Dan Yates
Co-founder, Opower
Thursday, June 30th, 2016
Opower is a software company focused on energy efficiency. Opower works with utilities to monitor how much energy a consumer uses and gives households and businesses incentives to lower their consumption. The idea is that through the use of behavioral science techniques such as peer proof, people will feel compelled to consume energy more responsibly. Dan started Opower in 2007 with his Harvard classmate Alex Laskey. Opower went public in April, 2014. Prior, Dan launched Edusoft, a software company focused on public school assessments, which was sold to Houghton Mifflin in 2004.
Dan speaks with Jessica Harris about how he launched Opower, from scratch.
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