October 20, 2026

Energy CEO, Goldman Sachs, Chicken Poop

This week I spoke with Miles Braxton, 2018 UVA grad who’s now the CEO & Co-Founder at Okovate Sustainable Energy.

The Rundown:

  • Chevy Volts, chicken poop, Goldman Sachs, and starting a business

  • Renewable energy might be the only shot you got

  • Just because the first two weeks weren't successful, doesn't mean the next 100 won’t be

  • What mental state were you in when making a significant decision?

  • My risk strategy as an entrepreneur

Below are Miles’s words, edited for clarity:

COLD OPEN

How I Got My Start

My high school calculus teacher had a Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid car which was revolutionary at the time. For every day he went without using gas, he’d make a mark on the board. He went so many days that he ran out of space on the chalkboard to keep track.

I’d play out different scenarios with a friend of mine: If there were 50,000 Mr. Stevens who all adopted EV's in the next 3 years, what would the climate look like? It was always an interest.

At UVA, I started as an electrical engineering major, and worked in Dr. Mool Gupta’s lab building photovoltaic cells, a device that converts sunlight directly into electricity. That opportunity allowed me to get my foot in the door with an unpaid internship at the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection in Maryland and later at the U.S. Department of Energy. Additionally, I switched my major to environmental science.

Those jobs made me absolutely zero dollars and zero cents, but I was exposed to the industry. One thing I took away was that I never wanted to work in local or federal government – it was just too slow for me.

After I graduated, I took a job with ITility, a defense contracting company that was doing renewable energy. They won a contract from the Maryland Energy Administration to convert 220 tons of chicken manure into electricity. I had to literally figure out how many grams of poop were needed to net a certain amount of methane that would then burn and create energy.

I was there around 6 to 8 months, and wanted to do more in solar. It seemed more interesting than dealing with chicken poop all day.

I applied to a firm in D.C. called Sol Systems. Within the first couple of weeks I remember falling in love with the work. I was doing financial modeling, running test cases, and bringing in leads. The CEO and Co-Founder of Sol Systems, Yuri Horowitz, actually went to UVA Law and now sits on the board of my company.

I felt solid on my job there, but wanted more high level business strategy under my belt. I thought about applying to business school. I took the GMAT, and as I was sending out applications, I get a DM from Goldman Sachs. They were starting a renewable power group in their asset management division in Florida. I thought working at Goldman would be just as good as an MBA, so I took the job, and was there for 2 years as a rotational analyst.

While I was at Goldman, I met my co-founder of Okovate. We noticed that projects related to preserving farmland were getting higher rates of funding approval. At the same time, we had seen in Europe and parts of Asia, the success of the intersection of agriculture and solar. So we thought, how could we bring that same model to the U.S.

In December 2024, we were able to raise some capital from the The Schmidt Family Foundation, founded by Eric (executive chairman of Google) & Wendy Schmidt, to start our company.

INDUSTRY INSIDER

What People Misunderstand About The Energy Industry

Energy is very divisive. There’s a sentiment of “We’ve always done it one way, so why not keep with it?”

There's a lot of miseducation around the business of oil, how subsidized it is, and that it’s not actually the cheapest way to procure energy anymore.

From a demand perspective, there’s a ton of need for energy now with AI, data centers, and manufacturing plants. You might look down on an offshore wind farm or solar farm, but in the future, it might be the only way your town keeps manageable energy prices and predictable energy access over time.

I generally think we need to be asking more questions about energy, and making less statements. Educating our students on issues with the grid system, how energy is produced, and its impacts is vital.

Land is the new energy battleground. Solar, data centers, housing, and farming are all competing for the same acres. Models like agrivoltaics, which produce food and power on the same land, show that the best answers come from refusing to treat it as either/or, and striving to be efficient with a finite resource.

TURNING POINT

A Challenge I Faced Early On

It’s easy to let an entrepreneurial mindset take over from a social life in your twenties. It has ebbs and flows. Some months I’m here, others I’m less available – it's been a balancing act throughout my career.

I’m also someone who’s very ambitious and wants to know all the proper steps to take – from a legal perspective, a financial standpoint, everything having the right structure for things to be consistent. I’d get impatient, and had to realize that just because the first two weeks weren't successful, doesn't mean the next 100 won’t be.

STEAL THIS

Questions I Love

I typically over-research people, especially if I'm going into an interview or a one-on-one sit down lunch with somebody.

I like to see where people were in their mental state when they made brass decisions, or what I would consider significant decisions.

If someone makes a big decision after a really hard month, that gives some insight into how they might handle other situations.

IF I WERE YOU

My Advice For Students

A good risk strategy as an entrepreneur is to get as much experience as you can in the industry you want to be in. Learn all the ins and outs, all the gaps, how certain players make money, all while building connections in that industry.

I worked in solar, specifically, solar development and asset management for 8 years before I went full-time with my own company, and part of the success has come from connections I built during that time.

When an investor asks “Why are you the right person to solve this problem?”, you want to be able to say “I’ve seen this problem first hand for the last X years.”

Even in the software industry, I’ve seen ex-Meta and ex-Google employees be more fruitful in raising funds compared to the new grad who doesn't have experience.

LIGHTNING ROUND

My Favorite…

Curated and edited by Founder & Editor in Chief Ryan Levy.

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