Ep. 71 Life as a Scrappy Startup Exec: Doni Curkendall and The Better Meat Co.
Release Date: 08/01/2021
Bottling the Sky: Aircapture’s Carbon Capture Breakthrough
Business for Good Podcast
When you think about climate change solutions, your mind might go to renewable energy, electric vehicles, or eating less meat. These are all of course important. But even if we stopped all emissions today, we’d still have too much CO2 in the atmosphere and would need to pull a lot of our emissions out of it. That’s the bold mission of , a California-based company pioneering modular direct air capture technology. On this episode, I speak with , Aircapture’s founder and CEO, about how his company is not only working to reduce atmospheric CO₂, but also profitably supplying it to...
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Inside Mighty Earth: Glenn Hurowitz on Transforming the Meat Industry
Business for Good Podcast
What if the biggest environmental culprits were hiding in plain sight—right on our dinner plates? While most environmental organizations train their sights on the energy sector, Mighty Earth has taken a bold, and often lonely, stand in confronting the meat industry’s massive role in climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. In this episode, I sit down with Glenn Hurowitz, founder and CEO of , to unpack why the meat industry typically gets ignored by the environmental movement, and what he thinks needs to be done. Glenn has spent decades fighting for the planet, from...
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Turning Waste into Bioplastic Gold with Genecis CEO Luna Yu
Business for Good Podcast
It’s rare that we contemplate where all the plastic we throw out goes, but rest assured that nearly none of it is being recycled. Simply put, it’s usually cheaper to make new plastic than to recycle old plastic, even the plastic you put in the recycling bin. Because it takes plastic centuries to break down, this means for each one of us you could build a mountain of plastic from all the packaging we use over the course of our lives. But what if plastic didn’t have to take centuries to break down, and could actually biodegrade in a matter of days or weeks? That’s exactly the...
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Turning Plants into Plastic-Free Packaging: The Xampla Story
Business for Good Podcast
Plastic pollution is one of the defining environmental challenges of our time—microplastics are now found in our oceans, our soil, our drinking water, and even in our bloodstreams. But what if we could make high-performance materials that look, feel, and function like plastic—without being plastic at all? Enter . Born out of the University of Cambridge, Xampla is a materials science innovation company that’s developed a new class of plastic-free, fully biodegradable materials that offer a drop-in replacement for the most polluting types of plastic. Their flagship line, known as Morro™,...
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Microbial Might: Can MicroHarvest Replace Animals in Pet and Livestock Feed?
Business for Good Podcast
What if we could grow nutritious, sustainable protein—not in months or weeks—but in just one day? This episode’s guest is doing just that. Rather than going big with animal agriculture, MicroHarvest is going small with microbial agriculture. A huge number of animals are used to feed both our pets and the animals we raise for food. Kate Bekers, the CEO and co-founder of , is seeking to change that. She’s running a fast-rising European biotech startup using fermentation to produce high-quality protein from microbes—in just 24 hours. Based in Hamburg and Lisbon, MicroHarvest is on...
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There’s no Eighth Continent to Farm: Mike Grunwald on Feeding Ourselves without Frying the Planet
Business for Good Podcast
In this episode, I’m joined by one of America’s most thoughtful national journalists: Mike Grunwald. You may know him from his work at Time, Politico, or The Washington Post, or from his critically acclaimed books about the Obama administration and the history of the Everglades. He’s also now a contributing columnist at the New York Times. But for the purpose of this episode, Mike is here to discuss his third book, . In this sweeping and deeply reported work, Mike tackles one of the most uncomfortable truths of our time: our global food system, especially animal farming, is a...
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Trash into Treasure: ChainCraft Is Converting Food Waste into Sustainable Chemicals
Business for Good Podcast
What if we could turn the mountains of food waste we generate every day into high-value chemicals that replace fossil fuels and palm oil—two of the most environmentally destructive inputs in our economy? That’s exactly what this episode’s guest is doing. is the CEO of , a Dutch biotechnology company using fermentation to convert agricultural waste into medium-chain fatty acids—essential building blocks for everything from fats for foods to lubricants to bioplastics and fragrances. Founded as a spin-off from , ChainCraft is pioneering open-culture fermentation process that offers a...
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Unstoppable Entrepreneurs: Lori Rosenkopf on the Many Paths to Startup Success
Business for Good Podcast
This episode’s guest is someone who’s spent her career studying—and championing—entrepreneurs who don’t always fit the Silicon Valley mold. Dr. Lori Rosenkopf is the Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School and the author of the new book . In this short guide, Lori explores how success doesn’t have to mean dropping out of college to start a venture-backed unicorn in your garage. Instead, she highlights seven distinct paths that entrepreneurs can take to build impactful ventures, whether they’re bootstrapped, mission-driven, or even working within larger companies....
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The Crazy Rock Lady: How Eion is Turning Crushed Rocks into Climate Gold
Business for Good Podcast
You’ve heard of carbon capture machines, but what if one of the most powerful tools for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere isn’t high-tech at all—just crushed rock and rain? Meet Ana Pavlovic, CEO of and the self-described “Crazy Rock Lady.” Her company is pioneering a process called enhanced rock weathering, which uses the natural properties of a green volcanic mineral called olivine to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and lock it away—permanently. The best part? They do it on farmland, replacing conventional agricultural lime with olivine. The result is a two-for-one win:...
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Vedge of Glory: How Two Plant-Based Restaurateurs Have Survived for Decades
Business for Good Podcast
In the restaurant world, infant mortality is the norm. Nearly two-thirds of new eateries shut down in their first year. Only one in five lives to see its fifth birthday. So when a restaurant—not just any restaurant, but a plant-based fine-dining spot—thrives for decades, it’s not just impressive. It’s almost mythic. Enter Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby, the married duo behind , the acclaimed Philadelphia restaurant that’s helped redefine what plant-based food can be. With nods from Bon Appétit, GQ, Food & Wine, and the James Beard Foundation, Rich and Kate have built more than a...
info_outlineDoni Curkendall was born and raised in Mexico, came to the US as a seven-year-old, and when she entered the workforce started as a receptionist at Goodwill. As the years went on, Doni was continually promoted, got her MBA, and eventually was a Vice President at Goodwill overseeing more than 200 employees. But two and a half years ago, as fate would have it, Doni and I began exploring whether Doni could help run my own then-one-year-old, The Better Meat Co.
For the past 2+ years, I’ve often said that I may be the face of our company, but Doni is the backbone, serving as our Executive Vice President and overseeing all of our operations and logistics. She’s truly integral to the enterprise, and in this episode, Doni shares her secrets about what she’s looking for in job applicants, what the transition from nonprofit exec to scrappy startup has been like, how she thinks about compensation packages in Startupland, and more.
It’s a compelling insider look at startup life, so listen up, and I’m sure you’ll be as impressed with Doni as I am.
Discussed in this episode
- Past episodes with Goodwill Industries, Your Choice birth control, and Toni Okamoto.
- Doni has been inspired by Maurice Hilleman.
- Doni recommends both How I Built This and Radiolab.
More about Doni Curkendall
Doni's driving passion in life is to use the power of business to help solve social problems. Before serving as the Executive Vice President of The Better Meat Co., as VP of Operations of Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley and Northern Nevada, Doni worked to help people with disadvantages achieve self-sufficiency. By the end of her nine years at Goodwill, she was managing operations for $10 million in annual revenue and oversaw a team of 250 employees. She earned her MBA from California State University, during which time she also served as a career mentor for Women's Empowerment, an organization helping homeless women gain meaningful employment. In her spare time, Doni reads Spanish literature, hikes with her dog Penny Lane, and, as her dog's name implies, loves listening to The Beatles.