stanford University, with her BS in science, technology, and society. Early in her career she worked at Summit Partners, where she "completed investments with an aggregate market value of over $900 million in the financial services and technology sectors." She co-founded Sunrun in 2007 while attending Stanford Business School. In November 2008, she helped Sunrun...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinesswoman
CountryUnited States of America
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I think, in a lot of places, the solar panels are a badge of honor; they're trendy. If you go to Hawaii or Japan, people even install fake solar panels because it's cool and it's popular. And so I think solar panels have gotten a lot more attractive. They're sleek, black, they look good on a roof.
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With Zipcar, consumers avoid the upfront cost of buying a car, not to mention gas, insurance, and repairs. Plus, they reduce the number of polluting vehicles on the road. Suddenly the planet-smart carless option is also the convenient money-saving option.
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Thanks to the social web, we can share and trade to use a whole universe of things we once had to buy ourselves. From cars to solar panels, people are realizing they can reap the benefits of ownership without the expense and hassle of buying.
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I'm on the board of the Sierra Club Foundation and am myself a big environmentalist. But the way to make the biggest difference is to change mainstream behavior.
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There is a huge market for products and services aimed at what I like to call the Pocketbook Environmentalist: a shopper who's savvy enough to know things don't necessarily have to cost more just because they're good for the environment.
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For a lot of people, one of the reasons they don't like to work for founders of startups is that they can be sensitive and protective around what they've built. You have an emotional attachment to the early marketing and technology materials, and you don't want to hear that anything's wrong with them.
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Consumers used to think they had to compromise with solar. It was, 'Okay, I'm doing the right thing for the environment; it's cool to see the panels. I have to compromise on the cost and convenience side.' And now they no longer have to. On the cost side, it's cheaper, and on the convenience side, we set it all up.
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For me, not owning a car means I may spend a little extra time on public transportation, but I can use that time to read, catch up on work projects, and make the phone calls I couldn't get to earlier. Plus, I never waste time at the mechanics or gas station.
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There is a new wave of environmental consumers I like to call Pocketbook Environmentalists. They're going green primarily because it makes good financial sense, but the fact that it benefits their families' health and the environment also makes them feel good.
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We believe widespread adoption of home solar will significantly improve life in cities by phasing out polluting coal plants, eliminating miles of ugly new transmission lines, and ensuring cleaner, healthier lives.
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Prior to SunRun, I was headed toward a career in venture capital and then realized I wanted to apply my knowledge of finance more directly to helping change the world.
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When wireless cellphones first came out, analysts predicted that at peak, it would only replace 5% of landlines. They said the quality wasn't good enough. Clearly that was improved. I think you'll find a similar thing in solar.
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Homeowners want solar power. It's cost-effective. We invented a business model that makes it really easy for consumers to switch to solar - and that's solar-as-a-service.
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I just am a clean air freak. I grew up in the woods. I worked in China for a bit and was exposed to all the resources being used and the pollution and felt strongly that for our generation, the biggest economic and societal problem is energy.