Scott Jacobs is the CEO and co-founder of Generate Capital, a leading sustainable infrastructure platform delivering affordable, reliable resource solutions to companies, communities, and cities.
Prior to Generate, in 2007, Scott joined McKinsey & Company and co-founded its global Clean Technologies Practice, advising companies, institutional investors, NGOs, and governments around the world on the economic imperatives of resource productivity and climate solutions. Prior to that, Scott spent over a decade in technology and venture capital, helping start and grow several companies. Scott has dedicated much of his professional life to the “resource revolution” and is a regular writer, keynote speaker, and conference panelist on the topics of thematic investing and risk management, climate- and resource-related innovation, and building values-based and people-centric businesses. Scott earned his MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was named a George F. Baker Scholar, and his BA cum laude from Dartmouth College.
Open Letter to Climate and Energy Transition Leaders
Happy 2025! We’re excited to bring you a special edition of our newsletter this month. In our latest Expert View, Generate CEO and Cofounder Scott Jacobs shares his perspective on the energy transition and the collective action needed from its leaders. This insight comes as he prepares to take part in the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
We hope to see many of you at our AGM this coming week, but in the meantime, here is the latest on what’s happening at the nexus of AI demand and energy. Both Generate and this newsletter have come a long way since our first post in September 2024. Generate is now focused on what our CEO David Crane recently described as “the single defining factor in the future of our industry – AI demand is accelerating faster than the infrastructure needed to support it.”
Read moreAfter four years, PJM opened back up its generation interconnection queue. Gas is now the dominant technology in the queue compared to solar back in 2022.
Read moreJust over four years after the "ChatGPT moment", February 2026 marked a new inflection point for how many of my peers and I use AI. The constraints switched from model limitations (both perceived and real) and perhaps a lack of creativity and prioritization, to token and inference constraints: "Rate Limit Exceeded", "A bit longer, thanks for your patience." Powering a data center now requires simultaneous execution across three domains that each demand deep, specialized expertise: the grid and interconnection, on-site generation, and policy and regulation. And while AI has come in strides, the limits to scaling compute quickly are intransigent. They are physical, geographic, and increasingly personal.
Read more