Ramez Naam is a startup investor, author, and expert in clean energy and artificial intelligence. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of PlanetaryVC, a venture capital firm investing in startups addressing global challenges. Previously, he was a Partner and Chief Futurist at Prime Movers Lab, a billion-dollar deep-tech venture fund. Over the past decade, Naam has focused on investing in disruptive technologies and is also a Limited Partner in several venture funds spanning AI, biotechnology, deep tech, and clean energy.

Naam was among the first to forecast the rapid decline in the cost of clean energy technologies. His 2011 Scientific American article, “Smaller, Cheaper, Faster,” highlighted the exponential drop in solar power prices and predicted that solar would become cheaper than other energy sources. He has since written extensively about exponential trends in wind power, energy storage, and electric vehicles and their impact on the global economy. For the past decade, he has served as co-Chair for Energy and Environment at Singularity University, advising policymakers, investors, and executives on the global energy transition.

He is the author of five books, including the award-winning science fiction Nexus trilogy and the nonfiction book The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. Earlier in his career, Naam spent 13 years at Microsoft working on email, cloud computing, web search, and machine learning technologies, and he holds more than 20 patents, several co-invented with Bill Gates.