Malik Ismail (EngSci 1T6 + PEY)

From Earthshots to Moonshots

How do you build companies that can impact 1 billion people? How do you turn a vision into a viable business? How do you scale? My career has focused on these questions - taking breakthrough technologies and building companies that can change humanity.

I started my career at the Boston Consulting Group, where I worked with Fortune 100 CEOs on launching novel climate businesses, from building a new EV company in Asia to helping one of the world’s biggest banks build their climate investing strategy. From there, I went to Google[X], where I led Strategy & BizOps for Tapestry, Google’s AI moonshot for the electric grid. My work ranged from building our product roadmap to figuring out our go-to-market to partnering with countries like Chile and South Africa. Since then, I’ve gone to Stanford for my MBA and MS, was an AI & Robotics Investor for Steve Jobs’ family office, have advised numerous startups, and worked with researchers at the Stanford AI Lab.

In my presentation, I’ll talk about why I focused on the business side of innovation in AI & Climate, and what I’ve learned along the way. I’ll talk about my work at Google[X] using breakthrough AI to tackle climate change, how robotics is part of the solution for climate change, and the areas of opportunity I see for building new companies. I’ll also share very practical tips for your careers that I wish I had known when I was attending ESEC.

Speaker bio:

Malik has spent his entire career building & investing in breakthrough AI applications in climate and robotics. This includes his work at Google[X], Google’s top secret moonshot arm (home of technologies like Waymo, Loon, Brain, among others), as a robotics & AI venture capital investor for Steve Jobs’ family office, at the Boston Consulting Group, and the Stanford AI Lab. He is currently pursuing his MBA & MS at Stanford.