Paul Gross
Paul Gross appears in Founder Mode: Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator as a young Y Combinator founder at the Founder Mode Retreat whose company works on carbon capture from locomotives. Jessica Livingston tells a story about security mistaking him for her and Paul Graham’s teenage son because he looked so young.
The episode uses Gross as a credibility case. Graham says young founders in serious industries can trigger skepticism from older investors or industry people, but Gross’s tactic was to know the subject deeply enough that conversations quickly made his expertise visible.
Founder Mode: Paul Gross, Founder & CEO of Remora Carbon makes Gross the central interview subject and identifies his company as Remora Carbon. Gross says Remora builds retrofit systems for semi trucks and locomotives that capture CO2 from exhaust and purify it into beverage-grade CO2. The episode traces his path from software engineering and data science into Mobile Carbon Capture, co-founder recruiting, the virtual Y Combinator Winter 2021 batch, and hardware prototyping in Detroit.
The same source adds Gross’s concrete Founder Mode method: choose the company’s top three risks each quarter, delegate everything else, and go deep on the few areas where founder learning and authority can unblock the company. His examples include soot and ash filtration in locomotive exhaust, CO2 liquefaction, selling CO2, government affairs, and the next manufacturing challenge.
Connections
- Remora Carbon and Mobile Carbon Capture - company and climate hardware category.
- Y Combinator, Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Carolyn Levy, and The Social Radars - retreat and source context.
- Founder Mode, Founder Risk Deep Dive, Startup Legitimacy Transfer, and Founder-Led Sales - credibility, expertise, and operating themes.