Clara Zou

Energy Nerd | Former Founder

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

“I’m far more inclined to take risks when I’m essentially betting on myself, but I can do that only because I’ve surrounded myself with highly talented people of solid integrity.”- Setting the Table, Danny Meyer

A tale as old as time ✨hospitality and tech startups alike

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

Restaurant Red Flag 🚩

I asked for a cup of hot water at a ramen restaurant

The waiter picked up a plastic cup of ice water and took it in the open concept kitchen to microwave it

$18 Ramen at a Japanese restaurant and microwaved water…?

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

When I was in college, I worked 35 hour weeks in finance as a intern and learned how to apply and learn new skills in a work environment

Nobody told me to work at a hedge fund or financial services company and it required a lot of discipline to balance my dual degree courseload for 2 years

Bonus: Intentionally allocating my time taught me how to invest in skills instead of striving for concrete milestones like titles, compensation, etc.

[Adam Grant @AdamMGrant]

One more time: Women aren't too emotional to lead.

Data: When men are anxious and stressed, they're more likely to be rude, hostile, and abusive. Women show respect regardless of their feelings.

The test of emotional intelligence is not how you feel. It's how you respond.

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

@partiful *Out: texting your ex for closure

Why would they become accountable or emotionally supportive after breaking up when they weren’t doing it before???

It’s 2025. Drop it when an ex shows you who they are and stop depending on them to be different

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

Woke up in 2025 and learned a fun fact 🎊

Pyrite has cubic symmetry due to its atomic structure as a lattice arrangement!

Bananas when nature usually makes organic shapes and this crystal comes out of the ground in CUBES

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

Watching the climate tech market as firms make corrections for appropriate exit valuations 👀

2025 set to have an “exciting” start

https://t.co/WxNOkwx82y

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

@nateobrienn It’s a great product built by people who actually understand the risk and compliance required to build for financial institutions.

Barrier for entry and education to get a new company up to speed limits any market incumbents from just showing up. For good reason imo

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

It’s so wild how many people don’t do this

Over and over, people ask for a warm intro and their forwardable blurb only mentions them and has zero mention about why that person or firm is relevant to having a conversation

Time is not unlimited and a stranger’s attention is earned…

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

Brainstormed on Christmas Day for board game alternatives and my suggestions included building a website and choosing best fit business models for a recipe/grocery shopping application because what is out there is so disappointing!

Best one that we could find was @samsungfoodapp and their print feature has some weird reformatting bugs

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

@NicoleBehnam Yes 🙌 And Rainforest cafe

Fine dining coupled with an immersive dining experience lol

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

✨ Wrap of 2024 ✨

• Shut down my startup and handed off clients to another energy data company
• Took a writing workshop and shared my writing for the first time (thanks Sackett Street!)
• Landed my dream job and joined a new team of fellow energy data enthusiasts (yay Grid Status!)
• Said goodbye to NYC after 7 years and hello to Boston 🏡 (more family hangs!)
• Started going to seminars after work and felt joy
• Celebrated Christmas with my first stocking ever (special thanks to friends that are now neighbors)
• Started a new journal and picked red

Celebrating the big and small changes with hugs and a lot of overdue conversations with friends ♥️

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

@andruyeung I took a in-person course at Sackett Street that was incredible. They also do online classes!

One of my favorite prompts for discussion was “what in this story is most alive?”

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

Winter wonderland dreams do come true! Making a list for Boston spots ❄️

[Grid Status @grid_status]

Nationally, winter grid operations vary from summer

While summer risk tends to be concentrated in the evening hours, winter risk is bimodal, split between evening and morning across a wider range of hours.

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

@eriktorenberg I had a founder coach recommended to me by 2 exited founders and chose him partially for this reason!

He was on call and we texted between sessions or had ad hoc phone calls. Really useful for during a week of rapid fire meetings when I was in San Francisco for meetings

[EMILY SUNDBERG @Emily_Sundberg]

I feel really bad for young people who will never work in an office

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

I love reading research papers and publications outside of my normal work

It’s a foreign concept. It means looking up new terms, phrases, establishing a baseline for what is convention and why the research matters. The real fun begins when you formulate your own ideas! Read more

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

@tunguz Is it? Saying a statement in a cultural vacuum on @X is not opening the floor to other perspectives

[Clara Zou @claraspoke]

In the winter time, I alternate between coffee and sunshine ✨

It’s like an espresso shot when the sun comes out after 2 gloomy days and 4:30pm sunsets