Boston Employer Spotlight Series

Dawn: What does Form Energy do?

Maggie: We build big batteries to combat climate change.

Brian: Yep, the mission of the company is to make the world a better place by doing our part to fight climate change. And one of the cool things about our story is how Form was founded. Form is the product of two startups, both with the same vision, with aligned missions. Rather than competing, the five founders ... decided to set their egos aside and collaborate on this really hard and important challenge. And five founders is a ton of founders to start a company. But they really value humility and collaboration. And the company is basically built on that spirit. So that's us in a nutshell.

Dawn: When we started working together, you had about 150 employees, and now you have 259, so it's been a period of rapid growth. Can you give us a sense of the company's growth history and trajectory?

Brian: The company has roughly doubled since I joined, which was about nine months ago, and we're looking to double by the end of 2022. So it feels like hyper growth.

Maggie: Yes, it has definitely been an evolution, I think we were about 60 people when I joined and we tripled in 2021. As Brian said, multiple phases of hyper growth. We not so jokingly say that we feel like a different company every few months. That's a journey that we need to bring everyone along on and expecting people to grow and change at exactly the same pace is impossible. And so there's a lot of support to make sure that we're creating systems, empowering managers, and training our leaders to support people through those phases of rapid growth.

Brian: Like Maggie said we're literally a new company every few months, because the constituent parts of us are remarkably different.

Dawn: Form energy has fairly unique values as a company. How do you maintain those when the company is a different company every few months?

Maggie: Our core values are humanity, excellence and creativity. We really use them as our North star. They're not just something that sits on our website, but truly, every single day, I hear somebody reference at least one, if not all three, when we're making decisions, or when we're setting up processes or policies. We are always kind of gut checking, how does that align with our core values? And I think that's really important because it informs our culture, but our culture needs to change as well. Our culture needs to evolve as we grow. As long as we are grounded in our values, then the rest all kind of comes together.

Dawn: Maggie, I know you've said before that the culture changes, but the values don't, which I thought was a really interesting way of framing it. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Maggie: Humans are individuals. And we have a lot of different types of people in different groups of employees, whether it's exempt and nonexempt, or East Coast or West Coast or joined pre pandemic, post pandemic, all these different things, as long as they don't become divisions, those differences can be great. And so it's fine to have a slightly different culture in one office as compared to another.  We say: we're not expecting offices to be twins, but more like cousins or ... siblings. As long as we’re rooted in that same set of values, that is what keeps a cohesive if changing culture.

Brian: I want to “plus one” what Maggie said. At a macro level, that's how we approach culture and values. On a micro level for hiring, instead of culture fit, we look for culture add. As the people have changed, the culture changes. And so we evolve as a company, even though the alignment on the values is consistent.

Dawn: Brian, can you give any examples of sort of day to day examples of how you put these values into practice?

Brian: I work with Maggie quite a bit. And as we scale up, [our workforce is] growing, and we've got to, you know, scale our policies and make sure we've got the right policies that are there. And we're always trying to strike the right balance, and come up with policies that fit our people. And so humanity is at the core of that excellence is at the core of that, and we're creative, as we try to scale and candidly work through a change in the job market where we have hybrid workers and remote workers.

Dawn: I know you talk a lot, Brian, about being intentional in the way that you do your work as the sole lawyer at the company, and Maggie does her work and on the people team. But can you talk a little bit more about how you think about being intentional with respect to following the company's mission and values?

Brian: What drew me to Form was the mission. As I talked to the founders and the executive team, I wanted to help them solve this big problem. And so I try to be intentional about that. My go-to question is: how can I help? That's the core of what we try to do as a legal department, here at Form. And sometimes that means pausing and doing something a difficult way. As we grow our legal team, or as we build our outside counsel, we are intentional about our core value of humanity, and making sure that we're building a diverse team; making sure that we're working with diverse outside counsel, even if it takes a little bit of extra work because the outcome is going to be much better. We've got to work creatively to solve those problems for excellent solutions.

Dawn: I'm glad you raised diversity because you know, because diversity, equity and inclusion is an important topic. Form takes a compelling and intentional approach. Can you talk a little bit about how you approach diversity in hiring, and in your overall approach to employees?

Maggie: I think [it] comes from the direct tie of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice to our company's mission—“energy storage for a better world.” And so to us, that means a more just, more inclusive world, and a more representative company that looks like the world around us and that looks like the communities in which we work, and where we hope to serve through our products.

And so when we look at hiring ... we look for culture adds, and that takes work, especially when we're trying to grow as quickly as we are. It would be easy to just hire everybody that looks exactly like us, or that thinks like us, or that went to our alma maters, but we really need to invest the time in plugging into networks where we can find candidate pools that we wouldn't naturally come across or that don't look like us or that think differently than us. So hiring is certainly an important piece where we invest time and money. And then we have to make sure that we have a culture that supports a diverse group of people. And so we talk about this a lot.

And we don't just talk about it, we do things. We look at programming that we can put in place. We make sure that diversity, equity inclusion, belonging are embedded throughout our day to day activities. Our executive team now participate[s] in monthly DEI conversations. ... We're working with outside experts to provide training so that we are better equipped as employees and as leaders, to really engage authentically with one another.

Brian: The hiring work requires us to be intentional and disruptive and to not look at just traditional sources for sourcing or recruiting, but to go elsewhere. Because if we do what people have done in the past will end up in the same place that they've been. We're trying to get to a different place and a new place. One of the reasons I'm excited to be at Form is because of the emphasis not just on bringing people in the door, not just on retaining them, but on supporting them, which requires creativity. And the monthly discussions are a great example, where our leaders are stepping into the DEI space, because it's at the center of what we do. And everyone participates in it. That's disruptive, because it's not something that all companies are going to do.

As we are building this battery, it's a really hard thing and it hasn't been done before. It’s going to change the future of energy storage and change the world. At the same time we're also trying to build a company that doesn't exist, by modeling it after humanity in a way that other companies haven't before. And we are just as intentional about building the battery to change the world as we are about building a company to change the world. And that requires intentionality and flexibility and taking feedback from our employees. And being humble about our efforts, and making sure that we're calibrating the way that we need to.

Dawn: You're doing this hiring in the context of a major labor shortage. And so how do you go about attracting the best talent when there is a labor shortage?

Maggie: I think we're fortunate that we have a really compelling mission, and people are really excited to come and be on the forefront of tackling climate change. So that certainly is going for us. But that said, it's still not easy. And so we need to be really certain that we're building a company that people are excited about and want to join, and that our benefits and perks and everything that goes into it are really attractive. That goes into looking at what the whole person wants out of their employer, and how can we provide that in a unique way that they're not going to find at some other big tech company.

Brian: The story of our success is also key. Since 2017, we've raised $367 million. ... We're good at what we do. And we want people to join us in achieving this mission, because we're going to do it.

Dawn: [Many of] the people you're hiring will work in one of your facilities in Massachusetts, California, and Pennsylvania. But some are remote workers, because that's also the age that we live in. Can you talk a little bit about how you maintain a positive employee culture, when some people are remote, some people are in person, some people are hybrid?

Maggie: It can be a challenge. I mean, it would be a whole lot easier if everyone was in person, or everyone was remote, or everyone was hybrid. We set the intention to be inclusive as a leadership team, but then the execution takes everyone. And so I'm often reminded by someone else that we need to make sure there's an option for remote folks, or that we are thinking about this training or this meeting or this conversation to make sure it's inclusive of the people who are remote. Are we going to send remote employees something? Are we going to have a different breakout group? And so it really takes creativity, and it takes everyone, but I think making sure that those folks are always front of mind is really on all of us.

Brian: I also think that the pandemic has kind of changed the game, and people are willing to hire high-level, impactful employees who've worked fully remote. And they have equal standing. And so it's easy not to forget them, because they are prominent within the company and play an important role. And I think that's just a change, not just at Form, but across the board. Companies are willing to go get the talent where they are. And the pandemic has proven that people can be productive. It’s a change in the workforce. And along with everyone else, we want the best folks to work for us and include them ... no matter where they sit.

Dawn: And so you mentioned the pandemic. One of your senior leaders wrote a piece that talked about how the pandemic helped Form become a better company. It talked about how Form Energy was founded on the assumption that R&D had to be done by people in person in the same space, shoulder-to-shoulder in the lab. But the pandemic obviously threw all of that out the window. And so the company had this challenge of how to proceed. Can you talk a little bit about your own thoughts about how the pandemic changed the company for the better?

Maggie: I think it's made us all individually and collectively much more open. Both because we've seen windows into one another's personal lives, and that creates a different type of stronger relationship. But I personally am much more quick to just pick up the phone and call someone. Because I've built that muscle memory that I don't need to just wait until I see someone in person at the office on Tuesday, because I might not [or] they might be in Boston, or they might be remote. And so I think it actually has fostered an increased way of collaborating and [I'm] much more quick to just send a quick note or hop on a call, rather than wait for some formal setting because we're all just used to doing that now.

Brian: The pandemic has had a democratizing effect. Part of that is fully remote participation. We built norms around meetings where folks aren't talking over one another, but you have to ... push the hand raise button to talk. And I think that has really helped. It makes sure that the loudest person doesn't control contribution, but that ideas are at the forefront. And it's really easy to go around the room and make sure everyone has spoken. It’s a small change but an important one that we can carry on as we move forward in a post-pandemic world where we collaborate still remotely, but also in person.

Maggie: Where that norm came from is interesting. In the midst of the pandemic, we had a cultural moment where one of the pieces of feedback we heard was that certain groups of people were not feeling heard, or they didn't feel as though they ha[d] the chance to participate in the same way as others. And we established the hand raising norm on video calls, and have received a lot of really positive feedback. People say they feel like they are able to participate in a way that they weren’t before and feel much more heard.

Dawn: What would you say makes Form a great place to work in terms of the community and culture that you, as leaders, try to foster? Also for yourselves as employees of Form Energy—what makes it a great place to work?

Brian: For me, it’s the opportunity to participate in something that's so important and so critical, and that is also inspiring. I'm grateful to get up and go to work every day and work on such a difficult problem. And to support people who are working on such a difficult problem. They are truly an excellent set of folks who are good at what they do, and who collaborate and are humble and care about one another. I've worked at a couple of places. And this is by far the best.

Maggie: I think it's really refreshing to work at a place that sets such a high bar for excellence. You're surrounded by really, really smart people who are working on a problem that really matters. But they’re also kind. I have worked places where some of those things were true, but not all of them. And so to be at a place where you can hold all of those things at once sets a high bar for excellence and integrity and empathy. And those things, live in harmony here.

Brian: Yeah, it’s both at the micro and macro level. I'm lucky because Maggie's here. In the individual interactions with her, there's a collaborative spirit, like, let's solve this problem together. But I also think it's true on the macro level as we scale up, and Maggie and I work together to figure out how our policies are centered around  the human[ity] values and making sure that we are ... a good place to work. And that this is a place where we're setting our employees up for success as not just our employees, but as people ... and [that] the policies here support just that. These are full humans with families and other obligations, and we want to make space for that too.

Dawn: Can you talk a little bit about what the next one to three years look like at Form Energy? What do you have on your plate for that time period, and what are some of the challenges ahead?

Maggie: Yeah, it's probably good for us to stop and think about one to three years because we're usually thinking about tomorrow or next quarter. As Brian said, we will double again and we will be over 500 people by the end of this year. Two really exciting things from the business side are coming. We're going to begin manufacturing, which is super exciting. This product is becoming a reality. And that means a lot of things for people when it comes to standing up a manufacturing operation. And so figuring out how to best support that population of employees in terms of training and policies. So within the timeframe you mentioned, we will have commercially operational batteries out in the world, reducing emissions and decarbonizing the grid.

Brian: And as we go into manufacturing, legal is here to make sure that we are capturing all the value and de-risking along those paths. I’m here to ask, what problem can I solve as we go on this journey? I'm here to help Maggie do the things that she just articulated.

Dawn: So if you could leave us with one takeaway or thought as it relates to why Form Energy is a great place to work, what would it be?

Brian: I really enjoy going to work for lots of reasons. Ultimately, I do think it's the people, and the commitment to excellence here, and the creativity and openness and to doing things another way when something doesn't work. And I think maybe that comes with humility. There's a joy of being wrong and discovering that. That means in the people policies [space] figuring out, oh, that didn't work. Great. Now we know that [so] we can stop doing that thing. And we can do something else. That kind of humility and constant pursuit of excellence, and comfort with the joy of being wrong, makes this place [a] phenomenal [place] to work.

Maggie: Yeah, I think it's kind of a Silicon Valley trope, the "fail fast." And I don't know, we don't really use that term. Because we'd rather not fail. But anytime we're wrong, it's just more data, it's a way to learn, and to work in an environment of trust that you know, that that's okay. And that we're all in it together. I think that makes us unique. I think that the vulnerability and the trust that we're building, while also maintaining this really high bar for excellence and doing something really meaningful. At a grand scale, [we] can't fail because the crisis of climate change is so real and so inevitable. So we are working shoulder to shoulder on the biggest problem we possibly can with people we trust and enjoy working with. I think that is pretty special.