The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) · Monday, June 29, 2026
Bloom Energy CEO KR Sridhar recounted a pivotal moment where Intel co-founder Andy Grove advised him on overcoming manufacturing challenges. Grove steered Sridhar away from relying on others to solve his product's issues, instead urging him to directly engage with the people building the product to understand and resolve the problems.
“Can everybody else in the room leave, from the executive team other than K? And so I have this group of luminaries sitting on the other side. And me sitting on this side. It almost looks like a firing squad. And then Andy says, What's wrong? So I begin to explain what I think maybe wrong. And I said, Stop. What's wrong? I said, I'm trying to build a great device that's going to be beneficial to people. I don't know what's wrong with me.”
“K, you're such a smart guy. You build this technology that's just absolutely amazing. You walk the floors and talk to the people out there. They're going to tell you why it's not working because they don't understand what they're building. Have you talked to people? And have they told you what they don't know?”
“Don't waste your time listening to everybody else and me. Go figure it out. That was the best piece of advice I ever got.”